Hoo Exchange vanishes

On June 19, the Hong Kong-based crypto exchange Hoo announced that they would be pausing withdrawals for "24–72 hours" while they transferred some assets to top up their hot wallet.

Since then, there has been little communication and a series of shady activities. According to HOO CEO Rexy Wang on Twitter on July 15, Hoo employee and former Binance head of security Fang Wenbin (known as "Top") "took advantage of his position at Hoo to delete the company system privately, causing everyone in the company to be unable to access the system, resulting in a temporary failure of the main domain name". Top replied to allege that, "Rexy himself has transferred most of the assets from the platform. Employee salaries and platform users cannot withdraw coins".

At some point after that, Wang made his Twitter private. Hoo's social media channels have been inactive. On November 18, the exchange website was replaced with a post that identified the "Hoo de facto controller", Xu Tong Hua, and said: "Currently all permissions for Hoo's wallet and website programs are controlled by Mr Xu, so please contact the official email if you have any questions."

Meanwhile, customers have been active on social media complaining about the apparent fraud, and some have formed an informal group pushing for legal action against Hoo.

Hoo exchange pauses withdrawals

The Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange Hoo announced that they would be pausing withdrawals, after so many customers tried to withdraw their crypto that they began to run out of funds in their hot wallet. The company assured customers in a blog post that the pause was temporary and that withdrawals would resume in 24–72 hours once transfers from a "backup multi-signature wallet and other assets" were complete, leaving one to wonder what those other assets might be. The blog post finished by stating, "The platform is trying to reconfigure medium- and long-term assets in an orderly and reasonable manner. Please don't worry and there will be no loss of your assets."

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