Topic: Hotbit stops operation (Read 699 times)

Here's my case, luckily it was a miserable amount, but still my money.
I had some tokens worth $10 there. In the regular withdrawal process, it would cost me part of those tokens and that would be max. $0.5. After their notice, I was curious to go through the process, so I went to clear that account, but the withdrawal of that token was disabled. I contacted support and they soon enabled the withdrawal, but this time the fee was around 50 USDT.
Now tell me that is fair and honourable behaviour.

I will definitely give them negative feedback everywhere, we don't need such petty swindlers

Well a short notice is better than no notice at all. Usually exchanges only notice their users once they've closed markets and withdrawals and at best require KYC to customers in order to recover their funds. I've been able to withdraw my funds without KYC or any endless procedure, so I wouldn't say it's the worst closing experience I underwent, unfortunately. They certainly could do better but if they thought they had nastily scammed their customers I don't think they would come back with the same brand name and the same social media accounts, and they would leave open their customer service. Anyway I'm not very optimistic about the success of their DEX though.

I accidentally checked Hotbit telegram channel, and it turns out they're preparing to launch Hotbit 2.0 DEX version with 2 types of trading (Swap and Margin), currently in testnet stage and has a bug bounty program. The mainnet launch isn't yet known. https://t.me/Hotbit_English/3486469
Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with Hotbit

Well a short notice is better than no notice at all. Usually exchanges only notice their users once they've closed markets and withdrawals and at best require KYC to customers in order to recover their funds. I've been able to withdraw my funds without KYC or any endless procedure, so I wouldn't say it's the worst closing experience I underwent, unfortunately. They certainly could do better but if they thought they had nastily scammed their customers I don't think they would come back with the same brand name and the same social media accounts, and they would leave open their customer service. Anyway I'm not very optimistic about the success of their DEX though.

For anyone out of loop, HotBit is an exchange that closed down 17 days ago and has given its users one month grace period to withdraw their fund. Sounds like a "graceful" exit however, for their biggest asset USDT they've only enabled ERC20 withdraw and the withdraw fee is an astronomical 48 dollars which they claim it's affected by the network condition but last time I checked ERC20 transfer only costs around 1 dollar.

It's plain obvious they are attempting to steal money from users before finally going out of business. So far they've:

    Shut down support;

    Closed twitter replies;

    Deleted HotBit reddit;

    Disabled telegram comment.
    All intended to silence users. If you search HotBit on twitter you will also find hundreds of claim that HotBit embezzled their coins/tokens.

A CEX that locked up customer's money after a quick short notice of shutting down and now returning as a DEX promising a better service? No, thank you 
Why the quick U-turn?

We definitely need more large and user friendly DEXs, I don't know if it will be one of them, but it's better than nothing at all.

I accidentally checked Hotbit telegram channel, and it turns out they're preparing to launch Hotbit 2.0 DEX version with 2 types of trading (Swap and Margin), currently in testnet stage and has a bug bounty program. The mainnet launch isn't yet known. https://t.me/Hotbit_English/3486469
Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with Hotbit

Emphasis on "irreparable" which means impossible to repair hence yes, if you're passed the deadline, it is most likely gone. However, I would still suggest shooting an email to Hotbit cause who knows - a tiny bit of hope that they might take mercy on you.

Not only is 1 month too short. How will Hotbit find the only medium to pass out the information about stopping their operation through Twitter like all their 5 million users are on  Twitter and also following them there(Twitter)?

Imagine that I have my assets on Hotbit exchange and am getting to know about their new development of stopping operations now. Does that imply my whole assets with them are gone since I failed to remove my assets before June 21?

Please withdraw the remaining assets in the account as soon as possible before June 30th, 2023, otherwise the losses caused will be irreparable.

1 month is too short, not everyone will be able to withdraw... but perhaps that's what they wanted. It's possible they don't have enough funds to cover everything mainly due to the frozen assets from last year which they haven't gotten back.

This is exactly what they want to achieve, they create the appearance that they are doing everything in accordance with the law, and at the same time they have made the possibility of withdrawing money significantly more difficult. At the same time, they increased their fee margin by 50x or more. Of course, their reputation is no longer important because they are going out of business.
All users should be grateful for the 9-day bonus. Why can't it be a longer period, I'm sure that many still haven't seen the closing notice.

I don't think we can call that a scam, sadly some exchanges don't let people to recover any of their funds when they decide to shut down their business. Here you can still get back your funds even if withdrawal fees are high. And they even let you deposit more funds to top up your balance in order to reach the minimum withdrawal thresholds. It was quite a surprise for me to be honest. In addition, they have extended the original deadline by 9 days, now customers can withdraw their funds till June 30.

After reading about what @examplens posted, I am glad I never ever used the scam exchange
I believe I remember seeing a number of scam accusations about hotbit out there and even here in the forum. Even when there was a shitcoin that was only traded in hotbit, I wouldn't bother getting onto that platform

Charging exorbitant fees for people trying to withdraw their funds kind of reminds me of HitBTC and Yobit.

Dear Respected Users,
Recently, we have found that a large number of users are still withdrawing funds one after another. In order to ensure that users complete withdrawals in an orderly manner, Hotbit will extend the original withdrawal deadline from 04:00 AM UTC on June 21st to 04:00 AM UTC on June 30th.
Please withdraw the remaining assets in the account as soon as possible before June 30th, 2023, otherwise the losses caused will be irreparable.
Thank you for your understanding and support!
Hotbit Team
June 17th, 2023

0.001 BTC is $27 , what is with the 99 USDT?
Also, let me get this right, you deposited a few satoshis to reach the 0.002 BTC limit as you had less than that and then you paid 0.001 BTC in fees? Was it even worth it considering you had to pay also the blockchain fees for the deposit?

I'm unfamiliar with altcoins fees, but ....$48? Isn't this like 10 times the average now?

0.001 BTC is $27 , what is with the 99 USDT?

OK, that's fine. However, they tried their best to drag things out. Withdrawal of that token cannot be sent via the Polygon network (disabled), but only via ERC20, where the fee is of course only 48.2205 USDT.

☝ It's the same for Bitcoin, you can only withdraw them through one blockchain(btc legacy), the fee is pretty high : 0.001BTC or 99.99 USDT and the minimum amount for withdrawing is 0.002BTC.
But the withdrawal worked quickly and smoothly for me, I've even made a small deposit in order to reach the minimum threshold, and it has been alright too. 

Hello,
If withdrawal is enabled, you can only withdraw through the chain displayed on the page. Hotbit has decided to stop operations, please withdraw as soon as possible
The fee is dynamic and updated in real-time according to the on-chain data. To save costs, users can wait to withdraw when the gas fee is low.（But we do not recommend withdrawing after the gas fee decreased, as the withdrawal function will be unavailable after June 21st, 2023.） Please refer to the data on the withdrawal page for real-time fees.

As far as Hotbit is concerned, I don't know why exactly they're closing up shop (I haven't read this thread in its entirety, btw) but it's hard to believe they had a userbase of 5 million customers.  That seems extremely high.

I mean it should at this point become a thing of scary, the exchange business is speedily on the lane of monopoly. What's the way out?

This is exactly what I thought. They can't just leave and start business afresh in a different country. Establishing in another country can be quite expensive, especially for a small exchange like Hotbit. It's illogical to compare them to Binance. The competition in CEX is really high.

Yea, Hotbit got a lot of negative reviews. I have never used them. Their assets were even frozen some time last year.
Ive never heard of an exchange like "HITbit". Maybe you mean "HitBTC".

If we want to describe of what happened in two words then competition and debt. Most of the current platforms were working to make developers and owners rich quickly because they know that this market changes every 4 to 8 years and you will not find a platform that lasts for more than that, without continuous development they will not succeed in competition and then it will be It is difficult to convince users of the importance of using this platform.

The debt is the second part, as the interest cost has increased, and there is no immediate hope that the price will regain previous values during the current year.

---

Does anyone know what will happen if a person does not withdraw his money within a month? a month is very short and certainly not everyone will be able to withdraw their money.

We saw the pattern from the other exchanges that have shut their operations. As said on one reason, about hard dealing with regulations from the government.

* First, Hotbit experienced a decline in operating conditions following an investigation in August 2022.

Authorities investigated Hotbit after suspecting its former employees were allegedly involved in an illegal project. As a result of this investigation, Hotbit froze trading and withdrawal activities on its platform.

* The second factor, among other things, Hotbit admitted that the stability of the company was disrupted due to the FTX collapse and the banking crisis which caused the value of USDC to fall. Since those two events, Hotbit has experienced continuous significant outflows.

* The third factor, Hotbit mentions the recent changes in the trend of the crypto industry. The Hotbit team mentions that centralized exchanges (CEXs) are becoming more and more complicated and complex.

“The successive collapses of large centralized institutions have caused the industry to phase out in two ways: embrace regulation or become more decentralized,” said the Hotbit Team in a press release.

Centralized crypto exchange Hotbit announced that it will be closing its operations from May 22 at 11.00. Customers are given time to withdraw assets before June 21 at 11.00.

Bit confused. Is this from hotbit or from the exchange you first talked about?

and Last is this, it seems BTC, USDT and ETH Withdraw button has been disabled

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/05/23/Screen-Shot-2023-05-23-at-07.32.56e97e458224fd770a.png

One month should be enough for people to withdraw their funds if the process is easy and workout problems. If every depositor gets his funds back then the exchange has shown that they are genuine. But some customers are complaining that they cannot withdraw their funds because the withdrawal option is not operational. I am sure Hotbit engaged in some unprofessional business dealings that led to the loss of funds. They also complained of diverse cyber attacks that affected them negatively. This is a clear indication that they were not upgrading or investing in security.

I was looking if someone has already posted this news and it was posted through Hotbit's twitter account a few hours ago.
Those that has got funds there have 1 month to withdraw it. And for those that want to know the reasons for it, you can just go directly to their link. Don't worry it's safe and it's from them.

We saw the pattern from the other exchanges that have shut their operations. As said on one reason, about hard dealing with regulations from the government.

They are based in Hong Kong and Estonia, so they should be safe from US regulations but they must be bankrupt too.

This is so scary, Imagine some new leave their coins their on staking for more than a month without checking his investment. This kind of time limit of withdrawing the balance is very unfair to customers since not all users follow not your keys not your coin principle since this exchange offers defi that will be tempting for customers to stay the funds within the exchange.

As said on one reason, about hard dealing with regulations from the government.

This wasn't even caused by regulations.

freezing assets and not giving any transparency to their customers will totally kill any platform.

They gave a only one month to withdraw funds from there, announcing on his blog and Twitter. I don't read their blog, nor do I follow their Twitter account, yet I didn't receive any email notification about this closing of the business.

Hé hé, another exchange closing the doors and blaming someone else

- They're blaming (mainly) the regulations too hard to follow:
If they were really convinced with their business, it was only a matter to change your location for a more friendly country (Hotbit is Asian I believe) Why not? Binance is traveling since years across the world when something is better for their operation (taxes, regulations, ect)

This is so scary, Imagine some new leave their coins their on staking for more than a month without checking his investment. This kind of time limit of withdrawing the balance is very unfair to customers since not all users follow not your keys not your coin principle since this exchange offers defi that will be tempting for customers to stay the funds within the exchange.

I believe this is still part of the aftershock of FTX collapse since they mention it on the reason. I think many small to medium exchange will follow on this move since they doesn’t have much profit on bear market. Maybe they will just rebrand after this closure hoping other user will caught off guard by leaving their money on exchange.

They are based in Hong Kong and Estonia, so they should be safe from US regulations but they must be bankrupt too.

They give 3 reasons for this shutdown and it's good to see them allow users to withdraw if there were even users left in the exchange. One reason was that it was because of the significant losses from numerous problems they suffered. They were accused by several users in the forum, it must have affected their profit.

They're the only CEXs I know of that have lasted longer in no KYC policy, while more established competitors have gradually increased their policies up to full KYC requirements.
Surprisingly since the last few days they breathed the air of life, they announced some new coins listed. I hope it's listed for free and not a last ditch attempt to withhold more user funds after this shutdown phase.

FTX was also "safe from US regulations" but the international parent company also exploded as well as all of the subsidiaries.

1 month is too short, not everyone will be able to withdraw... but perhaps that's what they wanted. It's possible they don't have enough funds to cover everything mainly due to the frozen assets from last year which they haven't gotten back.

!remind me to check back few days after to see if people are experiencing issues when trying to get their funds out.

Going to play devil's advocate here and suggest that they might have been too small an exchange to pack up and leave whatever country they operated out of, or to afford lawyers, or whatever IT support they'd have needed to protect themselves from attackers.  When I think of crypto exchanges, Hotbit wouldn't even pop into my head.  I can't imagine they ever had a high volume of trades or made a profit anywhere near an exchange like Kucoin or MEXC, much less a leader like Binance.

I always get Hotbit and HITbit confused.  Is Hotbit the one with the shitty reputation and numerous scam accusations against them?  Regardless, they were small potatoes and I doubt they're going to be missed much.

1 month is too short, not everyone will be able to withdraw... but perhaps that's what they wanted. It's possible they don't have enough funds to cover everything mainly due to the frozen assets from last year which they haven't gotten back.

!remind me to check back few days after to see if people are experiencing issues when trying to get their funds out.

Hé hé, another exchange closing the doors and blaming someone else
- They're blaming (mainly) the regulations too hard to follow:
- Their point about 'too many' DDOS:

They are based in Hong Kong and Estonia, so they should be safe from US regulations but they must be bankrupt too.

Those that has got funds there have 1 month to withdraw it. And for those that want to know the reasons for it, you can just go directly to their link. Don't worry it's safe and it's from them.

Dear Hotbit users,

For 5 years and 4 months, the Hotbit team has been proud to participate in a wonderful crypto show with 5 million users. However, it is with great regret that we have made the decision to stop all CEX operations from May 22, UTC 04:00. We kindly ask all users to withdraw their remaining assets before June 21, UTC 04:00.

This decision is based on three reasons:

Firstly, the deterioration of the operating conditions. After the Hotbit management team was forced to suspend operations for several weeks due to the investigation in August 2022 (https://hotbit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/8074249353495), the industry has experienced a series of crises, including the collapse of FTX, bank crises causing USDC off-peg incidents, resulting in continuous outflows of funds from CEX users, including Hotbit, and deteriorating cash flow.
Secondly, the change in the crypto industry trend. The successive collapse of large centralized institutions has led the industry to gradually in two ways: either embrace the regulation or become more decentralized. The Hotbit team believes that centralized exchanges (CEX) are becoming increasingly cumbersome, with highly complex and interconnected businesses that are difficult to comply with, whether for compliance or decentralization, and are unlikely to meet long-term trends.
Since its beginning, Hotbit has been characterized by providing a rich variety of assets and value-added methods. Hotbit was the first exchange to list numerous emerging assets, including SHIB, KSM, GRIN and so on, and was the first to offer staking services starting from ATOM, as well as the first to conduct Defi mining business using Compound. However, due to the industry's uncertainty, various opportunities also contain many risks. Hotbit has also suffered numerous problems, such as repeated cyber attacks and the exploitation of project defects by malicious users, resulting in significant losses. Therefore, the Hotbit team believes that the operation model of supporting a diverse range of assets is unsustainable from a risk management standpoint.
That’s all, with so many joys and tears, our show is over. We want to say thank you and take a bow now. We still believe a bright future about crypto innovation and some of us will still fight for it.

It's time to take a bow 🙇
For 5 years and 4 months, the Hotbit team has been proud to participate in a wonderful crypto show with 5 million users. However, it is with great regret that we have made the decision to stop all CEX operations from May 22, UTC 04:00. We kindly ask all users to withdraw their remaining assets before June 21, UTC 04:00.

For any questions, please contact us viahttps://hotbit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

This decision is based on three reasons: please check this announcement link for more detalis: https://hotbit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/14750194236823