Paul DeLong, a business owner in Austin, still has not recovered the amount of tens of thousands of dollars at BitMart after more than 5 weeks of this exchange being hacked.
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| Paul DeLong. Photo: CNBC |
"I'm not a complainer. BitMart said they would provide more information and also promised to return the money. But I received absolutely nothing," DeLong said.
DeLong said that he contacted him several times and received a pre-programmed response from a bot with the message that BitMart and its lawyers are "working" to ensure the interests of investors. But more than a month has passed, people like him have not received their money back.
In early December, BitMart was hacked and had nearly 200 million USD in digital money stolen. The exchange representative announced that they would compensate after the hack, but have not yet fulfilled their promise.
"Whether it's $20, $500 or $10,000 doesn't matter, as long as they contact us and talk about the current situation," DeLong said.
BitMart victims like DeLong want transparency. An anonymous person said that he felt his token was "held hostage" because Safemoon (one of the codes stolen by hackers) that he invested could not be withdrawn or traded. When contacting the administrator of BitMart's Telegram account, the answer was: "We will notify you when an update is available".
Mohamad, a 38-year-old investor in Toronto, shares a terrible experience with BitMart. He spent $ 53,000 to buy Safemoon tokens on the exchange, $ 40,000 of which was from a loan that he had to pay at an interest rate of 4% per annum.
Working as a truck driver from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., Mohamad earns about $20 an hour, but has to pay for gas and meals. He wants to invest in cryptocurrencies with the hope that the future will be better. "I thought I could make money in crypto. I don't have any savings," Mohamad said.
Another investor in New York admitted to spending tens of thousands of dollars on BitMart, including more than $30,000 from his mother and mother-in-law sent to invest in stocks. "After I deposited the entire amount into BitMart, the hack happened. I went crazy because everything collapsed so quickly," this person shared.
However, some people have faith that Bitmart will soon compensate them. An investor in Kansas, who poured more than $35,000 into the exchange, said he is willing to wait until Bitmart fixes all the problems.
According to CNBC, about 6,800 investors on BitMart are considering filing a class-action lawsuit against the cryptocurrency exchange, the majority of whom are Safemoon token holders. When BitMart was hacked, about 45 cryptocurrencies were affected, many of which were returned, but Safemoon buyers have yet to receive their tokens.
Currently, BitMart is valued at about 300 million USD, while the amount of funding is less than 20 million USD each. This made many investors question their ability to pay the promised $200 million after being hacked. When asked, the floor representative refused to answer.
Via CNBC
