Bankrupt New Zealand Crypto Exchange Cryptopia Returns Millions to Users Following Liquidation

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Sujha Sundararajan

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Sujha Sundararajan

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December 20, 2024

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The beleaguered New Zealand-based crypto exchange Cryptopia has started returning millions in crypto to account holders, years after its collapse.

Cryptopia filed for liquidation after millions of dollars of tokens were stolen from the platform in a 2019 cyber-attack. Around $15.5 million was stolen from the platform at the time.

However, while the liquidations were on, the platform was hacked again in 2021. This time, a former employee stole $170,000 in crypto from a wallet tied to Cryptopia.

The exchange has repaid 10,000 verified account holders with NZ$400 million ($224.9 million) in cryptocurrency.

Per the liquidator’s public advisory, account holders of Bitcoin and Dogecoin have received their first cryptocurrency distributions.

“Within the last 48 hours, over NZ$400 million in cryptocurrency has been returned on-chain,” Cryptopia liquidator Grant Thornton noted.

Since the hack, liquidators have been working to identify verified users to repay their cryptos, following Justice Gendall’s decision in March 2020.

This marks the first distribution plan for Cryptopia users and liquidators will continue to repay, following the approval.

“This complex process also involved rebuilding the hacked cryptocurrency exchange and reconciling millions of transactions from nearly 960,000 users,” Grant Thornton added.

Cryptopia to Add Top-Up Distribution to Account Holders

The exchange’s liquidators have also planned for an additional top-up distribution to users, however, the plan is not yet confirmed.

The additional distribution would allow account holders to receive up to 100% of their holdings using “unclaimed holdings” from account holders who did not register for claims after the cut-off dates.

Users will apparently receive a soft cut-off date in the coming days from the liquidator to register in the claims portal. Only those who register before the deadline will be eligible to receive the refunds, the liquidator noted.

Further, Grant Thornton has planned for consequent rounds of fund distributions for newly verified users, next year.