COSS Crypto Exchange Shuts Down For 4 Weeks While Holding User Funds, Without Warning Traders

The Singapore-based crypto exchange COSS has announced that it’s locking down $2 million of about 200,000 customers’ funds for a month.

Since trading, withdrawals, and deposits have been suspended, many of the COSS users are scared they may be getting scammed. According to a COSS spokesperson talking to media outlet Decrypt, the company said this is not the case and that it’s trying to implement some upgrades to its system:

“[The exchange] has been a mess. Now we are cleaning it up and hence this decision of shutting it down for four weeks and getting clean code that's scalable, which works, and which suits the industry today.”

The Upgrade Planned Months Ago

Furthermore, the same spokesperson said there was no information released about the blackout that happened today because COSS didn’t want to witness massive amounts of funds being moved, seeing the upgrade has been scheduled a few months ago. It seems users found out about the shutting down only 3 hours before it happened.

Many Are Scared It May Be a Scam

COSS is the acronym for Crypto One Stop Solution. The COSS company is based in Singapore and started its activity of offering retail investors fiat access to over 50 coins, Eponymous included, since 2017. It also provides an IEOs platform and a wallet.

Regarding the shutdown, COSS has announced some developers they should keep their code because a new API may be launched soon, but it didn’t say anything else, so now many of its users are worried they may be victims of a scam in which the company will disappear with their funds.

Shit — did I just make an exchange exit scam? Shit exchange round 3: COSS.

Yesterday, I messaged a COSS rep about wallet addresses so I could label them, as there was little attribution on COSS wallets — so little that balances made them appear to be insolvent.

— Rich Sanders [Jan/3➞₿🔑∎] (@Raindropactual) January 8, 2020

So funds are locked without any notice… for 4 weeks ? from CossIO

However, this is not the situation as no funds have been drained from COSS wallets until now. This is how the company’s spokesperson responded to the rumors saying there may be a scam going on:

“We are not running away. I’m still there. We deal with everything and we stay as transparent as possible.”

“There is no need to panic. Please do not believe in rumours or FUD spread by false messages and groups across any channel.”

Here is the update from the exchange on what's happening behind the scene.

COSS is upgrading to a more advanced platform with the following features:

👉 Low latency for automated trading
👉 Super fast order matching engine
👉 Advanced APIs
👉 Built-in liquidity solution
👉 iOS and Android applications
👉 Margin tradinghttps://t.co/vn5AXdz5gD pic.twitter.com/KAG2AZPTVa

— COSS Official – Crypto One Stop Solution (@COSScrypto) January 7, 2020