Crypto.com has just admitted to making another very big and worrisome writing error: it accidentally sent 320,000 in Ethereum (~$416 million USD) to another cryptocurrency exchange called Gate.io about three weeks ago (via Web3 is just going great). In a message on TwitterCrypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek Says the Company Was supposed to send the crypto to one of his cold or offline wallets, but accidentally sent it to a “whitelisted” address of his corporate account at Gate.io.
All this unfolded in public after Marszalek posted the company’s cold wallet addresses to provide transparency about what the exchange does with its money. After digging into Crypto.com’s transactions, one user, Conor Groganpoints out that the exchange sent 320,000 in Ethereum to Gate.io on Oct. 21, an amount that accounts for about 80 percent of the company’s Ethereum shares.
Marshal added later that it was able to recover “all” of the transferred assets. Users on Twitter confirmed that Crypto.com got its money back about a week later, transferred 285,000 Ethereum (~350 million USD) to one wallet and transferred the remaining 35,000 Ethereum (~43 million USD) to another. Gate.io also commented, noting that it started returning the money once it realized the transfer was “an operator error”. But hey, at least Crypto.com’s money was returned this time. In August, a rather unfortunate typo resulted in Crypto.com giving a customer $7.2 million instead of a $68 refund, which it is currently suing to get back.
While Gate.io published its asset audit snapshot on October 19 and, clarifies that “Crypto.com’s deposit was not included,” Crypto.com provided partial proof of reserves on Nov. 11. Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao seemed to allude to the situation in a tweet on Sunday morning, stating: “If an exchange has to move large amounts of crypto before or after they demonstrate their wallet addresses, it is a clear sign of trouble. Stay out.”