Newsflash: Canadian Bitcoin Exchange ‘Hacked,’ Says All Funds are Gone
A small Bitcoin exchange based in Alberta, Canada, has gone offline. Before their Twitter page went offline, MapleChange had announced on Twitter that they “[had] no more funds to pay anyone back.” In the way of an explanation, the exchange had, approximately one hour before deleting its Twitter page, said that a “bug” had enabled “some people” to withdraw all of the funds on the exchange. Educated readers may recall a time when Mt. Gox claimed similar problems. The handling of the two cases by their administrators was dramatically different. In the case of Mt. Gox, attempts were made to repair the damage, although they resulted in worse damage. They went so far as to near-nakedly manipulate the Bitcoin price in an attempt to recoup lost customer funds before anyone found out. The MapleChange Twitter account possessed less than 2,000 followers. By contrast, Coinbase has over 1 million followers on Twitter and lesser-known altcoin exchange C-Cex has nearly 100,000. In short, cryptonaughts are generally highly active on Twitter and the viewership on that platform is a semi-decent way to judge the popularity of a product or service in the space.
