Crypto.com "Mistakenly" sent $400M Ether to the wrong address

Strange things are going on in the world of crypto: a Singaporean crypto exchange with 50 million customers had to admit that their internal controls work so-so. Kryptans suspect that something murky is going on here, and some have started talking about starting another “bank run”.

For some reason, it seems to me that this is exactly the face Chris Marsalek (the head of Crypto.com) had when he realized that he sent 400 million bucks of client money somewhere to the wrong place.

This morning, crypto twitter has been discussing the revealed curvature of the guys from Crypto.com: it turns out that on October 21 they allegedly made a mistake sent 320 thousand ETH to the address of another exchange Gate.io. Later, the funds were returned, but the sediment, as they say, remained.

Interestingthat just a week after receiving such an unexpected “gift of fate” (and before its return), Gate.io published an official confirmation of the amount of their reserves. It turns out that someone else’s Ether was also, as it were, counted as part of the stock exchange reserves. Sounds a bit fishy as a mere coincidence – maybe Crypto.com was just helping the Gate.io buddies close a hole in the balance sheet before auditing the reserves?

Crypto.com itself also posted its own the other day breakdown almost $2.9 billion in reserves: interestingly, 20% of these reserves are in the SHIB shieldcoin with a funny dog in the logo (the main value of which lies in the fact that Elon Musk periodically promotes it just for fun).

A large share of not the most liquid cryptocurrency in the reserves does not look very good (see. FTX/Alameda). However, representatives of Crypto.com themselves say that it was just their clients who decided to buy Sheba with all their might – and the exchange, accordingly, just carefully keeps the coins bought by clients. If so, then there is no particular crime in this.

Meanwhile, Twitter has already started discussthat Crypto.com is threatened with a so-called “bank run” – when all the clients panic a little about the financial stability of the bank and therefore race to get their funds (so as not to be extreme). If Crypto.com does not have hidden “rotten” assets (well, there is a liability from the same FTX / Alameda, for example), then this should not create big problems for them. Well, if there is…

In general, just in case, I brought to non-custodial wallet my 1000 USDC, which I had on the ordered Crypto.com crypto card. I’d rather waste the extra $10 for a withdrawal than risk losing the entire amount in the event of another high-profile bankruptcy.

The times are now such that any events can be expected – no crypto project can be considered completely secure and stable. Remember about “not your keys – not your coins”: any of your funds in any custodial wallet of a centralized exchange or landing company are at risk.

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