UK regulator issues warning as Poloniex comes under scrutiny after $100 million hack
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Poloniex has been added to the Financial Conduct Authority’s warning list of unauthorized entities in the UK.
Last October, it declared that 140 cryptocurrency companies, including KuCoin and HTX, were included in the watch list.
Cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex has been added to the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) warning list of unauthorized businesses in the UK.
A Seychelles-based exchange is one of three companies linked to or owned by businessman Justin Sun that has been hacked four times in the past two months.
On December 6, the FCA website posted a warning about Poloniex. It states that businesses and individuals cannot sell financial services in the UK without the necessary permissions or approvals, but does not give reasons for doing so. The FCA also reminds the public that they cannot rely on financial law protections when interacting with unlicensed organisations.
The FCA said in August that it had received 291 applications from cryptocurrency companies seeking registration since 2020, of which only 38 had been approved.
Last October, it declared that 140 cryptocurrency companies, including KuCoin and HTX, were included in the watch list. Since then, PayPal UK has been the only organization approved by the authorities.
On November 10, Poloniex suffered a $100 million breach. According to industry sources, the platform has since “largely completed” its recovery efforts and began preparing to accept deposits and withdrawals again in late November.
For a limited number of cryptocurrencies, including Tether, USDD, BitTorrent, WINkLink, ApeNFT, Sun Token, Just, Just Stablecoin, and USD Coin, the company restored deposit and withdrawal functionality on December 5. According to the official announcement:
“The platform will gradually implement the resumption of deposit and withdrawal services for more cryptocurrencies.”
The owner of HTX, a cryptocurrency exchange previously known as Huobi, is Tron founder Justin Sun. In the past two months, there have been four hacks on platforms linked to Sun. An incident in September cost HTX $8 million, and a hot wallet hack at the end of November cost HTX $30 million.
At the same time, hackers accessed HTX’s HECO chain bridge, a mechanism for transferring digital assets between HTX and other networks such as Ethereum, and transferred at least $86.6 million to suspicious addresses.
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