The regulated Philippine cryptocurrency exchange PDAX has experienced disruptions in its system, due to which some users were able to buy bitcoins significantly below the market price. Now the exchange requires the return of these assets back, according to the Bitpinas portal.
Difficult-to-explain phenomena began to occur on PDAX on February 16, when some users began to report an unexpected increase in account balances, and others – on the contrary, about their decrease. In one case, the user found 40 billion Philippine pesos or about 820 million US dollars in his account.
At the same time, some began to pay attention to the sudden drop in the price of bitcoin to 300,000 pesos ($6,150), while the average market cryptocurrency was trading around $50,000. Soon, PDAX announced emergency maintenance work, while assuring users of the safety of their funds.
One Reddit user reported that he saw an opportunity to buy bitcoin at an unusually attractive price and did it "for a small amount." He also managed to withdraw the cryptocurrency to his own wallet, but 24 hours later PDAX sent him a letter and SMS demanding to return the bitcoins, citing "unjustified accumulation of assets" and writing down the debt to his account.
"Our client's transaction was legitimate in accordance with applicable laws, existing precedents and, of course, PDAX's own rules and user agreement," said the lawyer representing the user. – Our client had sufficient funds to cover this transaction. The transaction was completed, completed, and therefore should be considered completed. PDAX cannot unilaterally roll back transactions."
The exchange announced the restoration of access for at least 95% of users, but many claim that they still can not use their accounts. It is not known how many customers were able to buy bitcoins at a low price and how much to withdraw them for.
"On February 16, our system experienced an unprecedented influx of transactions, which caused serious performance problems. Transactions on PDAX have increased 70-fold in recent months. Other exchanges, such as Coinbase and Kraken, have also experienced outages recently, the company said. – As a result of the incident, there was one unsecured request that affected the accounts of other users. We identified and canceled the application, as well as the subsequent chain of unsecured applications. We are in the process of returning the affected accounts to their pre-incident status."
PDAX CEO Nichelle Gaba acknowledged that users are likely to be upset by the cancellation of deals. "However, the bitcoins used in them were not at the disposal of the exchange, so in reality nothing could be bought or sold," he added.