The Thodex cryptocurrency exchange has ceased trading without prior notice. The money of about 391,000 active traders of the site is not available for withdrawal, and the founder of the exchange left Turkey.
Yesterday in the morning on the official Twitter of the Thodex exchange there was a statement about the receipt of “external investments”, which required the suspension of trading for 4-5 days. However, users of the exchange are afraid of fraud and a complete shutdown of the site. Lawyer Oğuz Evren Kılıç, who has already filed a legal complaint with the exchange, said that “it may well be fraud.”
Thodex CEO Faruk Fatih Özer left the country last night, according to police records shared by Kilic, and deleted his social media accounts. The company has also discontinued customer support. “This is all very scary,” said Kylych.
The lawyer estimates that the total amount of deposits in Thodex accounts can vary from $ 2 billion to $ 10 billion – a fairly wide range that will be clarified in the coming days. The investigation of the prosecutor’s office – the first step in the trial – has shown that “there is money in the bank accounts of the exchange and its owners.” Kylych continued: “But we do not know the exact amount and whether it will be enough for everyone.”
Between March 15th and April 15th, shortly before the start of the Dogecoin price rise, the exchange ran an extremely successful marketing campaign, rewarding each new user with 150 DOGE. Thousands of new users reportedly flocked to the exchange, and the site’s trading volume on Saturday hit a daily record of $ 1.37 billion, the highest in a year, according to CoinGecko.
According to a Twitter post from one of the exchange’s clients on April 19, from April 14, the DOGE / USDT rate on the exchange was fixed at $ 0.1145750. However, on April 16, DOGE was worth $ 0.42. The user reached out to the exchange on Twitter and asked why the platform does not allow the transfer of cryptoassets, and “if maintenance is being done for DOGE”, why the client cannot transfer their Holochains.
Thus, for several days, traders could buy cryptocurrency, but not sell. The termination of Thodex came at a turbulent time for the Turkish exchanges. Last Friday, the Turkish government banned payments in cryptocurrencies. The authorities have also banned fintech companies directly or indirectly from dealing with cryptocurrency, which mainly affects foreign exchanges that rely on the local fintech sector to operate in the country as banks refuse to service them. The Turkish government has not yet made an official announcement about the termination of Thodex operations.
