Huobi and Gate.io under fire for allegedly sharing snapshots using loaned funds

To counter the rising mistrust among crypto investors following the FTX collapse, crypto exchanges unanimously decided to share proof of reserve with the public as a way to showcase legitimacy. However, certain anomalies found during on-chain investigations suggest foul play and market manipulation.

Just two days after Crypto.com made its cold storage information public, investigators found that 320,000 Ether (ETH) was sent to Gate.io on Oct. 21, 2022. However, Kris Marszalek, the CEO of Crypto.com, dismissed any wrongdoing by stating that the funds were transferred accidentally and were eventually returned back to the original storage.

On Oct. 28, Gate.io released its proof of reserves snapshot, which, Solidity developer Shegen alleged, was done using Crypto.com’s funds, and questioned:

“This was topping up for the proof. Gate and crypto.com are fucked?”

Moreover, the crypto community suspects Huobi of attempting a similar manipulation. A wallet address linked to the Huobi exchange was found transferring 10,000 ETH to Binance and OKX deposit wallets soon after releasing its asset snapshot.

After Huobi released the asset snapshot of the asset reserve, 10,000 ETH was transferred from 0xca…c3fc (Huobi 34) to Binance and OKX deposit wallets. The Huobi 34, which had 14,858 ETH at the time of the snapshot, currently has only 4,044 ETH left. https://t.co/wrphZxadBM pic.twitter.com/B2lRXMF8su

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) November 13, 2022

Blockchain investigator Colin Wu pointed out the transactions on Etherscan, which proves that Huobi had shown 14,858 ETH in its latest snapshot, which has since fallen down to 2,463.5 ETH at the time of writing.

While Huobi is yet to publicly retaliate against the claims put forth by the crypto community, Gate.io founder Lin Han revealed their side of the story. Han argued that the snapshot in question was taken on Oct. 19, two days before Crypto.com’s accidental fund transfer of 320,000 ETH.

(1/2) https://t.co/fMCiAnAueR worked with Armanino on the Proof of Reserves using a snapshot on Oct.19 2022 2 days before https://t.co/PHnRJks7YS’s 320,000 ETH deposit to https://t.co/fMCiAnAueR.

Check the proof belowhttps://t.co/iCCKCb94kL

— Lin Han (@han_gate) November 13, 2022

Han further reiterated that Crypto.com’s funds came in after the snapshot was released and shared relevant proof for the community’s satisfaction.

The possibility of multiple crypto exchanges working together to manipulate investor funds has forced the community to keep their guard up until an official statement. Huobi has not yet responded to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.

As more crypto exchanges make their cold storage information public, the immutable nature of blockchain technology will allow investors and investigators to dive into the history of the exchange’s operations.

“Our objective is to allow users of our platform to be aware and make informed decisions that are aligned with their financial goals,” said Binance while revealing wallet addresses.