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Brazilian Exchange Foxbit to Process Withdrawals during Extended Downtime

Last Updated March 4, 2021 5:05 PM
Francisco Memoria
Last Updated March 4, 2021 5:05 PM

As recently covered by CCN.com, Brazil’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Foxbit recently went down and lost a total of 30 bitcoins because of a bug that allowed users to withdraw their bitcoin balances twice. At the time, Foxbit claimed it would be back online by March 14, but now warned the platform will be offline until March 26.

Through a YouTube livestream , the cryptocurrency exchange’s COO Guto Schiavon and CEO João Canhada revealed users will be able to withdraw their funs during Foxbit’s downtime. Withdrawals, according to the exchange’s executives, will be processed manually.

This means that to request a withdrawal, users will have to fill in a form. Per Schiavon, Foxbit will have 40 employees working on customer support to guarantee all requested withdrawals are processed. The exchange will only allow users to withdraw their entire balances.

To make it up to its customers, the exchange will process withdrawals without charging fees. During the YouTube livestream, several users questioned Foxbit’s health, to which its founders replied (roughly translated):

“The platform will come back, but it is not in our interest to hold any user’s balance, be it in real or bitcoin. It is a solvent company and there is no problem if all users make withdrawals.”

They further stated that the “power of exchanges isn’t shown by their lack of failure, but by their ability to come back.” Foxbit’s executives added that they’d improve their communication in the future, and that users shouldn’t use the exchange as a wallet. Instead, they advised them to store funds in a wallet so they’ll be in charge of their own money.

Other cryptocurrency exchanges using Blinktrade, a company that allows exchanges to develop their own platforms without hiring a developer, have also been down as the company is reportedly dealing with an error in its database.

Pakistani exchange Urdubit used Facebook to reveal  it won’t be back until March 18 because of Blinktrade, while Vietnamese exchange VBTC claimed  it could be back online anywhere between today and March 18.

Notably, according to local publication Portal do Bitcoin,  bitcoin trading volume fell by about 50% in Brazil soon after its biggest exchange went down. During Foxbit’s incident, users seemingly prefer to wait it out instead of flocking to the exchange’s competitors.

Featured image from Shutterstock.