ERC20 tokens deposits and withdrawal halted by Poloniex and OKex

Poloniex has stopped using ERC20 tokens — all deposits and withdrawals are halted until further notice.

We've temporarily suspended ERC-20 token deposits and withdrawals while we review all smart contracts for exposure to the reported batchOverflow bug. We take any reports of vulnerabilities very seriously to ensure that customer funds remain safe. Thank you for your patience!

— Poloniex Exchange (@Poloniex) April 25, 2018

As a reminder, OKex has recently stopped using ERC20 tokens, but the measure initially has not been repeated by other big exchanges. This means two things: assessment teams of those exchanges are acting slowly and some malefactors aware of the bug theoretically could have used Poloniex to get more tokens.

ERC20 tokens and related smart contracts have proven to be breachable, as reported by several media sources familiar with blockchain programming. The BatchOverflow bug allows to multiply tokens uncontrollably, effectively acting as a new emitent. The Coinmonks project members claim they were the first to discover the bug by using their scanning tools. The first tokens where this bug was detected were BeautyChain.

The news will undoubtedly influence the process of ERC20 implementation on Coinbase, as this major exchange has shown interest towards this type of tokens. One should expect the delay of the support activation, if not the full abandonment of idea.

ERC20 token projects have been doubted by Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum cryptocurrency developer. As he said, 90% of such startups are doomed to fail.

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