Little Known COSS Exchange Allegedly Seizes $600k Worth of Users’ Tokens

Crypto One Stop Solution (COSS), a Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange, has allegedly withheld some $600,000 worth of tokens belonging to customers for more than nine months. 

According to a recent tweet by Upfiring, an incentivized, smart contract-powered and fully decentralized app that encrypts and shares files on a peer-to-peer basis, COSS had seized the tokens of its clients, UFR, in addition to other tokens from various projects.

COSS is an altcoin exchange that facilitates a lot of cryptocurrency transactions on its platform including fiat to crypto trading, providing a marketplace for digital assets, payment gateway for sellers, and a crowdfunding platform.

Thousands of users had signed up with the exchange and deposited their various tokens so that they can trade on the platform. Earlier this year, however, clients could not gain any access to the tokens they had deposited.

The exchange claimed that the reason why clients could not access their tokens was that it was carrying out an audit of the platform’s existing technology, its user data, and wallets. 

However, it has already been nine months and users are still not able to withdraw their tokens. Apart from the exchange’s native token, COS,  there are many other tokens that have been found in the Ethereum address attached to COSS.

Among these tokens are Upfiring (UFR), Chainlink (LINK), Jetcoin (JET), OMG Network (OMG), KyberNetwork (KNC), Dai Stablecoin (DAI), and many more totaling $1.5 million held in the exchange’s Ether address. 

The alleged seizure of users’ tokens by COSS Exchange brings to mind the popular saying “not your keys, not your coins.”

This would probably have not happened if users traded their tokens on popular centralized exchanges or decentralized exchanges like Uniswap. With DEXes, traders maintain control of their crypto assets while being able to conduct trades.

It is still not clear why COSS allegedly seized users’ tokens for such a long period. Coinfomania has reached out to the exchange for comment but yet to receive feedback.