- Upbit was forced to freeze APT deposits and withdrawals due to the presence of a fake APT token on its platform
- The fake tokens were airdropped to users, some of whom quickly sold them as genuine APT tokens
- The counterfeit tokens were distributed to nearly 400,000 wallets
South Korea’s biggest crypto exchange, Upbit, was forced to freeze deposits and withdrawals of Aptos (APT) tokens over the weekend after a APT token made its way onto the platform. The exchange took emergency action yesterday when an “abnormal deposit attempt” was discovered while monitoring flows of APT, and while full services are up and running again it is nevertheless worrying that a fake token can get that far into the system. 400,000 wallets received the fake token, although the cost seems to have been minimal to the exchange.
400,000 Wallets Received Airdrop
Upbit abruptly halted APT deposits and withdrawals on Sunday, citing a wallet system maintenance but without giving a specific reason. Twitter user @definalist pointed out that just before the decision users were claiming that they received unsolicited APT tokens into wallets, which they were sending to Upbit to sell.
It was quickly revealed, however, that these were not real APT tokens but fake ones associated with a scam website ClaimAPT.com and were distributed to nearly 400,000 wallets, with Upbit’s system erroneously recognizing the counterfeit tokens as valid due to the way the fake APT tokens were coded.
Damage Could Have Been Worse
The misleading code resulted in deposits of approximately $250 worth per person, many of whom quickly sold their ‘airdrop’ on Upbit, leading the exchange to contact them and ask for the money they gained from the sale to be returned to them. Definalist pointed out that the situation could have been even more severe had the scammers designed the code to include two additional decimals, potentially increasing the airdropped amount to $25,000 each.
Upbit has warned users that they may experience differentiation in price when interacting with other exchanges as a result.
