Users of alleged crypto scam PlusToken ‘heavily favored’ Huobi exchange for withdrawals

Huobi was by far the most used exchange for withdrawals from the alleged cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme PlusToken, which has reportedly swindled over $2 billion from participants, according to new research.

Blockchain data analytics firm Elementus said earlier this week that an “unusually high” percentage i.e. almost 50% of all PlusToken withdrawals were sent to Huobi, indicating a “strong bias” toward the Chinese cryptocurrency exchange.

However, this does not imply any wrongdoing on the part of Huobi, Elementus said. The firm added that it raises the question of why so many PlusToken users would choose to store their "winnings" in Huobi.Source: Elementus

The analytics firm further said that PlusToken is estimated to have taken away 10 million ETH (worth ~$2 billion) from over 800,000 participants.  Considering the scheme was also "highly active" in bitcoin (BTC), XRP and EOS, the firm anticipates PlusToken will emerge as the largest crypto Ponzi scheme yet, surpassing BitConnect/OneCoin/MMM by “a substantial margin.”

Last week, blockchain security company CipherTrace estimated that approximately $2.9 billion in deposits have been lost in PlusToken. Chinese police officials confirmed to The Block at the time that six suspects affiliated with the schemes have been arrested, although main operators of it are still on the run.