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Bitzlato restores user access to 50% of bitcoin balances
according to a report
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According to a news report, Bitzlato members can now withdraw a portion of their bitcoin balance from the shutdown cryptocurrency exchange. In January, French-based server infrastructure belonging to the trading platform with ties to Russia was targeted by Western law authorities and taken into custody.
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Customers of Bitzlato are permitted to withdraw 50% of their bitcoin from the exchange
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Customers of the Bitzlato app and online portal can now withdraw some of the money they had in the cryptocurrency exchange when it was shut down by French and American authorities in the middle of January. Since Monday, half of its customers’ bitcoin (BTC) holdings have been accessible.
According to officials of Bitzlato, account users are permitted to withdraw up to 50% of their bitcoins. The report specified that the charge is 0.0003 BTC and that the minimum withdrawal amount is 0.001 BTC.
The post said that users can request withdrawals using a Telegram bot by providing the email address associated with their Bitzlato account. A code required to finish the transfer is produced after verification and delivered to that email address.
Based on claims that it handled more than $700 million in criminal funds, as the U.S. Justice Department reported, or more than $1 billion, according to Europol, the Hong Kong-registered exchange was shut down.
The hidden money was reportedly connected to a variety of criminal enterprises and players, including the biggest Russian cryptocurrency pyramid scam, Finiko, and the previous largest darknet market Hydra, which Germany shut down in April.
Anatoly Legkodymov, a Russian citizen living in China and co-founder and principal owner of Bitzlato, was detained in Miami. A second co-founder, Anton Shkurenko, was interrogated and freed in Russia while four further members of Bitzlato’s crew were imprisoned in Europe.
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Shkurenko had previously revealed intentions to move the exchange to Russia and restart operations there in a YouTube interview. In addition, despite French law authorities having taken the platform’s hot wallet, he vowed to partly restore withdrawals.
A survey of almost 3,300 users in Bitzlato’s news channel on Telegram revealed that 30% of users are withdrawing money without any problems, 3% had their assets temporarily frozen, 4% still have their money blocked, 12% are still deciding how to withdraw, and more than half of the respondents planned to wait for the platform’s peer-to-peer market to reopen.
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