Ionomy Exchange Has Absconded with Investors' Coins

justyy (82)in #blog • 4 days ago

The last good response for Ionomy Crypto Exchange appears to be in June 2024.

I have some BLURT tokens on the Ionomy exchange, which I haven’t checked for a while. Recently, I wanted to log in because the bull market has arrived, and BLURT has surged significantly. However, the website is completely inaccessible.

With the bull market, even garbage coins will rise.

The Ionomy exchange is no longer accessible.

The Ionomy exchange has run away, and the website can no longer be accessed.

I asked around and found out it went out of business (ran away) a few months ago (early 2024). I just found out, and the worst part is, there were no notifications or warnings. Someone said, "Exchanges love to run away; how would they run if they warned people?"

Ionomy exchange is a very niche platform, established in October 2018. Below is the information shown about Ionomy on CoinMarketCap (now acquired by Binance):

Information about the Ionomy exchange on CoinMarketCap is almost blank now.

I also contacted them on FB/Meta, but I doubt they’ll respond.

The Ionomy exchange page on FB; I sent a message but don't expect any response.

The Telegram group of Ionomy only has less than 300 members, which is very small.

The Telegram group of the Ionomy exchange has fewer than 300 members.

In the group, I saw photos of the Ionomy exchange management team, but I cannot verify their authenticity and couldn’t find them on LinkedIn.

The management team of the Ionomy exchange.

This is a screenshot of the Ionomy exchange interface from the photos in the group. I probably had about 5000 or 10,000 BLURT tokens in my account, worth only tens of dollars, probably not worth any further efforts.

The interface of the Ionomy exchange.

Luckily, I withdrew 0.124 BTC a few years ago; otherwise, I’d be crying now. (At that time, the BLURT airdrop exchanged for 0.124 BTC.)

Three years ago, I withdrew 0.124 BTC from the Ionomy exchange; lucky.

Why Did I Use the Ionomy Exchange?

Because BLURT is a fork of STEEM, a small cryptocurrency supported by less than three exchanges, one of which is Ionomy, and another is Hive-Engine.

Small coins require high fees to list on major exchanges. A few years ago, the listing fee was said to be 1 BTC. Articles I posted on STEEM were usually synchronized to BLURT to earn some airdrops.

Avoid Niche Exchanges

Keeping coins on exchanges involves the risk of the exchange going bankrupt or absconding, especially unregulated or lesser-known ones. Keeping money in such small exchanges is almost equivalent to losing it.

Moreover, Ionomy does not require KYC (Know Your Customer) identity verification, reflecting its lack of compliance and small scale.

Exchanges are suitable for quick transactions but not for holding large sums. I find it troublesome, but using more prominent exchanges like Binance or HTX might be safer. Remember: Not Your Keys, Not Your Funds. Without a wallet key, the coins may not truly be yours.

There’s related discussion on BLURT:

I’m not sure if they shut down, but people have been posting on Blurt for a long time that they were unable to get any of their crypto out of Ionomy. Steem, Hive, Blurt, DTC, Bitcoin, Nothing was getting sent for many months. Don’t leave anything on any exchanges ever—nothing more than $10.

The website's operators have absconded with investors' coins.