Maplechange took to Twitter to announce the hack, which took place one day after it had conducted “maintenance” to revamp its website. It claimed that “due to a bug, some people have managed to withdraw all the funds” it had been holding. The exchange said it had launched a “thorough investigation” and insisted that it couldn’t offer refunds to customers until it had concluded its probe. “We are extremely sorry that it has to come to end like this,” it added.
Some sites claimed that Maplechange had deleted the initial tweet within an hour, along with its Telegram and Discord accounts. Those reports cited another tweet from the exchange stating that it would cease business and shut down its social media presence, because it had been completely drained of funds and was left unable to pay its customers back.
https://twitter.com/MapleChangeEx/status/1056585331493896192
However, Maplechange returned to Twitter five hours after it reported the hack, amid widespread accusations that it was staging an exit scam. “We have not disappeared,” it said. “We simply turned off our accounts temporarily to think this solution through.”
The company opened a Discord server for refunds an hour later, stating that it would be unable to refund any BTC or LTC that had been lost. However, it vowed to try “to refund everything else.”