Crypto exchange UpBit temporarily suspends Aptos withdrawals due to scam token bug

Companies • September 24, 2023, 3:47PM EDT

Published 1 minute earlier on

Quick Take

UpBit, South Korea’s largest crypto exchange, temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals of Aptos after its systems reportedly credited a scam token as legitimate.
The exchange has since resumed normal operations.

UpBit, the largest crypto exchange in South Korea, halted deposits and withdrawals of Aptos (APT) due to a system error that credited a scam token as equivalent to legitimate Aptos tokens, according to user reports.

UpBit acknowledged in a statement that its system detected abnormal deposit attempts and temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals while it fixed the error, which was first reported by X account Definalist.

The problem appears to have originated with a scam token directing users to a fraudulent website, ClaimAPTGift.com, which was airdropped to nearly 400,000 Aptos wallets, blockchain data show. A screenshot reportedly shows UpBit crediting the fraudulent token as the same as a native APT token.

The technical issue led the price of APT to spike over 35% on ByBit before crashing back down three hours later. Aptos is the trading pair with the highest volume on UpBit in the last 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.