Reddit users analyzed past Bitcoin (BTC) withdrawals from the now-defunct QuadrigaCX cryptocurrency exchange in a post published on April 10, finding that some came from other exchanges.
The Reddit users claim that of the withdrawal transactions that they analyzed, one came from a HitBTC hot wallet and the other one from a Bittrex hot wallet.
The users write that before they realized that the addresses are owned by exchanges, they found that some of the addresses appear on multiple High Yield Investment Programs (HYIP), amatorial ransomware research and a post concerning lost funds by another Reddit user.
Further examination suggests that this means that people sent funds from exchanges to HYIP Ponzi schemes, and that hackers attempted to cash in money earned with ransomware through those exchanges.
Quadriga has previously filed for creditor protection following the death of its founder in December 2018, resulting in a loss of access to its cold wallets.
However, a report by the Wall Street Journal in February claimed that the funds could actually be missing, rather than inaccessible.
The Reddit users’ recent findings are seemingly in line with another report, released in March, that QuadrigaCX probably stored a significant quantity of Ethereum (ETH) in other crypto exchanges rather than cold wallets. In this analysis, the author mentioned that nearly 650,000 ETH belonging to QuadrigaCX were most likely stored on the Kraken, Bitfinex and Poloniex crypto exchanges, but did not mention Bittrex or HitBTC.
As Cointelegraph reported earlier this week, the exchange has also now been officially declared bankrupt.
