Titanium Blockchain has lost a significant amount (millions and millions, like, really much) of its BAR tokens. The company admitted on Medium it fell victim to a painful robbery. Company wallets were snatched from their back pockets and culprits nowhere to be seen. It's another setback for crypto in general, that's known as a popular target amongst criminals with sticky fingers and some computer skills.
The theft is ironic, as we learn from the white paper Titanium's ecosystem is designed "to ensure a safe platform for everyone". Read out loud and include some oh noes and exclamations with an undertone of despair:
"Today, in a malicious act, approximately 16 million BAR ICO tokens were taken from Titanium company wallets. These wallets had been storing four million reserve BAR and 12 million BAR for team allocations, recently minted by TBIS engineers."
Not only did the crypto company lose 16 million of its tokens. In a response to the heist the price of the BAR token shrunk to a lousy $0.03. ATH: $3.00. Auch. Sad for holders who saw their gains go up in smoke. But on the bright side; some people see a silver lining in everything (or just yell "the dip" by default). So yeah, the price crashed. But it's also a unique opportunity to buy in extremely cheap with limited risk. Totally unethical. But tempting. But unethical. (but tempting).
Loading up after the heist
If loading up a coin that just showed its weakness to bad hombres is a wise idea, that's questionable. Because this grand theft looks extremely clumsy at first sight. Millions of tokens taken from company wallets? Get yourself a vault. How does this slip up not effect the core of the company? The old BAR coin will be immediately replaced by the new TBAR token, but still. Will investors take future promises about an ecosystem that provides a safe platform for everyone still for granted?
Then again, the risk of buying in at a price that's flirting with the base line is low. Thus; the vultures came in anyhow and loaded cheap BAR's heavily. Before exchanges halted trading.
Titanium Damage Control
Currently the Titanium team has announced the following actions.
TBIS will fork their ICO token (BAR) and create a second token (TBAR) to be used within Titanium’s closed ecosystem for goods and services in place of BAR token
TBAR will be issued in a 1:1 ratio to all BAR holders. This includes both ICO participants and those who have acquired bar via exchange purchases or other means. Please note however, that TBAR will not be issued for most of the BAR involved in today’s malicious act.
Everyone with BAR currently in an Erc20 wallet will automatically receive TBAR alongside BAR in their wallets.
For those who currently have BAR on an exchange, a simple form will be provided in 24–24 hours for verification before TBAR is released in the same amount as current BAR holding.
Titanium has already asked that both official and unofficially announced exchanges cease allowing BAR token to trade, and will ask that TBAR begin trading in place of BAR after distribution.
What remains unclear is of these buyers of the dip (while the body was still hot) will profit from it after all. Trades after the theft might be considered illegitimate by the company. And therefore only be compensated by the (much lower) price of the token. Not one full TBAR for your BAR, but just a stingy 0.1 BAR. Which makes some investors very angry. In the Telegram group the admin is at least a bit cryptic on this matter.
In the meantime: If you'd like to see what chaos looks like, take to Titaniums Telegram account. But of course you wouldn't. Because you are a decent human being.
