On February 8th, 2018, the Nano Core team was informed by Francesco “The Bomber” Firano — owner and operator of the BitGrail exchange — of a loss from the BitGrail wallet. Our team promptly contacted law enforcement and we are fully cooperating with law enforcement on this matter.
From our own preliminary investigation, no double spending was detected on the ledger and we have no reason to believe the loss was due to an issue in the Nano protocol. The problems appear to be related to BitGrail’s software.
We had no knowledge of BitGrail’s insolvency prior to February 8th.
In our conversation yesterday (which you can find attached here, this link has been edited to redact a private email.), Firano informed us of missing funds from BitGrail’s wallet. An option suggested by Firano was to modify the ledger in order to cover his losses — which is not possible, nor is it a direction we would ever pursue.
BitGrail is an independent business and Nano is not responsible for the way Firano or BitGrail conduct their business. We have no visibility into the BitGrail organization, nor do we have control over how they operate.
We now have sufficient reason to believe that Firano has been misleading the Nano Core Team and the community regarding the solvency of the BitGrail exchange for a significant period of time.
We will not be responding to individual posts or accusations by Firano regarding this situation. We are preparing all information we have on the matter such as blockchain entries, screenshots, and chat logs and presenting them to law enforcement.
Please refer to our Twitter account @nanocurrency for future links to official statements.
sickwobsm8 on February 10th, 2018 at 00:13 UTC »
"we will say that the devs refuse to cooperate despite the proposed solutions"
Is this guy for real? Lol
Bomber/bitgrail has been insolvent for months. Locking withdrawals was a last ditch effort. I don't believe there was a "hack" at all, and that (if the rumors are true) his exchange was doubling spending when funding accounts. Essentially creating an imaginary supply on his site. Someone should be auditing his code as soon as possible.
Acex604 on February 10th, 2018 at 00:02 UTC »
I hope Bomber goes to jail for this. Absurd shit. So devastated.
Neemz1844 on February 9th, 2018 at 23:22 UTC »
I feel terrible for anybody that was using BitGrail.
It was obvious they were having issues, but you still can never truly expect something like this.
I hope, somehow, people are able to get their investments back, but it's looking less and less likely.
Let this be a reminder that we are in the wild west, and that anything is possible.