Crypto Exchange Coinsecure Says Theft Probe Is Holding Up Refunds

Coinsecure is still unable to repay its customers following a debilitating theft last month, the India-based cryptocurrency exchange said over the weekend.

The exchange - which lost nearly 440 bitcoins in mid-April in an incident that has been publicly blamed on a "Rogue" employee - announced on April 29 that while it previously hoped to begin returning customer funds by this point, it remains unable to do so because of a police investigation.

"When investigations are underway, we don't have much of a say and do need permissions from the authorities to start the compensation process, which we are yet to receive. We will update you when we have definite dates around the start of the process."

New contracts will be issued to all customers for both Indian rupees and bitcoin, Coinsecure went on to write, without elaborating.

Coinsecure previously blamed chief security officer Amitabh Saxena for allegedly exposing the exchange's private keys while trying to distribute bitcoin gold, a cryptocurrency offshoot of bitcoin, to customers, as previously reported.

At the time, chief executive Mohit Kalra said "Our customers will be indemnified from our company's funds," but cautioned it might take time to recover the stolen coins.

The company later announced that if all of the stolen bitcoins were recovered, customers would be repaid fully in the cryptocurrency, but otherwise, they would be paid in a mix of bitcoins and rupees.

In particular, Coinsecure announced that 90 percent of the funds would be repaid in rupees according to the price on April 9.

At the time, the token was trading at under $7,000, but has rallied to just under $9,000 as of press time.

CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.