World’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, Binance is set to initiate the refund process of over 1,909 ETH to victims of the XIRTAM project. The exchange made the disclosure on Thursday through an official blog post. In the announcement, the exchange indicated that it would refund over 1,750 victim addresses that participated in the official token sale of XIRTAM.
Recall that in May 2023, XIRTAM, an educational project based on the Arbitrium network, rug pulled its investors. Then, the project team stole about 1,909 (valued at around $3.5 million) from its investors. Initially, the project raised about 2,000 ETH from investors through a fundraising effort. Thereafter, XIRTAM drained the 1,909 ETH from the deposits on its smart contract.
More so, the rug pull raised questions about the reliability of projects in the DeFi space. Ever since, prominent actors in the industry including Binance have turned the heat on curbing illicit activities in the DeFi and cryptocurrency industry at large. Consequently, the commitment engineered Binance to reclaim the stolen funds from XIRTAM’s project team.
How Binance Intervened
In its blog post, Binance recalled how it swung into action to freeze the stolen funds deposited to an account on its platform by the XIRTAM project team. According to the disclosure, the exchange intervened around early May 2023 shortly after the rug pull. Later, around September 2023 after due investigation, Binance initiated the first step of the recovery process for more than 1,750 victim addresses.
To fast-track the recovery process, the exchange designed a smart contract, to which users can connect their wallets to through Etherscan. However, they must first pass a verification check to reclaim the stolen funds. Furthermore, Binance established that more than 150 affected addresses are yet to contact its team to submit a refund claim.
The exchange urged those who are yet to file their claims to do so before the last day of this month. Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency exchange emphasized that the initial refund process will focus mainly on those who purchased the token from the primary market.
On the flip side, Binance revealed that the remains of the fund will then be distributed among investors who purchased the token from the secondary market. Lastly, the exchange revealed that it will communicate the next line of action at the end of the refund process for the primary market addresses.