Australian Bitcoin Exchange iGot halts trading

According to recent reports, Australia-based Bitcoin exchange igot Pty. Ltd. has halted trading on its platform, with users complaining that they are unable to obtain withdrawals from the site and that it is not responding to support tickets.

As of the time of writing, iGot has ceased all public communications for over one week and have not responded to users or to correspondence from this publication; there are also complaints going back months with users reporting ongoing issues with the company, said SiliconANGLE.

iGot also boasted of its offices in Ljubljana, Slovenia; Kowloon, Hong Kong; Singapore and Bangalore, India. However, SiliconANGLE's investigation revealed that they are all virtual offices, except for the Bangalore Office which is listed as belonging to one Indian registered company called I Got Tech Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

"I Got Tech Solutions and igot also use the same registered Indian company number U72900KA2012PTC061947, confirming that they are one in the same company (despite the obvious igot being an abbreviation of I Got Tech). As we're unable to obtain the ownership documents for igot in Australia we can't 100 percent confirm, but it's highly likely that igot is simply a front for I Got Tech Solutions. So what does I Got Tech Solutions do? Well according to their LinkedIn page they offer search engine optimization (SEO) services, and on other pages are simply listed as providing "IT services", reports SiliconANGLE.

Last month, the website TheMerkle listed various reddit threads of users who voiced their complaints about the company.

"It is clear that iGot's support is nonexistant and the service is subpar. Furthermore the Bitcoin price on their exchange is $8 higher than the average bitcoin price across all other exchanges. On their site they claim to only have a 1% transaction fee, but in reality that fee is 4% because of the $8 mark up in bitcoin price"-TheMerkle

The company was founded in 2013, and offered bitcoin exchange service in 40 countries. The services offered include buying and selling of bitcoin, remittance services, merchant services and futures trading. Whether the company ceased its trading permanently or temporarily only time will tell.