Kaspa cryptocurrency holders have reached out to ForkLog, reporting that they have been unable to withdraw their assets from the TradeOgre exchange for over six months. The total estimated loss exceeds $6 million.
Users informed ForkLog that as of May 29, 2025, TradeOgre has enabled the sale of Kaspa and the withdrawal of funds through other assets.
The Core Issue
One affected individual, Evgeny, shared that in the summer of 2022, alongside TxBit, TradeOgre was among the first platforms to open trading for the Kaspa token. When the former announced its closure a year later, Evgeny transferred all his assets to TradeOgre.
In September 2023, following the announcement of Kaspa’s listing on KuCoin, Bybit, and support on Tangem Wallet, the miner and his partners began transferring assets to these platforms. However, at some point, TradeOgre refused to process withdrawals due to an unspecified error.
A few days later, a “Technical Work” icon appeared on the Kaspa wallet in the platform’s dashboard. Across Evgeny’s two accounts, a total of 73,985 KAS was blocked.
Another attempt to withdraw funds was made in October 2023, when Kaspa rose to $0.07. When trying to exchange the token for USDT, he noticed the exchange rate was $0.02 on the platform. Due to the significant price difference — about $4000 — the miner decided to wait longer.
TradeOgre support only responds to messages on X. On November 15, they replied to Evgeny’s inquiries for the first time, claiming they were “waiting to be removed from the blacklist.” At that time, the global market price for KAS was $0.12.
On January 11, 2024, reports emerged that the exchange rate had adjusted.
“In reality, someone (possibly the exchange itself) bought a large volume, thus raising the rate. After this, trading in the KAS/USDT and KAS/BTC pairs was completely halted,” Evgeny explained.
Since then, the chart for these trading pairs has not been updated, and it is impossible to sell the token even at the lowest price.
At the time of writing, orders for the two pairs amount to approximately 39 million KAS (over $6 million).
Other Affected Parties
Evgeny discovered two unofficial Telegram groups dedicated to TradeOgre. However, aside from rumors of fund theft and a failed attempt at arbitrage on the coin’s rate by the exchange, he found no useful information.
In mid-February, Evgeny independently formed a group of affected individuals on Telegram — Scam TradeOgre (Kaspa). It currently has 39 members.
“Ten of them reported blocked amounts totaling ~550,000 KAS (about $100,000),” the trader noted.
He believes the total number of affected individuals could reach hundreds or even thousands. Judging by the open orders on the exchange, the minimum loss exceeds $6 million.
An account dedicated to a similar issue was created by external users on X.
full conversation here: https://t.co/cl8Ana2asN
— tradeogre.com scam alert (@TradeOgre_SCAM) January 19, 2024
The group led by Evgeny is appealing to the community for help in recovering funds and promises a reward of up to 10% of the blocked amounts.
Current Situation on the Exchange
The centralized exchange TradeOgre was founded in 2018 in the USA. Its owners and beneficiaries are unknown. The platform does not require mandatory verification from users. According to CoinGecko, the exchange has a low trust rating, with a daily trading volume of $6.9 million at the time of writing.
According to Evgeny, there are occasional reports that his Kaspa wallet on TradeOgre is accessible, but withdrawing funds remains impossible.
Additionally, several users have encountered errors in displaying balances and transaction counts in their personal accounts when viewed through Kaspa Explorer. For all of them, the balances either reset to zero or show disproportionately low values compared to the data on the exchange.
Support on X responds to all inquiries except those regarding Kaspa, Evgeny claims. Meanwhile, trading in other pairs continues as usual, with deposits and withdrawals functioning.
“When I posted information in the unofficial TradeOgre Telegram group suggesting it was time to take action, I was blocked. This indicates that someone is indeed managing the group and is interested in monitoring sentiments and excluding dissenters. In the second unofficial group, my call remained posted,” the trader recounted.
Analysts from the decentralized security protocol HAPI examined several wallets of affected users.
“The absence of tokens in the presented wallets is due to the exchange’s algorithms, which consolidate user assets from deposit addresses into one or several accounts, known as storage,” experts stated in a comment to ForkLog.
Based on their analysis of the address chain, they suggested that user deposits are being consolidated at an address owned by the KuCoin exchange address kaspa:qq3k4du6wf2g26j7ds6fqmgtgavgm3zy676wntp2e52nsuns2n4s6xkndmx0y.
At the time of writing, it holds 8,359,549.87676515 KAS ($1.2 million).
“Since there are no withdrawals from this account, it is likely not the only one,” added HAPI.
ForkLog reached out to TradeOgre representatives for comments but received no response. We will update the article if there are any developments.
Kaspa Developers’ Position
Kaspa developers first mentioned the issue with their cryptocurrency on TradeOgre in September 2023 in the official Telegram group.
In December, they removed the exchange from the list of recommended trading platforms.
In a comment to ForkLog, developers stated that TradeOgre representatives have never communicated with the Kaspa community, nor have they requested assistance in configuring or halting withdrawals.
“The Kaspa community has not received a response to any offer of help and has no idea what the problem is,” they added.
At the time of writing, KAS is trading at $0.1456, according to CoinGecko.
Back in October 2023, the NFT project Lucky Star was suspected of an exit scam involving $1 million.