The crypto exchange won’t be making a habit of compensating people who are phished by fake versions of other companies according to FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
The $6 million in compensation will be given by the cryptocurrency exchange FTX to those who lost money as a result of a phishing scam that allowed hackers to make unauthorized trades on the accounts of some FTX users.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and CEO of FTX, stated in a Twitter thread on October 23 that while usually the exchange does not recompense users who have been “phished by fake versions of other companies in the space,” it will do so in this particular instance.
He went on to clarify that this was a “one-time thing” and that FTX will not continue to do this. Additionally, he added, “THIS IS NOT A PRECEDENT,” emphasizing that only FTX users’ accounts will receive a refund.
In a recent phishing attempt, hackers obtained user account application programming interface (API) keys, enabling them to utilize their cryptocurrency exchange accounts for unlawful trading.
The hack was discovered on October 21 when 3Commas claimed it received notification that some of its members were engaging in illicit trading activity. In order to prevent further losses, FTX and 3Commas suspended the suspicious accounts after conducting an initial investigation. They also disabled all compromised API keys.