Elude cryptocurrency exchange reportedly exit-scams.

Elude is a popular, dark-net cryptocurrency exchange that has been around since 2018. The exchange was known for being privacy focused, and one of the go to places to anonymously exchange crypto. Despite its big name, and reliable operation for 5 year, the exchange is reportedly exit scamming.

Elude – A Brief History

First appearing in 2018, elude quickly rose to prominence, becoming the most recommended exchange on dread. It was well known for it’s reliability and anonymity. The exchange focused on privacy, only converting Bitcoin, Monero, and Litecoin. The users could also have the coins split up and mixed into multiple addresses. For added security no static fee was set, with users being charged a random commission ranging from 1% to 3%.

Early scam warning

Early signs of an upcoming exit scams started being reported months ago. Users on reddit started reporting in February that their transactions were not being processed with support ignoring tickets. Despite that, a lot of the issues were later resolved by staff members.

Since then, a major revelation took place. One of the Elude employees has used the original PGP to sign a message on dread warning users of an oncoming exit scam. The post was made by the official Elude dread account and was titled “We are exit scamming – do not deposit”. The post went on to write that the admins of the exchange have decided to kill the project with an exit scam. He also stated that all withdrawals have now been disabled.

The person writing the post also mentioned that he was simply a customer support agent and had no access to the servers. He also stated that he was reportedly offered 1k per week to not report the exit scam. As mentioned above, the message was signed with the original PGP key used by the official elude dread account. Right after the post was made, the accounts PGP key was changed to prevent the administrators from deleting the message. Dread admins also confirmed that the message was infact signed with the original key.

Elude Exit Scams

Reports of locked withdrawals started flooding right after the whistleblowers post was made. Users are now unable to withdraw any transactions taking place on the market. Despite this, the website is still up, and accepting funds. The infamous exchange once touted as a “friendly anonymous tech collective” is now stealing all funds that being deposited.