Nigerian Crypto Marketplace Patricia Faces $2 Million Loss in Breach – Facebook Geeks Comment
Digital asset marketplace Patricia has announced a security breach involving the loss of Bitcoin and naira assets.
The cryptocurrency platform disclosed that its retail trading application, Patricia Personal, was compromised, while other crypto assets remained unaffected. In response to the breach, Patricia temporarily suspended withdrawals on its mobile and web apps to assess the situation.
However, sources with insider knowledge revealed that the incident actually occurred in January 2022 and cost the company a staggering $2 million. The company claimed to have identified the source of the breach, a “syndicated group,” and is pursuing legal action.
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Initially founded as a gift card exchange platform, the company has rapidly gained recognition and currently handles 30,000 daily transactions, serving around 850,000 users.
The company, in a message, assured its users and merchants that their assets were safe and efforts were underway to recover the compromised funds. Patricia hinted that its growing popularity as a Bitcoin exchange platform may have made it a target for hackers.
Aside from the breach and liquidity challenges, Patricia’s leadership recently announced another round of layoffs in a company-wide meeting. Although the retail trading app employed approximately 160 individuals, sources indicate that earlier layoffs occurred in 2022, with no clear explanation provided at the time.
Team leads were reportedly instructed to downsize their teams by up to 80%, causing uncertainty among employees about their job security.
Chukwudi Iwuchukwu is with Chudi Iwuchukwu and
7 others
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I mentioned yesterday that hackers had hacked Patricia, a Nigerian crypto currency exchange.
What I did not know as I was writing that story is that the issue is bigger than I thought it was.
The hack actually took place last January, and the hackers stole $2 million.
The funny thing about this whole drama is that Patricia was busy running TV commercials on Big Brother Naija after they were hacked last year instead of being transparent and open with their customers.
Let’s hear Tech Cabal as they throw more light on this.
1) Based on conversations with three sources with direct knowledge of the situation, TechCabal can exclusively report that the breach on the Patricia app happened in January 2022 and that the company reportedly lost $2 million in the incident.
When TechCabal contacted Patricia to understand the extent and timeline of the breach, the company’s CEO, Hanu Fejio, declined to comment.
2) Three sources who asked to remain anonymous and have first-hand knowledge of the matter told TechCabal that Patricia partially froze withdrawals when the breach happened in January.
While customers could still deposit money into the app, they couldn’t move their crypto coins to other crypto exchanges.
Instead, Patricia offered to buy those coins from customers and pay them cash to manage the situation.
This workaround continued until March 2023.
3) Sources say that Patricia launched a new version of its app in April and opened it to users.
On Instagram, the company said the new app, Patricia Plus, was necessary “due to a global congestion on the Bitcoin blockchain.”
The new app had no withdrawal restrictions, and within a few minutes, users started to move their coins to other wallets and other cryptocurrency exchanges.
Remember, customers were not able to do it since last January, after the breach happened, so this was described as a self-inflicted bank run.
Panicked customers rushed to withdraw their assets from Patricia and transfer them to other crypto exchanges.
Because of the massive withdrawals by customers, the company was forced to reinstate a freeze because they did not have enough money to cope with the withdrawal requests.
The situation they described closely resembled a bank run, and with liquidity concerns, sources said that the company’s custodial wallet had a deficit of 75 BTC.
Patricia declined to comment on those claims. Instead, Patricia told customers in an email that it is now undergoing internal restructuring.
4) While it did not share any restructuring details, several company sources said management called a meeting last week and explained the liquidity situation. The company’s leadership also shared that it would begin another round of layoffs.
5) More layoffs at Patricia
While Patricia’s retail trading app has an estimated 160 employees, sources say the company laid off staff separately in 2022.
At the time, the company did not share the reasons for the layoffs with employees. In a company-wide meeting last week, Patricia’s leadership said it would begin another round of layoffs.
Sources say that team leaders were told to reduce their team sizes by as much as 80%.
6) Patricia did not respond to inquiries about the latest layoffs at the time of this report, but sources claimed that they would receive emails between Friday and Monday.
It has created a situation where there’s some uncertainty about the people who will still have their jobs at the company next week.
Tech Cabal concluded.
This is sad.
Very sad.
I thought that Patricia would be different.
A bright spark in the dark ecosystem
Not being transparent with your customers since last year, when the hack happened, has been nothing but fraudulent behavior.
Not different from a business run by a Yahoo boy.
It is sad that Patricia is about to end up folding up the same way.
Like its predecessors before it.
Patricia was meant to be the poster boy of the fact that my generation has arrived in running big business.
But what has happened so far and the way they handled their customers have been the opposite.
109 comments
Joseph Umeh
Sad.
I suspected it all along. Chukwudi Iwuchukwu recall the little back and forth we had here whether the amount they paid for the title sponsorship of BBN was justifiable.
People have been doing business in Nigeria for years. There are major brands with massive ad Budget being run by professionals. For them to walk away from BBN sponsorship and allow neophytes like Patricia and Abeg to pick the tab tells a lot.
There was very little strategic business thinking behind the Fintech brands.
I was wondering the amount of revenue they needed to generate before they can make the requisite profit that would cover such a huge ad spend.
$1M is almost 1 billion Naira. What kind of business would be able to absorb such a huge cost for ads alone and still break even while running other regular overhead cost in Nigeria of today.
Added to the fact that they were also Fintech startups and literally unknown before the BBN sponsorship.
After looking at the profile of the guys behind those two companies, I knew that it was only a matter of time before the cookie would crumble.
Those guys needs to be investigated.
These could just be a clean heist.
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Chukwudi Iwuchukwu
Joseph Umeh
I remember … See more
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Joseph Umeh
Chukwudi Iwuchukwu I no be prophet o
But, by virtue of the fact that I run a business in Nigeria as well, there are certain things you’d see and just know that it doesn’t add in this our inclement business environment.
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Hope Chukwu
The whole Patricia set up looks suspicious. Just to buy and sell crypto and you are having 160 employees for an operation that’s highly tech driven and automated and a start up at that. And when they started funding bbn. I knew they won’t survive. Even Dangote could not afford to spend that kind of money few years after opening. You don’t want to crawl but you want to fly. I know many of them. Family relations they will always come with sweet and bogus business ideas and ask for you to invest. But I have learnt them like a book. I simply ask them to go and prepare a business plan with a template of more then 200 pages which I give them. And they will never ever come back. Easy money gang.
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Richard Chilee
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One of the many problems with tech companies in Nigeria is that the founders always lack the knowledge of running businesses. They think that technological sense is the same with business sense. Hence, when challenges, like this, happen, instead of being outright transparent with customers, they lie.
Business is dependent on customer relationships. And the core ideals of customer relationships are trust and transparency. Without these two ideals, your business will die.
While talking with a client, he said he has made enough money and if the customers do anyhow, he will show them anyhow. I told him that his business will die whenever he takes the customers for granted.
Dear tech guy, learn the business side of your business. Also learn that your customers are the souls of your business. Find ways to court them, and they will love you.
Avoid lies and misinformation about your finances. Some customers will give you the benefit of doubt when you come clean.
And because you want to be transparent to customers, you will be forced to be transparent in your business dealings.
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Paul Uche Nweke
Sheybi when I said that this crypto thing get K leg and won’t stand the test of time, you and one of your crypto currency friend was saying I didn’t know what I’m saying. Even stock market experience crashes on a regular basis, but the difference is that it is based on time tested financial and accounting principles. Crypto is just based on some psuedo financial principles. The worst part is that due to its amoebic regulatory structure, scammers have found fertile ground to to carry out huge heists in it. The real test that will come is when it records its first official crash. And it will not recover and there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, such as the world has ever seen or will ever see. Write this down. Oya, crypto fans can start attacking me in 3, 2, 1…… I’m gone.
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Daniel Ogolo
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There are 2 things I have to say about all this:
1. I am begining to think the entire crypto thing has scam written all over it. Come onnnn, someone can just wake up and say his exchange or coin or any asset was hacked and monies taken; yet nothing wil… See more
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Kingsley Mayor
Chukwudi Iwuchukwu I have been trading with Patricia for the past 2 years you said they were not allowing their costumers to withdraw their money since last January? But I can tell you that from April last year to December last year I withdraw more tha… See more
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Mazi Chiemelie Muokwe
Hopefully he’ll bounce back something similar happened to the owner of binance, hackers stole over 500 million US dollar from binance exchange but they were able to maintain their stand because they have backup funds. Similar stuff happened to FTX unfo… See more
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Alfred Oyetola Oyegbola
Long con about to end . You see this young geezers, their grifting is on another level.Watch hustle and you will understand.
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Stanley Obinna
FIntechs must start investing heavily on Cybersecurity (not just IT).
Crypto businesses are not sustainable in the long run
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Hon DonFitex Ifeanyi Chukwudum
Umu azi isi dada running billions of naira fintech businesses and some Nigerians believed them and dump their money with them
Make una continue, una no go fit learn lessons at all… See more
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Marvellous Chiedozie Nwogu
This is a heist.
There was no hack rather a calculated means of swindling people of their hard earned funds.
Remember FTX.
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Vincent O Ezechukwu
Yahoo! Boys ruined the company.
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Felix Nwogbo
I really would not be shocked if the leadership of Patricia have a hand in the so called hack.
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Inojie Donny Osagie
Fintech CEOs in Nigeria are just as loud as our entertainers. This company are always and should be run by silent hard working men now people that lavish went on expensive houses etc on the detriment of investors. Anyway wish him well
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Onyedikachukwu George Nnadozie
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They should have invested in cyber security than running ads on BBN.
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Simon Franklin Ekenedirichukwu
Chukwudi Iwuchukwu the same thing is happening to flutterwaves
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George Stephen
First Lazer pay then Patricia….there’s something going on on Nigeria’s web3 fintech start up ecosystem which I am not understanding
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Isu Egwu Okwudili
Lacking regulatory oversight and check mating operational framework is the bane of Cryptos.
Anyone with deep investing knowledge will NOTE the Ted flag in an exchange also playing the role of a custodian and issuing it’s own coins.… See more
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Godwin Ojonimi Usman
To be fair to him and neutral in this matter, losing $2m is small compared to what other platforms have lost. I hate the fact that people in the comments box are insinuating that he siphoned the money. Fraudster are in the rise and becoming savvier by … See more
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Obi Trice Emeka
This is just FTX all over again
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Mum’s Diary
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PATRICIA & ABEG. BBN Sponsors. Issorai 
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Ogbeide Nosakhare
Nigerian government warned against Crypto
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Ivri Ewomazino Vincent
I doubted this people right from onset….. Another successful scam
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Michael Nwosu
So this is why luno held my fund for two years now ..and my coin lost all it values
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Oguaju Ugochukwu
Some people should just focus on small company than running a multi-Billionaire company
#Sad_Truth
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Olatunde Jimoh
Investing largely in a ghost business is a red flag. A crypto company or individual should not keep his coins in an open or general wallet but in the wallet drive/software. A cybersecurity expert is a must for every company.
The whole story looks suspicious anyways.
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Victor Kelechi Kingsley
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Wow. Just wow. Having access to funds is one thing. Knowing how to mitigate risks and run a tech business Successfully is another.
I think their exposure brought this menace.
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Young Erikina
Same way payday is experiencing withdrawal issues
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Emenike Joseph Iheukwumere
Elekwa Ifeanyi
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Luchi Angel Don
Amada Charlize
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Chekwube Uchendu
Good evening Boss. Been following you for a while now and I enjoy reading your contents.
You see, content writing is one skill I wish I am very good at. And so, I desire to develop it. … See more
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Olarinde Emmanuel Olusegun
I lost my 4k dollars with this trading shit! 
I can never forget in my life till now I can’t withdraw my money .. all I can do is to buy cards for calling it’s get to a stage I delete and let’s go of it
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Uche Igwe
Hmmm. Crypto, Bitcoin, it has always been hard for me to relate. I refused to get involved even Chukwudi Iwuchukwu tries to recommend crypto.
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Ifeanyi Leo
Could same fate be what HOTBIT is suffering now???
<p>The post Nigerian Crypto Marketplace Patricia Faces $2 Million Loss in Breach – Facebook Geeks Comment first appeared on SwordPress.</p>
