'It stinks': Customers of failed Auckland crypto exchange furious at tiny payout

However, they had only been able to locate digital assets worth $610,000.

Dasset customer Marco Blum told the Herald this week that he had bought $40,000 worth of the cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ethereum through the exchange, which also hosted his digital wallet.

He had received a payout of $2000 from the liquidators.

“I knew it was high risk. I wouldn’t have been happy, but I could have accepted it if the currencies had gone down. It stinks,” Blum said.

“But this feels like something’s wrong and the authorities are just walking away. I’m not going to go broke over this, but I’ve never been so angry in my life.”

Blum said after initial communication, the liquidators had ignored his queries, which he had been making every three months.

He was also exasperated that the Serious Fraud Office had dropped its investigation into Dasset on September 8.

Another Dasset customer, Leo D’Ambrosio, who works in the IT industry in Wellington, said he had $20,000 worth of cryptocurrency with the exchange.

“To ultimately receive around 5 cents on the dollar, that is a pretty devastating outcome,” he told the Herald.

“For me, the biggest disappointment isn’t just the financial loss. It’s going through this entire process and reaching the end with many of the same questions we had at the beginning.