The developers behind the peer-to-peer cryptocurrency trading platform Bisq accept temporarily disabled services afterward discovering a critical security vulnerability.

Formerly known as Bitsquare, Bisq is a decentralized exchange (DEX) that facilitates crypto-to-fiat trades without a formal intermediary. In a community announcement posted on April 8, the developers said that they were investigating the security upshot, telling users:

"If you have any active trades right now, please Do Non send whatever funds."

The devs add that it is "especially important" for users not to transport whatsoever funds if they are involved with any of the trades included in a provided listing of specific multisig transactions.

Users can override interruption — but at their own risk

As a decentralized exchange, the developers' intervention is not airtight. In a follow-up to the original post, they wrote:

"To articulate confusion: yes, Bisq is a proper distributed peer-to-peer network. And then you tin can override the latest alert key functionality that blocks trading. But we highly discourage you from doing this for your own security."

Pledging to release more than details when they tin, the developers indicate that all existing trades cannot be completed until they release v1.3.0 of the application. "Delight hold tight," they stressed, noting that due to Bisq's security model, user funds are not at gamble.

Bisq and its predecessors

Equally previously reported, Bisq's popularity last year eclipsed stalwart P2P platform LocalBitcoins, after the latter abruptly withdrew the choice for users to meet and execute trades for greenbacks.

This February, LocalBitcoins touched a vii-year depression in overall trading volumes — an apparent mark of ongoing user uncertainty in response to a serial of incidents and allegations. In January, the platform had hitting a 2-year low for weekly volumes in China.