Because there are, apparently, second acts in crypto, the creator of the defunct Cryptopia exchange is trying again with a new exchange product called Assetylene.

The exchange, which touts itself as "New Zealands most advanced crypto trading platform," is run by Adam Clark, the former founder and programmer for Cryptopia.

Cryptopia went into liquidation on May 15 after a major hack that drained an estimate $16 million-worth of crypto last year. Most recently the stolen funds are currently moving out of the hacker's wallets and onto various exchanges. One would assume, then, that the founder of a hacked, shuttered exchange, wouldn't try again so quickly.

One would be wrong.

Arguably, Clark hasn't worked on Cryptopia since February 2018, according to LinkedIn, and has been building Assetylene for at least nine months.

The new exchange is clearly just a shell – the About Us page is empty and there is no trading data. As Decrypt notes, the site is running the popular TradeSatoshi exchange software, a turnkey solution that lets you spin up an exchange in a few minutes.

Is Assetylene a real exchange? Will it suffer the same fate as Cryptopia? In finance, past performance is not indicative of future results but in mental health repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is insanity. Perhaps Assetylene falls between the two?

Torch image courtesy of Shutterstock