In what appears to be a well-orchestrated Bitrue hack, the Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange lost $23 million worth of cryptocurrencies earlier today.
The hack has added to the woes of the Bitrue Coin (BTR) which has been on a bear streak since the beginning of April. The token has dropped by about 19% over the last two weeks.
Tokens stolen in the Bitrue hack
The hackers made away with ETH, QNT, GALA, SHIB, HOT, and MATIC tokens worth about $23 million according to the market value at the time of the hack.
Bitrue confirmed the hack in a tweet saying:
“We have identified a brief exploit in one of our hot wallets on 07:18 (UTC), 14 April 2023. We were able to address this matter quickly and prevented the further exploit of funds… The attackers were able to withdraw assets worth approximately 23 million USD in the following currencies: ETH, QNT, GALA, SHIB, HOT, and MATIC.”
The exchange’s team also added that it was investigating the matter. It also said that the affected crypto wallet contained “less than 5%” of the exchange’s overall crypto asset reserves and that the other wallets were not compromised. This, therefore, means that the hackers only stole the exchange’s funds but did not tamper with customers’ funds, which is something positive for Bitrue customers.
Bitrue temporarily suspends withdrawals
Following the hack, Bitrue has announced that it has temporarily suspended all withdrawals from the exchange. It is expected to resume withdrawals on April 18, which is four days from now.
In the statement announcing the temporary withdrawal pause, the exchange went ahead to state that “all identified users who are affected by this incident will be compensated in full.”
On average, Bitrue sees an average of $1 billion worth of trades according to Coingecko data, meaning it is among the major crypto exchange.
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