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Attack on Bitmart results in an estimated loss of $196M

source-logo  thecoinrise.com 05 December 2021 04:47, UTC

Crypto exchange platform Bitmart recently got hacked, losing around $196 million in various crypto tokens. Due to its intensity, it is being counted among the most devastating centralized exchange hacks to date.

The purported attack was first brought to light Saturday night by security analysis firm Peckshield in a tweet. One of Bitmart’s addresses is currently showing regular outflows of whole token balances, some worth tens of millions of dollars, to an address labeled as the “Bitmart Hacker” by Etherscan.

https://twitter.com/peckshield/status/1467316799977193476

Peckshield assessed the damages at $100 million in various cryptocurrencies on the Ethereum network and $96 million on the Binance Smart Chain in a follow-up tweet.

The hacker has been continuously exchanging stolen assets for cryptocurrency ether (ETH) using decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch, then depositing the ETH into privacy mixer Tornado Cash via a secondary address, making the stolen funds difficult to monitor.

Hacks have been really common in the crypto world, and here is a list of the top 5 crypto exchange hacks in 2019. Recently in November, dYdX also suffered a hack resulting in a sudden drop in its price.

Bitmart seizes all the withdrawals

Bitmart representatives first claimed that the outflows were regular withdrawals and called the hack’s report “fake news” on its official Telegram channel. However, after some time, the CEO of the exchange platform Sheldon Xia confirmed the occurrence of the hack, calling it a “security breach.”

He claims that the breaching led to a loss of $150 million. He further added that the affected Ethereum and BSC hot wallets also have some portion of assets on BitMart. He stated:

“We are now conducting a thorough security review, and we will post updates as we progress.”

He went on to say that the team has temporarily suspended withdrawals until further notice to avoid extended breaching and security checks.

thecoinrise.com