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KuCoin CEO shares new details of $150+ million hack

source-logo  decrypt.co  + 4 more 26 September 2020 15:00, UTC

The CEO of cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin today responded to questions about a hack that resulted in at least $150 million of Ethereum tokens being drained from the exchange’s wallets, as well as millions more from other blockchains, including $13 million from Tether based on the EOS blockchain. 

In a livestream early this morning, KuCoin Global CEO Johnny Lyu said that hackers mostly stole Bitcoin, Ethereum and other ERC-20 tokens (tokens based on the Ethereum token standard), but it is still “working on the list” and “evaluating the total value.” 

Cryptocurrency Exchange KuCoin Hacked, $150 Million Moved

According to a summary of the livestream posted on KuCoin’s website, Lyu said that the stolen funds “contains a small part of our total asset holdings,” and that the team estimates that deposits and withdrawals will be live within a week.

The fastest fact-checker for exchange hacking rumors is Exchange Outflows. Hacked exchanges have a significant outflow of stolen #BTC and become zero after the surge. If there's no hacking issue and just system down, the outflow goes zero without surge.https://t.co/LHnFzfbjpr pic.twitter.com/T6dxND6fWL

— Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju) June 28, 2020

He also said that KuCoin’s insurance fund, started in 2018, is sufficiently large to cover for the hack. To avoid future issues of this ilk, Lyu said that the team has discarded the affected hot wallets (wallets connected to the exchanges) and “will definitely upgrade the whole risk management system of our wallet.”

And those funds flowing out from KuCoin following its announcement of the hack? “For the sake of guaranteeing the security of users’ assets, our wallet and security teams are conducting those transactions," said Lyu.

Rich Sanders, CEO of blockchain forensics firm CipherBlade, traced some of KuCoin's funds to a potential wallet containing 7,500 Bitcoin ($80 million). 

KuCoin CEO: this is a "small amount" (of cryptocurrency)

Ehrm, it's thousands of BTC worth... let's say mid four figures.

— Rich Sanders [Jan/3➞₿🔑∎] (@Raindropactual) September 26, 2020

KuCoin is now busy working with the blockchain projects and cryptocurrency projects that received the stolen funds, to “track, block, and even fork related assets to cut the losses.”

Paolo Ardoinio, CTO at cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and stablecoin company Tether, said in a tweet that Bitfinex froze $13 million worth of Tether stablecoins hosted on the EOS blockchain, and that Tether froze a further $20 million worth of the stablecoin hosted on Ethereum.

PSA: re #KuCoin hack@bitfinex froze 13M Tether USDt on EOS as part of the hack@Tether_to just froze 20M Tether USDt sitting on this Ethereum address https://t.co/GYmESH44da as precautionary measure.

Stay safe everyone!

— Paolo Ardoino (@paoloardoino) September 26, 2020

decrypt.co

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