Crypto Exchange #Bitmart Reportedly Hacked for $200 Million

December 5, 2021

in Altcoins

Reading Time: 4 mins read

The cryptocurrency market is currently undergoing an unsettling correction. This correction has got every company trying to figure out how to keep the waters out of their vessel. So, when you hear that some ‘thieves’ sneaked into Bitmart’s cargo area and made away with $200 million worth of stock, this has got to be the most devastating news ever.

Well, some hours ago, hackers reportedly breached Bitmart’s system and made away with what could possibly be the biggest score in crypto history- $200 million.

Currently, the company has released a statement confirming the loss in various cryptocurrencies, following the Saturday night attack.

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JUST IN: Crypto exchange #BitMart reportedly hacked for $200 million making it one of the largest crypto exchange hacks in history.

— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) December 5, 2021

The Unravelling

Bitmart’s security breach was brought to attention on Twitter by Peckshield, a security analysis firm.

Peckshield called attention to the hack by initially identifying a roughly $100 million transfer over the Ethereum blockchain. And upon further investigation, a concurrent hack of $96 million over the crypto exchange’s B.S.C. reserves.

The heist targeted a mix of over 20 tokens, including altcoins like the Safemoon, Binance Coin, BSC-USD, and BNBBPay. While additionally compromising sizable amounts of meme coins in the process, e.g. BabyDoge, Floki and Moonshot.

One of the affected addresses recorded a steady outflow of entire token balances. Some that carry a value of tens of millions, to an address labelled as the “Bitmart Hacker” by Etherscan.

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The security firm also said the hack was a straightforward transfer-out, swap, and wash the case.

PeckShield also showed several Telegram chats, of an admin from Bitmart refuting the allegations on the hacking of the exchange, shortly after.

Bitmart Responds

Sheldon Xia sent the first statement from Bitmart via Twitter. The founder and C.E.O. made a brief three-part statement on the matter.

Firstly, he did confirm the occurrence of the security breach on their wallets with an approximation of the stolen assets at USD150 million worth. Secondly, he did reassure the community that only two of their wallets with ‘a small percentage of assets on Bitmart’ were affected, with investigations underway. Then he did conclude by announcing the suspension of further withdrawals.

The second statement is from some minutes ago via Bitmart’s announcement page. And we can confirm that the information given was quite similar to what the C.E.O. presented on Twitter.

Conclusion

The community isn’t taking this matter lightly. While some are calling for the arrest and prosecution of the hackers, others don’t care about hackers, who are only doing what they love. Instead, they are suggesting that companies find ways to compensate the investors.

Yet all these seem to point the entire crypto community in one direction.

Companies and investors should stay alert. And crypto companies should institute rapid mitigation measures to protect every investor.

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