Reshab AgarwalBitmart exchange gets hacked, losing around $196 million in different cryptocurrencies. This is one of the largest hacks in the crypto world and has been really devastating for Bitmart. The hack was reported by PeckShield as they monitored steady outflow of crypto tokens to an address labeled as the “Bitmart Hacker”. A lot of people lost their tokens, and the BitMart exchange CEO confirmed the hack on Twitter.
1/3 We have identified a large-scale security breach related to one of our ETH hot wallets and one of our BSC hot wallets. At this moment we are still concluding the possible methods used. The hackers were able to withdraw assets of the value of approximately USD 150 millions.
— Sheldon Xia (@sheldonbitmart) December 5, 2021
The hack
Peckshield tweeted regarding the hack, estimating around $196 million in losses. Of this, $100 million was in various cryptocurrencies from the Ethereum Chain, and the rest was on the Binance Smart Chain. It is also getting very difficult to track the funds because the hacker has swapped the tokens on 1inch to ETH. After that, the hacker used a privacy mixer, Tornado Cash, to prevent tracking. So, it seems like this hack’s intent was to steal the crypto funds and not to showcase the security bug.
Total estimated loss: ~200M (~100M on @ethereum and ~96M on @BinanceChain ). (Previously we only counted the loss on @ethereum). And here is the list of affected assets/amounts on @BinanceChain pic.twitter.com/cXXApDFtd7
— PeckShield Inc. (@peckshield) December 5, 2021
This is sad because the last time we heard about such a big hack, it was around $600 million on the MATIC blockchain, and the hackers returned the stolen funds. But Bitmart seems to be in bad luck, and I hope they fix the security bug really soon. The bad part is that the BitMart Telegram group admin has been saying this is fake news while the CEO has admitted that they were hacked. Sharing wrong information with one’s users is not the right thing to do, and I am sure they will get a backlash for the same.
Tokens stolen
Bitmart is popular for listing new meme coins and any new tokens that come out. This is the reason all the stolen coins were meme coins. It is also the reason why hackers are converting everything to ETH.
I am not particularly a big fan of BitMart, and I also think it’s best to avoid most crypto exchanges. Using the most popular ones like Binance helps to be much safer from hacks like these. What are your thoughts on the same? Let us know in the comments below. Also, if you found our content informative, do like and share it with your friends.
Also Read: SEC Chairman Gary Gensler doesn’t like Bitcoin’s approach to finance.