Bitrue crypto exchange is reporting the hack of one of its hot wallets. More than $22 million has reportedly gone missing. The exchange has announced to close withdrawals until April 18.
A hot wallet hack at Bitrue cryptocurrency exchange allowed attackers to take approximately $23 million in crypto assets. Bitrue said on April 14 that it had to temporarily halt all withdrawals due to a “brief exploit” of their hot wallet. Following further security measures, the company aims to resume withdrawals on April 18, 2023.
A Twitter account, “vooidds” first reported that Bitrue’s wallet sent 320 Ethereum (ETH) to an unknown wallet 0x34D8. Later they transferred 318 ETH to the drainer wallet 0x1819. Additionally, the drainer received 173,000 Quant (QNT), 172.55 billion Shiba Inu (SHIB), 46.4 million GALA, 756.15 million Holo (HOT), and 310,000 Polygon (MATIC). In total, they received over $23 million worth of assets, but gradually they dumped all the QNT tokens in the open market. The hacker holds around $22 million worth of assets as of writing.
Bitrue emphasized that it was able to resolve the issue immediately, allowing the platform to avoid additional draining of assets. The company stated that they take the matter seriously and are currently investigating, adding that the impacted hot wallet accounted for less than 5% of the exchange’s total cash.
“The rest of our wallets Continue to remain secure and have not been compromised. We are conducting a thorough security review and will update you as we make progress.”
The exchange’s executives promised to fully compensate all the identified users affected by the incident. The impacted currencies on the hacked hot wallet were Ether (ETH), Shiba Inu (SHIB), Quant (QNT), Gala (GALA), Holo (HOT), and Polygon (MATIC), according to the announcement.
Bitrue Reports Crypto Hack After Four Days
The exchange assured its users that the affected hot wallet held less than 5% of the total funds, and the remaining wallets remain secure. However, the funds were stolen from Bitrue four days ago. In contrast, the exchange reported the exploit today after on-chain investigators mentioned it on Twitter. Due to this, Bitrue faced backlash from the community.
Founded in Singapore in 2018, Bitrue is a major centralized cryptocurrency exchange, trading nearly $2 billion in crypto per day on average, acCording to data from CoinGecko. The company has been hacked in the past, losing nearly $5 million in Cardano (ADA) due to a hot wallet hack in 2019.
