The Paypers

Security analysis firm Peckshield first called attention to the alleged hack, as one of Bitmart’s addresses showed steady outflows of entire token balances, some worth tens of millions USD, to an address labeled by Etherscan as the ‘Bitmart Hacker.’

Peckshield estimated the losses to be USD 100 million in various cryptocurrencies on the Ethereum blockchain and USD 96 million on Binance Smart Chain. The hacker has been systematically using decentralised exchange (DEX) aggregator 1inch to swap the stolen assets for the cryptocurrency ether (ETH) and using a secondary address to deposit the ETH into privacy mixer Tornado Cash thus making the hacked funds harder to track.

Bitmart representatives initially claimed that the outflows were routine withdrawals, referring to the reports of the hack as ‘fake news.’ Hours later, however, Bitmart CEO Sheldon Xia confirmed that the outflows were indeed a hack resulting from a ‘security breach.’

Bitmart crypto exchange hacked for USD 196 mln