Crypto exchange Bitmart loses $196m in hack

Bitmart, the centralized crypto exchange, has been on the wrong end of a sizable hack, losing $196m in various cryptos.
The hack first became known following a tweet from security analysis firm Peckshield on Saturday evening.
hot wallet compromised? @BitMartExchange https://t.co/pfb7215pBO pic.twitter.com/v2C1KYtaqd
— PeckShield Inc. (@peckshield) December 5, 2021
One of Bitmart’s addresses is showing outgoings of token balances worth in the tens of millions of dollars to a receiving address which goes by the name of “Bitmart Hacker”.
Following up from its original tweet, Peckshield said the losses were $100m in various cryptos on the Ethereum blockchain and $96m on the Binance Smart Chain.
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
The way the hacker got the tokens was by using DEX aggregator 1inch to swap the stolen assets for ETH, while using another address to put the ETH into Tornado Cash, the privacy mixer, thereby making it more difficult to track the stolen funds.
Bitmart initially referred to the outgoing funds as routine withdrawals, even referring to the hack as “fake news” via its Telegram channel.
Then, a few hours later, Bitmart CEO Sheldon Xia confirmed that a hack had taken place due to a “security breach”.
Interesting from @BitMartExchange ...😳😳😳 🙏🙏🙏 https://t.co/dFrzSww0fs pic.twitter.com/GuDB7bt2eC
— PeckShield Inc. (@peckshield) December 5, 2021
The $196m lost represents one of the largest crypto hacks yet.
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