Mercado Bitcoin halts transfers after hack hits wallets across 10 blockchains

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Mercado Bitcoin halts transfers after hack

Highlights

Mercado Bitcoin paused deposits and withdrawals after wallets tied to its platform were drained of over $40 million across at least 10 blockchains.
Attacker currently controls approximately 2,852 ETH, 106 BTC, 10,700 SOL, 6.7 million XLM, 77,000 AVAX, and over 200 other tokens after plain transaction outflows.
Tether froze $4.5 million in USDT linked to the hack, as the breach follows the FBI's reveal of North Korea's $6 billion Binance theft and raises security concerns.

Exchange response and scale of losses

As reported by CoinDesk, citing Mercado Bitcoin in a statement on X, the exchange says it has identified and swiftly contained a security incident, with no harm to customers and no data breach. The company says deposits and withdrawals are paused as a precaution while its teams investigate the breach, track the assets and coordinate with authorities.

Security firms estimate the loss at more than $40 million after wallets tied to the platform are drained across at least 10 blockchains on Monday. Pablo Sabbatella, founder of crypto security firm Opsek, relays a report saying the biggest outflows occur between 06:19 and 06:53 UTC, when wallets on Ethereum, Solana, Tron, Polygon, Arbitrum, Avalanche, BSC, Stellar and other chains send most of their funds to fresh addresses.

The report says the attacker now holds about 2,852 ETH, 106 BTC, 10,700 SOL, 6.7 million XLM and 77,000 AVAX, along with more than 200 other tokens. The transfers are described as plain transactions rather than a smart contract exploit, and how the attacker obtained signing access remains unknown.

Broader crypto security fallout

Mercado Bitcoin later publishes destination addresses on EVM chains, Bitcoin, Solana, Stellar and Tron to help the market track the stolen funds. No attribution has been made, and there is no public evidence linking the incident to the recent Binance attack.

Tether founder Paolo Ardoino says $4.5 million in USDT linked to the hack has been frozen. The breach comes days after the FBI says North Korea's TraderTraitor hacking group stole more than $6 billion from Binance, intensifying scrutiny on exchange wallet security and incident response across the crypto sector.

In our earlier article on CTOS Digital’s cybersecurity incident, we outlined how the breach and resulting service disruptions could directly hit the company’s financial performance. CTOS Digital estimated the incident would reduce net profit by RM12 million and revenue by RM16 million if some services remained unavailable until the third week of October, with additional disruption potentially worsening the impact.

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