Crypto Trading Platform Bitmart vs. Hackers
Hackers attack various companies on a regular basis and the crypto trading platform Bitmart is not an exception. On Saturday, the crypto trading platform confirmed the hack in an official statement. Bitmart wrote that hackers withdrew about $150 million in assets. The crypto trading platform made an important decision. Bitmart launched a comprehensive security review.
Nevertheless, blockchain security and data analytics firm Peckshield estimates that the loss is closer to $200 million. Interestingly, the firm mentioned above was the first to notice the breach on Saturday.
The firm noted that one of the platform’s addresses showed a steady outflow of tens of millions of dollars to an address that Etherscan referred to as the “Bitmart Hacker.” It estimated that the crypto trading platform lost around $100 million in various cryptocurrencies on the Ethereum blockchain. Bitmart also lost $96 million from coins on the Binance smart chain. Hackers who attacked the crypto trading platform made off with a mix of more than 20 tokens, including binance coin, safemoon, and shiba inu.
Bitmart and important details
The crypto trading platform said that the affected Ethereum as well as Binance smart chain “hot wallets” carried only a “small percentage” of the exchange’s assets.
This platform offers a mix of spot transactions, leveraged futures trading, as well as lending and staking services. Bitmart typically ranks as one of the top centralized crypto exchanges by volume.
After transferring funds out of the crypto trading platform, hackers apparently used the decentralized exchange aggregator. They used ‘1inch’ to exchange stolen tokens for ether. From there, coins were deposited into a privacy mixer Tornado Cash.
Criminals often look to a mixing or tumbling service according to Rick Holland from Digital Shadows. Such services allow users to combine illicit funds with clean crypto to essentially make a new type of cryptocurrency. At that point hackers turn to currency swaps.
Bitmart is not alone as other platforms are also trying to cope with similar problems. Crypto lender Celsius Network lost funds as a result of the $120 million hack of the DeFi platform BadgerDAO.
