Mercado Bitcoin Hack $8 Million Larger Than First Reported - PYMNTS.com
Hackers stole $48.6 million from Brazilian cryptocurrency exchange Mercado Bitcoin, $8 million more than initially reported, continuing their theft for four hours after the company claimed to have contained the breach.
The hackers drained 36,042 customer deposit addresses on Ethereum between 12:27 and 16:46 UTC on Nov. 2, despite Mercado Bitcoin claiming at 12:56 UTC that it had contained the breach. Blockchain data from Bitquery revealed the theft was larger than initially reported, with $48.6 million stolen across 10 blockchains compared to the $40 million first disclosed.
Extended Breach
The findings cast doubt on how quickly Mercado Bitcoin actually halted the attack and suggest the attackers accessed systems used to manage customer deposits. The exchange has pledged to cover all user losses from the hack, with partners including Tether, Circle and Chainalysis helping freeze more than $15 million of the stolen assets.
The industry is asking authorities to recognize open blockchain infrastructure as suitable for increasingly important financial functions while investigators confront the difficulty of controlling illicit funds moving through decentralized networks.
Larger Trend
The attack on Mercado Bitcoin is part of a larger wave of recent crypto crime, highlighted by the $6 billion hack into the Binance exchange last week, now believed to be the largest financial theft in history. The investigation also uncovered ties to another attack involving wallets believed to belong to the BitMart crypto exchange.
Against this backdrop, Circle’s recent appeal to the Securities and Exchange Commission underscores the difficult balance regulators are being asked to strike. The company urged the commission to preserve technology neutrality under its proposed Regulation Crypto Assets framework and provide more clarity on its treatment of permissionless networks.
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