Virtual currency exchange Bitrue, Ethereum and other assets worth 3 billion yen illegally leaked

1 year ago 71

Illegal outflow of virtual currency

Singapore-based crypto asset (virtual currency) exchange Bitrue announced on the 14th that assets were illegally leaked from its hot wallet.

The hot wallet was attacked at 16:18 on the 14th of Japan time. The outflow of assets this time is equivalent to 3 billion yen (approximately 23 million dollars). Bitrue said it is currently investigating and plans to suspend withdrawals until the 18th.

1/4: We have identified a brief exploit in one of our hot wallets on 07:18 (UTC), 14 April 2023. We were able to address this matter quickly and prevented the further exploit of funds. are currently investigating the situation. pic.twitter.com/QioPHSB2DM

—Bitrue (@BitrueOfficial) April 14, 2023

Listed below are the stocks that have been confirmed to have leaked at this time.

Ethereum (ETH)
Polygon (MATIC)
Shibainu Token (SHIB)
GALA
Quant (QNT)
Holo Token (HOT)

This time, one of Bitrue’s hot wallets was attacked, and the leaked assets were equivalent to 5% of the company’s total assets. All other assets in wallets are kept safe.

He also explained that the investigation of unauthorized outflow will be conducted with high transparency and that the progress will be reported. Bitrue says it will provide full compensation to users who have lost their assets.

Blockchain security firm PeckShield tracked down attackers who exfiltrated assets from Bitrue. The following quantities have already been swapped to Ethereum:

310,000 MATIC
22.55 billion SHIB
46.4 million GALA
173,000 QNT

#PeckShieldAlert $QNT has dropped -11% within 3 hours
Bitrue Drainer-labeled address swapped 173K $QNT22.55B $SHIB46.4M $GALA and 310K $MATIC for ~8,540 $ETH
Bitrue Drainer received ~$22M worth of cryptos (~320 $ETH173K $QNT172.55B $SHIB46.4M $GALA756.15M $HOT and… pic.twitter.com/BLTCL5Kvz8

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) April 14, 2023

Bitrue is an exchange founded in 2018. According to its official website, it lists more than 700 stocks. According to CoinGecko data, the 24-hour trading volume is equivalent to 286 billion yen (approximately $2.1 billion).

Unauthorized outflow in 2019

Centralized exchanges like Bitrue typically store a portion of their assets in hot wallets for faster withdrawals. Because hot wallets are connected to the internet, they can be the target of attacks like this one.

The company had assets stolen from hot wallets in 2019 as well. 9.3 million XRP of XRP and 2.5 million ADA of Ada (ADA) were leaked, and the damage amount was equivalent to 500 million yen at that time.

connection: 9.3 million XRP and 2.5 million ADA hacked at overseas virtual currency exchange Bitrue

Most recently, South Korean exchange GDAC announced this week that assets had been stolen from its hot wallet. 1.9 billion yen worth of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum were leaked.

connection: South Korea’s virtual currency exchange GDAC, assets worth 1.9 billion yen illegally leaked

What is a hot wallet

Refers to a “wallet” that is connected to the Internet and plays the role of a wallet for storing virtual currency. Since it is connected to the Internet, it has the advantage of being able to make transactions and remittances immediately, but there are concerns about security such as unauthorized access damage.

Cryptocurrency Glossary