Mercado Bitcoin: $46M hack, withdrawals paused

Mercado Bitcoin, a Brazilian crypto exchange, has stopped deposits and withdrawals after losing an estimated $46 million in crypto to hackers. The exchange said it contained the incident this morning and that there was no harm to customers and no data breach. It called the suspension of deposits and withdrawals a precautionary measure and said it is investigating alongside competent authorities.

The exchange had already published the wallet addresses where the stolen funds were sent, to help track them.

Arkhham analyst Emmett Gallic claims the losses are worth more than $46 million and still growing. According to Gallic, many old deposit addresses are being swept by the hacker right now, while the attacker sells off memecoins and altcoins.

The incident adds to a run of large crypto thefts. The source notes that Binance, described as the world's largest crypto exchange, was hacked for over $6 billion the previous week, exceeding an earlier theft of almost $1.5 billion from Bybit. Binance has since reopened deposits and withdrawals and recorded more than $6 billion in net outflows, according to the same report.

The report also says the US Secret Service is involved in investigating the hack, which is believed to have been carried out by the North Korea-linked group Trader Traitor, and that node operators such as those run by THORChain have been told by the FBI to block transactions. Those details concern the wider investigation rather than Mercado Bitcoin's own statement.