The global Cryptocurrency trading platform BitMart has recently witnessed a security breach in the wake of which the company has released a statement and confirmed that the hackers have managed to steal $150 million in various cryptocurrencies. Sheldon Xia, BitMart’s CEO, and founder confirmed the breach on Twitter.
The company confirmed in the statement that although all wallets, except ETH and BSC, are “secure and unharmed,” Bitmart has temporarily paused all withdrawals until further notice.
“The affected ETH hot wallet and BSC hot wallet carry a small percentage of assets on BitMart and all of our other wallets are secure and unharmed. We are now conducting a thorough security review and we will post updates as we progress,” the company said in a statement.
Additionally, Sheldon Xia said that during the investigation they discovered that the cryptocurrencies were drained by using a stolen private key which usually enables a user to access their cryptocurrency.
Furthermore, the company’s intelligence confirmed that it will compensate victims, it will use its own assets to recompense victims of this large-scale security breach. As per the sources, hackers withdrew $150 million in assets. However, blockchain security and data analytics firm Peckshield, which first confirmed the attack, claims that the loss is closer to $200 million.
Owing to the cyberattack, the trade volume of the company has gone down, CoinGecko CEO Bobby reported. “Crypto exchange hacks are fairly common. Exchanges are a honeypot for hackers because of the high potential payoff for any successful exploit,” he said.
Bitmart was created by cryptocurrency enthusiasts, the roadmap began in November 2017. It has worldwide offices, with the company being registered in the Cayman Islands.
The platform offers a mix of spot trading, OTC trading, leveraged futures trading as well as lending and staking services, and other services for digital assets. Also, in April, Bitmart registered with US regulators and was named MSB.
