Crypto Investors Withdraw Assets from HTX Following Series of Hacks
Summary:
Following a November 22 exploit that led to a $30 million loss, crypto investors have begun to move their assets away from cryptocurrency exchange HTX. From November 25 to December 10, HTX saw net outflows of $258 million. Huobi, Poloniex , and the HTX Eco Chain (HECO) bridge—related entities of HTX—have been hacked four times in the past two months, causing significant losses. November recorded the highest crypto theft for the year, with bad actors absconding with $363 million in digital assets.
Following an exploit on November 22 that resulted in a $30 million loss and temporary suspension of its services, cryptocurrency investors have gradually withdrawn their assets from HTX, the cryptocurrency exchange formerly known as Huobi. Data from DefiLlama reveals that from November 25, the day HTX renewed its operations, till December 10, there were net outflows amounting to $258 million. DefiLlama's data also shows that HTX’s reserves consist of 32.3% Bitcoin and 31.8% Tron, the virtual currency of Tron's blockchain network, which was created by Sun in 2017. As of the time of this report, HTX stands as the 16th largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of daily trading volume, with a 24-hour trading volume totaling $1.6 billion according to CoinMarketCap data.
Once HTX recommenced operations on November 25, Sun gave assurances that HTX users impacted by the hot wallet losses would be fully compensated and announced an ongoing investigation.
However, HTX and other entities related to Sun, including the Poloniex cryptocurrency exchange and the HTX Eco Chain (HECO) bridge, have been compromised four times in the last two months. The first breach at HTX took place less than a fortnight after its rebranding, with an unidentified perpetrator making away with almost $8 million of cryptocurrency on September 24, 2023.
The most significant of these breaches saw a loss of $100 million from the Poloniex exchange on November 10, an incident allegedly triggered by a private key breach. In another major attack, the HTX HECO Chain bridge – an instrument developed for transferring digital assets between HTX and alternative blockchain networks – was seriously breached on November 22, resulting in at least $86.6 million being sent to questionable addresses.
November was a particularly bad month for attacks on digital assets, with hackers and bad actors obtaining $363 million worth of ill-gotten cryptocurrency, the highest for the year.
Efforts to reach out to HTX for a statement by Cointelegraph didn't get an immediate response.
Published At
12/11/2023 8:50:00 AM
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