Bitcoin Market blocks US$11.2 million after hacking and suspends withdrawals and deposits
Brokerage says that the incident was contained in the early hours of the morning and that there was no harm to customers, but did not confirm the volume indicated by the monitor.
BY THE X-TRADER NEWS NEWSROOM · REPORTING FROM TIMES BRASIL · 2 MIN
Mercado Bitcoin claims to have blocked US$11.2 million in crypto assets linked to a security incident, according to Times Brasil. The announcement came on Monday (2), the day the broker temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals and the platform went offline. For those who keep resources on exchanges, the episode reignites an old question: how safe are assets when something goes wrong?
According to the same vehicle, the total volume involved in the case would reach around US$49 million. The company mentioned, in the blocking, the names of Tether, Circle, BRL1, Paxos and Chainalysis, and said it had identified other values that could also be blocked.
Hypernative, a blockchain monitoring company, claims that more than US$40 million was moved from wallets attributed to MB. The broker did not confirm this number, which leaves the real scale of the incident unclear.
According to the company, the invasion was identified and contained in the early hours of Monday. In a statement published on the X network, MB stated that there is no harm to customers or data leaks. The company did not say how much it would have lost on its own.
The case comes just days after a $6.3 billion theft from Binance, another reminder that concentration of custody on large platforms takes a toll when failures occur. In a sector that requires trust in intermediaries, the speed of response and transparency about the numbers matter as much as the size of the broker.
What changes for the investor
For those who operate or store crypto assets in brokers, the case shows that the risk of custody exists even on well-known platforms, and that the suspension of withdrawals may prevent access to one's balance for some time. There is still no clarity on the total that will actually be recovered nor on the amounts that the company says it can block. It is important to monitor official communications and assess how much of the assets are concentrated in a single brokerage. This article is not a recommendation to buy or sell.
Automatically translated from Portuguese.
