Mercado Bitcoin suspends withdrawals after attack, days after the Binance theft
Brazilian exchange says it contained the incident in the early hours of Monday and that clients suffered no losses and no data was leaked.
Translated from the Portuguese original by the Panorama newsroom. Read in Portuguese
Summary written by the Panorama newsroom from the sources listed below. Facts are attributed to the original publications.
Mercado Bitcoin, a Brazilian crypto-asset exchange, reported on Monday (2) that it had experienced a security incident and temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals. In a post on X, the company said it identified and contained the attack overnight, according to g1.
The exchange said there were no losses for clients and no data leak, and that its teams are investigating the case, tracing assets and coordinating measures with authorities. Contacted by g1, the company did not confirm whether there was a theft or unauthorized movement of crypto-assets and also did not say when operations will return to normal.
The episode comes just days after the US$ 6.3 billion (about R$ 34 billion) theft from Binance on Thursday (29). The FBI attributed that attack to North Korea, to the group TraderTraitor, and g1 reports that the operation lasted about 20 minutes.
According to Binance, as of the latest update clients had withdrawn US$ 3.64 billion more than they deposited since Sunday, when withdrawals were partially reopened.
g1 also recalls that crypto-assets are not issued by governments and can undergo sharp price swings, which increases risk for investors.