Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange – Crypto.com – on Monday, January 17, announced the temporal suspension of withdrawals after its hot wallets were compromised.
Crypto.com halted withdrawals after users reported “unauthorized activity” on their wallets. Billy Markus, the co-founder of Dogecoin, also pointed to a suspicious transaction pattern on Etherscan.
We have a small number of users reporting suspicious activity on their accounts. We will be pausing withdrawals shortly, as our team is investigating. All funds are safe.Breached, But No Funds Lost— Crypto.com (@cryptocom) January 17, 2022
After about 14 hours after the initial announcement, Crypto.com announced to its users that withdrawals had resumed and all funds were safe.
Insisting that no funds were compromised, Crypto.com advised users to sign back into their app, exchange accounts, and reset their two-factor authentication.
Deferring Reports – Up to $15 Million in ETH was Stolen
Despite reporting that funds were safe, multiple sources have reported that up to $15 million or 4,600 ETH was stolen from the exchange. Many users who have complained have reported losses between 2-5 ETH.
One of such victims is, Ben Baller, a crypto enthusiast and entrepreneur. According to Baller, his losses amounted to 4.25 ETH or the equivalent of $13,924.
It’s wild. After some digging. Since after my 4.28ETH was taken from my @cryptocom wallet, I began to check their ETH wallet and in the last 6 hours they’ve been cleaned out for about 5,000ETH! So this ain’t just a small amount of users. That’s $16M— BEN BALLER (@BENBALLER) January 17, 2022
On the Flipside
- Crypto.com reportedly holds 100% of its user funds in offline cold wallets, using an institutional-grade solution by Ledger.
Why You Should Care
While hacks and scams are rampant in decentralized finance, it remains unclear how a centralized exchange of such a high caliber was hacked of $15 million.
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