Mercado Bitcoin, Brazil’s largest domestic cryptocurrency exchange, has suspended deposits and withdrawals after suffering a security incident reportedly involving more than $40 million in digital assets.
Blockchain security firm Hypernative first flagged the suspicious activity on November 2 after identifying transfers from wallets attributed to Mercado Bitcoin to newly created addresses across multiple blockchain networks. The firm estimated that more than $40 million worth of assets may have been affected.
Mercado Bitcoin later acknowledged the incident in an official update and said deposits and withdrawals had been temporarily suspended while its teams investigated the breach.
Advertisement
The exchange has maintained that customer funds remain safe, while the exact value of the assets lost has not yet been independently confirmed by Mercado Bitcoin. The incident comes just days after the record $6.3 billion Binance hack, renewing scrutiny around the security of centralized cryptocurrency exchanges.
Mercado Bitcoin suspends deposits and withdrawals
Following the incident, Mercado Bitcoin temporarily halted deposits and withdrawals while it investigated the affected systems and traced the movement of funds. The exchange said customer assets remain protected and that its teams are working to determine the full scope of the incident.
At the time of publication, Mercado Bitcoin had not publicly confirmed the approximately $40 million loss estimate cited by blockchain security researchers.
The transactions identified by Hypernative appear to have been ordinary signed cryptocurrency transfers rather than transactions exploiting a smart contract vulnerability.
That raises questions over how the attacker may have obtained the ability to authorize transactions from the affected wallets. It remained unclear whether private keys, internal signing infrastructure, employee credentials, or another part of Mercado Bitcoin’s systems had been compromised.
Mercado Bitcoin has not yet disclosed the technical cause of the incident. The reported $40 million loss remains subject to confirmation as Mercado Bitcoin and blockchain security firms continue tracing the affected assets and investigating the breach.
Featured image via Shutterstock
