Hackers drain more than $77 million from AscendEX hot wallets

Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange AscendEX said it had suffered a breach of its hot wallets for Ethereum, Polygon and Binance Smart Chain (BSC).

22:00 UTC 12/11, We have detected a number of ERC-20, BSC, and Polygon tokens transferred from our hot wallet. Cold Wallet is NOT affected. Investigation underway. If any user’s funds are affected by the incident, they will be covered completely by AscendEX.

— AscendEX (@AscendEX_Global) December 12, 2021

“We have detected that ERC-20, BSC and Polygon tokens were withdrawn from our hot wallet. Cold wallets were not affected. Investigation underway,” the company said.

AscendEX also pledged to compensate all user losses, but, at the time of writing, had not disclosed the amount of the loss.

PeckShield noted that hackers drained $77.7 million from the bitcoin exchange. According to analysts, the attackers stole $8.5 million in Polygon tokens, $9.2 million — BSC, $60 million — Ethereum.

Estimated loss @AscendEX_Global: $77.7M in total ($60M on @ethereum $9.2M @BinanceChain $8.5M @0xPolygon). Here is the list of the transferred-out assets and their amounts on @ethereum pic.twitter.com/VC4DKOwu4f

— PeckShield Inc. (@peckshield) December 12, 2021

Huobi will do its best to assist #AscendEX in handling this issue. As part of its security protocol, it has blacklisted related assets and will report any inflows of such assets in a timely manner.

“Huobi will do our best to assist #AscendEX in handling this issue. As part of our security protocol, we have blacklisted these related assets and will report on any inflows of such assets in a timely manner”.

Huobi will do our best to assist #AscendEX in handling this issue. As part of our security protocol, we have blacklisted these related assets and will report on any inflows of such assets in a timely manner.

— Huobi (@HuobiGlobal) December 12, 2021

AscendEX was founded in 2018 under the name BitMax. In March 2021 the company underwent a rebrand, and in November — raised $50 million from Polychain Capital, Hack VC and other investors.

Earlier, hackers drained more than $150 million from hot wallets of the Cayman Islands-registered cryptocurrency exchange BitMart.

Read ForkLog’s bitcoin news in our Telegram — cryptocurrency news, rates and analysis.