In one of the latest hacks to rock cryptocurrency, crypto exchange CoinEX has fallen victim to a massive exploit, leading to over $27.8 million loss.
Hackers Drain $27.5 Million From Exchange’s Hot Wallets
According to a report by crypto journalist Colin Wu, this latest attack on CoinEX has caused the exodus of more than $27.5 million from the exchange’s Ethereum, Tron, and Polygon hot wallets.
Based on available information, the attack has caused a loss of massive amounts of ETH, MATIC, TRX tokens from CoinEX’s wallets. Although there has been no official report from the cryptocurrency exchange, blockchain security firms have notified CoinEX of the suspected hack.
“Hi @coinexcom, suspicious outflow of large funds from #coinex hot wallets,” blockchain security firm PeckShield wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
According to Wu Blockchain’s report, the Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange seems to be transferring assets on the affected wallets to the cold wallet 0xf54…7E5d. Colin Wu added:
CoinEX wallets currently hold $97.83 million in assets, of which $89 million are stored in the cold wallet address 0xf54…7E5d, mainly ETH worth $51.7 million and USDT $18.23 million.
CoinEX Disables Withdrawals Due To “Wallet Maintenance”
As earlier noted, CoinEX has yet to make any official statement on the suspected exploit of its wallets. Meanwhile, some X users have urged customers to start withdrawing their funds from the cryptocurrency exchange.
However, it appears that CoinEX has disabled deposit and withdrawal operations on its platform. According to Colin Wu’s report, the cryptocurrency exchange claims the reason for pausing deposits and withdrawals is “wallet maintenance.”
While most blockchain security firms have yet to provide a detailed report on the hack, some crypto community members have questioned the suspicious nature of the attack.
Notably, CryptoQuant’s head of research, Julian Moreno, disclosed suspicious depletion of the exchange’s ETH reserves in the past few months. Moreno revealed that almost 5,000 ETH was transferred today, while 40,000 ETH has been moved since May 2023.
Yes, we're seeing weird behavior of its ETH reserves.Almost 5K ETH gone today in an hour and 40K ETH since May.Reserves are now basically zero ETH. pic.twitter.com/7ONSf2pRkp
— Julio Moreno (@jjcmoreno) September 12, 2023
It is worth noting that this is not the first time CoinEX will fall victim to an exploit. The cryptocurrency exchange was attacked in 2014, resulting in the loss of all its Bitcoin holdings.
Featured image from iStock, chart from TradingView