Cryptocurrency Exchange KuCoin Hacked, $150 Million M

 

A lot of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrency left the exchange all at once. About $150 million worth, actually.

By Jeff Benson

2 min read

Sep 26, 2020

KuCoin, which touts itself as "the most advanced and secure cryptocurrency exchange to buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, TRON, USDT, NEO, XRP, KCS, and more" has been hacked, and $150 million in funds may be gone.

The company confirmed that late on September 25 (UTC time), "Bitcoin, ERC-20 and other tokens in KuCoin's hot wallets were transferred out of the exchange."

It maintains that, while its hot wallets were hit, its cold wallets are safe. Moreover, it claimed in its announcement, "If any user fund is affected by this incident, it will be covered completely by KuCoin and our insurance fund."

The trouble started when users started complaining about withdrawal issues.

Initially, KuCoin's admin team seemed to maintain that it was experiencing a systems issue. At least one admin message on KuCoin's Telegram channel indicated that users should not withdraw or deposit funds "given the situation." It claimed that "transactions are simply pending."

It then became apparent that about $150 million worth of tokens had been moved to a different address. The address received transactions of 11,484 Ether, worth roughly $4 million, plus $146 million in transactions of other tokens. Many are little-known, such as Gladius, Chroma, Ocean Token, and Hawala, but there were also Maker, OMG, and YFI tokens in the mi