One of Turkey's most prominent cryptocurrency exchanges, BtcTurk, was hit by a cyberattack that led to unauthorized access to some of its hot wallets. The exchange announced a certain level of asset loss, however, it claims there is enough financial stability to overcome this setback.
BtcTurk recovered $5.3 million, but how big was the loss?
in Latest status updateBtcTurk shared that its team discovered a hack had occurred on its platform on June 22, causing great concern in the cryptocurrency community.
While the total amount lost was not disclosed, BtcTurk stated that this incident only led to the hot wallets of 10 cryptocurrencies being hacked, while all cold wallets, which the Turkish exchange claims hold the majority of its assets, remain safe.
Commenting on the incident, Richard Ting, CEO of Binance, said: Announce A collaborative investigative effort between both exchanges resulted in the recovery of $5.3 million worth of stolen assets.
Teng said:
Binance is assisting BtcTurk with the investigation and has frozen more than $5.3 million in stolen funds so far.
Our investigations and security teams work around the clock as part of our proactive efforts to protect the ecosystem from bad actors. We will provide further updates as appropriate.
Meanwhile, popular investigator ZachXBT has provided some insights into the possible identity of the bad actors behind this hack.
According to ZachXBT, the hackers are likely linked to the address 0x327a81d0d128db8886d265be73c9fdda97194f30, which recently noted the transfer of 1.96 million AVAX ($54.2 million) to Coinbase and THORChain resulting in a 10% drop in the price of AVAX. ZachXBT has it based on His concerns about the presence of BtcTurk's AVAX market address on the Avalanche X series.
At the moment, the Turkish Stock Exchange has neither confirmed nor denied this theory, but all withdrawal and deposit transactions on the trading platform have been disabled. BtcTurk claims that the hack did not affect its strong financial position and has assured all users of the safety of their assets.
Will 2024 see a second cryptocurrency exchange hack – a growing cause for concern?
The cyber attack on BtcTurk marks the second hack of a cryptocurrency exchange in 2024 after Japanese exchange DMM Bitcoin lost $305 million worth of bitcoin in a security breach in May.
In general, hacks on cryptocurrency exchanges attract a lot of attention due to the custodial nature of these platforms which allows them to possess the private keys of their customers.
Furthermore, these platforms are known to have larger funds than their DeFi counterparts. For context, Koenjiku Reports Binance, the world's largest exchange, records 13 times the daily trading volume of the most prominent decentralized exchange, Uniswap.
However, all forms of hacks or attacks reinforce the need for continuous and collaborative security developments in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Featured image from WIRED, chart from Tradingview