The cryptocurrency exchange AscendEX (formerly Bitmax) has been hacked, as a result of which assets worth $77 million were stolen from its hot wallets.
“We found that ERC20, Binance Smart Chain, and Polygon tokens were pulled out of our hot wallet. Cold wallets are not affected. The investigation is ongoing. All assets lost by users will be fully compensated by AscendEX,” the company said in a statement.
PeckShield, one of the blockchain security companies, shared important data on the attack shortly after AscendEX's announcement. According to the data shared by PeckShield, while $60 million worth of assets on the Ethereum network were stolen, $9.2 million of BSC tokens, $8.5 million of Polygon, and a total of $77 million of crypto assets were transferred to other wallets. AtoZ Markets has also learned that in the hack attack, a significant part of the stolen assets were USD Coin (USDC), Tether (USDT), Taraxa (TARA). However, the popular cryptocurrency platform AscendEX has not yet provided information on the total value and type of stolen assets.
Meanwhile, Huobi has already volunteered to support AscendEX in mitigating the aftermath of the attack:
“Huobi will do its best to help AscendEX resolve this issue. As part of our security protocol, we have added linked assets to the blacklist and will notify them in a timely manner when such assets arrive."
AscendEX was founded in 2018 under the name BitMax. In March 2021, the company underwent a rebranding, and in November it raised $50 million from Polychain Capital, Hack VC, and other investors.
Read also: UK Court Orders Binance to Find Hackers Who Stole Fetch.ai Tokens
Vulcan Forged NFT platform hacked
In a related development, hackers have compromised 148 wallets of users of the Vulcan Forged NFT marketplace and stole 4.5 million PYR tokens (more than $100 million at the time of writing).
148 wallets holding PYR have been compromised. Over 4.5m PYR has been been stolen.
— Vulcan Forged (@VulcanForged) December 13, 2021
While we will replace the PYR taken, our first steps are understanding what’s happened.
No words can do much right now, we know that. We’ll keep updated.
According to Vulcan Forged, hackers gained access to users' private keys.
The team emphasized that it has already approached the exchanges with a request to blacklist the address of the wallet associated with the hack. It is also reported that at one of the sites, its owner could undergo the KYC procedure, but Vulcan Forged has not yet disclosed details.
The marketplace promised to compensate for all stolen PYR tokens, as well as other coins if the attackers stole them. The platform team has also begun developing a fully decentralized wallet setup solution.
Against the background of the news, Vulcan Forged PYR price today dropped 12%.
BitMart crypto exchange suffers hack attack
Last week, AtoZ Markets reported that crypto exchange BitMart, based in the Cayman Islands, was hacked. According to PeckShield, $100 million worth of tokens were stolen from one of the exchange's Ethereum hot wallets. In the shares, it was emphasized that most of the assets seized by hackers were Shiba Inu. Shortly after PeckShield's shares, an official statement came from the stock market and the attack was confirmed. The official statement stated that the loss was worth $150 million, while no details were given about the Shiba Inu or other stolen assets.
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