Hacked Liquid Cryptocurrency Exchange, Over $ 90 Million Stolen

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An illustration showing physical bitcoins alongside binary code displayed on a laptop computer.

Jakub Porzycki | NurPhoto via Getty Images

Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Liquid said on Thursday it was hit by a cyberattack that saw hackers flee with $ 97 million in digital coins.

Liquid said some of its digital currency wallets had been “compromised” and the hackers were moving the assets to four different wallets.

“We are currently investigating and will provide regular updates,” Liquid tweeted. “In the meantime, deposits and withdrawals will be suspended.”

Liquid did not provide an estimate of the loss. He says it is regulated by the Financial Services Agency of Japan. The watchdog was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.

Elliptic, a blockchain analytics company, said its analysis showed that around $ 97 million worth of cryptocurrency had been obtained by hackers.

Of the total transport, $ 45 million in tokens were converted into ethereum through decentralized blockchain-based exchange platforms that do not require any middleman like Uniswap and SushiSwap, Elliptic said.

“This allows the hacker to prevent these assets from being frozen as is possible with many Ethereum tokens,” Elliptic said in a blog post.

Liquid ranks among the top 20 crypto exchanges in the world in terms of daily transaction volumes, processing more than $ 133 million in transactions in the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

This is the second major crypto heist to take place in just over a week. On August 10, hackers stole more than $ 600 million in digital tokens from Poly Network, a so-called decentralized finance company.

In an unusual turn of events, the hackers opened a dialogue with the organization they attacked and returned almost all of the funds. However, over $ 200 million remains stuck in an account that requires a password from the hacker.

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