BitMart CEO confirms repayment of lost funds; to resume services from 7 December

The ongoing bloodshed in the crypto market has created a lot of panic amongst the users. To make things worse, the BitMart exchange suffered a $200 million hack which further aggravating anxiety amongst participants. It became victim to a hot wallet compromise hosted over the Ethereum (ETH) and Binance Smart Chain (BSC) blockchains.

Marching forward

BitMart has completed the latest security check and identified affected assets. Team executives published a security breach update blog that read as:

“We have identified a large-scale security breach related to one of our ETH hot wallets and one of our BSC hot wallets today. At this moment we are still concluding the possible methods used. Hackers were able to withdraw assets of the value of approximately 150 million USD.”

BitMart CEO Sheldon Xia reiterated the same on Twitter. Meanwhile, the platform in question plans to compensate users out of its pocket. Xia stated:

“BitMart will use our own funding to cover the incident and compensate affected users. We are also talking to multiple project teams to confirm the most reasonable solutions such as token swaps. No user assets will be harmed.”

The affected ETH hot wallet and BSC hot wallet carry a small percentage of assets on BitMart. Whereas, other wallets remain secure and unharmed. However, the hack forced the exchange to temporarily stop all withdrawals and deposits.

The exchange will announce a timetable to gradually continue deposits and withdrawals, he said, adding that he is “confident” they will resume on 7 December, 2021. To maintain transparency and offset any panic within the ecosystem, the chief executives will conduct an AMA session later in the day to share more information. The tweet below highlights the same.

Our CEO @sheldonbitmart will conduct an AMA at 8PM EST Dec 6 on Telegram to share more info regarding the security breach, compensation arrangement, and how we plan to resume operation. We will strive to maintain transparency and your support to BitMart is highly appreciated. pic.twitter.com/83Q43W9aXf

— BitMart.Exchange (@BitMartExchange) December 6, 2021

Helping hands

Different crypto communities, exchanges aim to help the exchange strengthen security and track inflows of stolen assets. For instance, the SHIB community expressed support in a tweet that read as:

Dear #ShibArmy,

Even though the core of our project is decentralization, we want to show our support and give some love to our friends at @BitMartExchange, who are already working hard to fix the security incident that happened yesterday. pic.twitter.com/CJZjQHaP59

— Shib (@Shibtoken) December 5, 2021

Moreover, Huobi- one of the largest crypto exchanges announced it would help BitMart track the inflow of assets on its exchange and report matches to the stolen funds. Other members within the crypto sphere too have portrayed the same.

Rightfully so, the victim in this scenario did acknowledge the support & patience from its “BitMartians”.