- Poloniex becomes the second crypto exchange owned by Justin Sun to lose millions to a hack
- Initial findings showed the loss exceeds the $60 million mark, but the latest report claims it to be over $100 million
Update:
The hack has now resulted in a loss exceeding $100 million, according to Arkham Intelligence. Additionally, the hacker has stolen the most amount of cryptocurrencies from the Ethereum chain, valued at $56.91 million. The biggest loss on this chain is ETH, with the hacker currently owning over $35 million worth of coins, followed by 0x and Link, with its stolen coins worth over $2 million.
Source: Arkham Intelligence
Another day, another hack. This time around, Justin Sun’s crypto exchange – Poloniex – has reportedly fallen victim to a theft. This has resulted in the platform incurring a loss of over $60 million, according to Colin Wu. This incident was also confirmed by Peckshied, a blockchain security and data analytics company.
So far, the crypto exchange has lost money in several cryptocurrencies, including Link, TRX, and TUSD. An updated post by Wu states,
“Before being frozen, the hacker’s Tron chain address transferred large assets such as $21.73 million in USDT, $14.05 million in BTC, $3.65 million in USDD, and $1.78 million in USDC to other addresses, totaling more than US$42.83 million. Only $6.54 million is currently frozen.”
According to the exchange’s latest X (Twitter) post, Poloniex’s wallet “has been disabled for maintenance.” The platform, however, did not mention the root cause for the suspension and there has been no official mention of a hack.
The founder of Tron and owner of Poloniex – Justin Sun has spoken about the incident on his official X account stating that the team was investigating the hack incident. The Tron founder has also promised to “fully reimburse the affected funds”, claiming that the exchange “maintains a healthy financial position.” Sun also stated that the team was “exploring opportunities for collaboration with other exchanges” to recover the stolen funds”
We are offering a 5% white hat bounty to the Poloniex hacker. Please return the funds to the following ETH/TRX/BTC wallets. We will give you 7 days to consider this offer before we engage law enforcement.
ETH Wallet: 0x176F3DAb24a159341c0509bB36B833E7fdd0a132 TRX:…— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) November 10, 2023
Poloniex becomes Sun’s second exchange to fall
Interestingly, reports of a hack surfaced months after Sun’s other crypto exchange – HTX also fell victim to a hack. The exchange, which was previously known as Huobi, lost 5000 ETH (nearly $8 million) over an attack that took place in September 2023.
However, despite the loss, Sun assured customers that the exchange “fully covered the losses incurred from the attack and has successfully resolved all related issues.” The founder even claimed that the $8 million that was stolen equated to the exchange’s two week’s revenue.
