Kucoin announced on September 26 that the cryptocurrency exchange detected unusual withdrawals from its hot wallets, and a deeper look into the issue revealed that several ERC-20 tokens and also Bitcoin were affected by an attack from hackers. An estimated $150 million worth of assets may have been stolen. A post-mortem report has yet to be released, but KuCoin CEO Johnny Lyu took to a livestream to address the hack shortly after.
User funds affected in this incident are insured and will be compensated fully by KuCoin. Deposits and withdrawals have been temporarily suspended, but KuCoin estimates that these functions will be restored by next week pending any major findings that would cause delays. KuCoin is also reportedly assisting in investigations by international law enforcement and has also offered a bounty of $100,000 for any relevant information regarding the attack.
“We are in contact with many major crypto exchanges such as Huobi, Binance, OKEx, BitMax and Bybit, as well as blockchain projects, security agencies, and law enforcement to work on this. Some effective measures have been taken, and we will update with more details soon,” said Lyu in the livestream.
Among the total funds stolen, a portion of it comes from KuCoin’s total asset holdings. The total exact value of funds lost have not yet been confirmed while investigations are still going on. A full review of KuCoin’s security system will be taking place as KuCOin works with other exchanges to blocklist suspicious addresses and trace the funds siphoned from KuCoin.
