Poloniex Suffers $100M Hack, Offers Hacker a 5% White-hat Bounty

• Over $100 million in digital assets were transferred from a wallet belonging to crypto exchange Poloniex in what security firms believe to be a massive hack.

According to blockchain explorer Etherscan, a crypto wallet linked to the digital asset exchange Poloniex has witnessed strange outflows. Blockchain security firms estimate the organization was penetrated, resulting in the attackers stealing up to $100 million in cryptocurrency.

On November 10, millions of crypto assets were transferred from an Etherscan account branded Poloniex 4. The losses were first estimated to be in the $60 million range. However, it was eventually discovered that the perpetrators stole more than $100 million.

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CertiK, a blockchain security firm, believes the event was most likely a “private key compromise.” The funds have already been transferred to four externally owned accounts, with some accounts being converted to Ether, according to the security firm. 

.@Poloniex is suspected to have been hacked.

The Poloniex address '0xA910' transferred all tokens to a new address '0x0A59' in 40 minutes, with a total value of about $60 million.

'0x0A59' is currently transferring funds to more addresses and converting them to $ETH: pic.twitter.com/Kjdw5gIkxa

— Scopescan (@0xScopescan) November 10, 2023

The hacker appears to have made off with nearly $40 million worth of stablecoins and nearly $30 million worth of bitcoin and ether. Whoever took the funds had about an hour to drain Poloniex wallets and made sure to take everything they could.

Ultimately, many low liquidity coins were also taken. Some were even unable to be sold off because there was literally no one to sell to.

So far he sold all of the stolen:$USDT (~$11M)$ELON(~$4.2M)$USDC(~$5M)$SHIB(~$4.7M)$WBTC(~$850k)$TRX (erc20) (~$850k)$OCEAN(~$350k)$CVC(~$340k)$MANA(~$720k)$STORJ(~$670k)$LINK(~$2.4M)$INJ(~$360k)$SAND(~$300k)$GNO(~$270k)$MKR(~$240k)

— DeFiac (@TheDEFIac) November 10, 2023

The exchange blocked the wallet in reaction to the suspicious outflows. However, the exchange has yet to issue an official comment about the incident. Poloniex was also contacted by Cointelegraph, but no response was received.

Our wallet has been disabled for maintenance. We will update this thread once the wallet has been re-enabled.

— Poloniex Customer Support (@PoloSupport) November 10, 2023

While the exchange has yet to issue an official comment, Justin Sun, the exchange’s new owner, stated on X (previously Twitter) that the team is already investigating the hacking event. According to Sun, they would fully refund all affected subscribers. According to the executive, the exchange “maintains a healthy financial position” and is exploring for agreements with other exchanges to recover the lost monies.

We are currently investigating the Poloniex hack incident. Poloniex maintains a healthy financial position and will fully reimburse the affected funds. Additionally, we are exploring opportunities for collaboration with other exchanges to facilitate the recovery of these funds.

— H.E. Justin Sun🌞(hiring) (@justinsuntron) November 10, 2023

Poloniex Offers Bounty Following Hack

In a short tweet thread, Poloniex acknowledged that it had been hacked and ensured that users would be reimbursed for any losses. A 5% white hat bounty was offered if the hacker chooses to give the almost $120 million worth of assets back. If the hacker takes Poloniex and Sun up on the bounty, they’re looking at a roughly $6 million payday.

Before cooperating with law enforcement, the executive stated that they will give the assailant seven days to refund the fund.

Only a couple of months ago, Justin Sun’s other exchange, formerly known as Huobi and now called HTX, was also hacked for 5,000 ETH — far less than the ongoing Poloniex hack, but still a significant amount of user 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🌞(hiring) (@justinsuntron) November 10, 2023

Despite the incident, Tron, the native cryptocurrency of one of Sun’s other crypto ventures, has seen a 20% boost in price, according to digital asset information tracker Coinstats. On the same day as the hack, the cryptocurrency went from $0.09 to $0.11.