$90 million worth of crypto assets stolen from Liquid Exchange

Last August 19, Liquid, a Japanese cryptocurrency exchange, announced on Twitter that hackers breached the platform and stole more than $90 million worth of crypto assets. In a statement, the exchange also said that the stolen assets were transferred to four different crypto wallets believed to be connected to the hackers. 

The exchange platform took to Twitter to announce the incident stating: ‘Important Notice: We are sorry to announce that #LiquidGlobal warm wallets were compromised, we are moving assets into the cold wallet. We are currently investigating and will provide regular updates. In the meantime, deposits and withdrawals will be suspended.’ 

The incident was reportedly discovered by Liquid’s Operations and Technology teams at around 7:50 AM SGT after detecting unauthorized access to their internet-connected hot wallets. But the cold wallets of the platform were untouched as they’re not connected to the web. 

While Liquid halted its deposits and withdrawals services, they said that fiat withdrawals and deposits remain available to the users as well as trading and Liquid Earn. 

‘During this difficult period, we greatly appreciate the support from our customers, other exchanges, security experts, and the broader crypto community. Liquid will continue to do everything in its power to mitigate the impact from this incident and restore full service as soon as possible’, stated Liquid in a blog post uploaded on their website. 

The estimated loss of the crypto assets wasn’t provided by Liquid as it claims to be governed by Japan’s Financial Services Agency. However, Elliptic, a blockchain analytics company, estimates that the total value of stolen crypto assets is around $97 million. $45 million of that is being converted by the hackers into Ether. 

According to Elliptic, the hackers are converting the assets into Ether to avoid having them frozen which is possible using decentralised exchanges (DEXs) like Uniswap and SushiSwap.

‘Elliptic has added the addresses associated with the thief to our system, ensuring that our clients will be alerted if they receive any of these funds. Our investigators are also aiding Liquid with tracking the stolen funds’, stated Elliptic in a blog post on their website. 

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