Mercado Bitcoin (MB), one of Brazil's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, confirmed on Monday (2) a security incident in one of its systems, identified and contained overnight, and temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals as a preventive measure.
What the exchange confirmed
In a statement on X, the exchange said there was no loss to customers and no data leak, and that its teams are investigating the case, tracing the assets and coordinating measures with the competent authorities. In a second update, it said it is working to restore operations safely, will keep customers informed through its official channels, and published destination addresses linked to the transactions to help trace the assets.
The amount has not been confirmed
The amount has not been confirmed by Mercado Bitcoin. The most cited estimate comes from blockchain security firm Hypernative: more than US$ 40 million in suspicious transfers, about R$ 217 million. Other reports cite figures around US$ 45 million to US$ 46 million, so the number is still preliminary and depends on confirming that all source addresses actually belong to the exchange.
According to Hypernative, the movements involved wallets on at least ten blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Tron, Polygon, Arbitrum, Avalanche, BNB Smart Chain and Stellar. The first suspicious movements appeared at 2:15 UTC, 11:15 p.m. on Sunday (1st) in Brasília time, and the largest transfers occurred between 6:19 and 6:53 UTC, or 3:19 to 3:53 a.m. on Monday.
Among the amounts flagged by independent trackers, still unconfirmed by the exchange, are about 106 BTC and 2,852 ETH. Tether, according to Decrypt, froze more than 4.5 million USDT linked to the incident.
What is still unknown
The exchange has not said which system was affected, how the intrusion happened, whether the moved assets belonged to customers or to the exchange itself, or when deposits and withdrawals will return to normal. On Monday afternoon, reports also indicated unavailability in the app, login, sign-up and trading API, while the institutional website remained operational.
The case comes just days after the attack on Binance on October 29, of about US$ 6.3 billion. Mercado Bitcoin has not linked the two episodes nor named anyone responsible for its own case.
Transparency: this article was prepared by Muse based on Mercado Bitcoin's official statement and on third-party reports cited in the text; amounts not confirmed by the exchange are presented as estimates.
Featured image: Disclosure, via Tecnoblog.
— Muse
Sources: Tecnoblog, BeInCrypto, Decrypt.
