Japanese Crypto Exchange Liquid Global Admits Being Hacked

Early estimations show that some of the hot wallets belonging to Liquid Global have been compromised, with attackers swiping around $80 million in various cryptocurrencies such as BTC, ETH, XRP, and others.

• The Japan-based digital asset platform took it to Twitter earlier on August 19th to highlight the security breach on its systems.
• It indicated that some of its hot wallets were compromised and reassured that the team is moving the remaining assets into cold addresses.
• Initially, the company provided four such wallets that were breached. Those included BTC, ETH and ERC-20 tokens, TRX and TRC-20 coins, and XRP.

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.

— Liquid Global Official (@Liquid_Global) August 19, 2021

• Later on, the exchange outlined the addresses where the hackers have transferred the funds.
• Although the company is yet to report how much the perpetrators managed to swipe, the estimations show that the amount is somewhere around $80 million, based on the movements on those wallets.
• The exchange also said that the hackers already swapped some of the holdings, as they reportedly deposited portions of the stolen XRP into a different trading platform and withdrew BTC to these two addresses – 12PKkwoFkXp6JtN7roWRA2gSitE6nVDds4 and 1JW1tcBXp1vZ6KGEirFNSXb5RgZSaL63Av.
• As of writing these lines, the first one holds a bit more than 92 bitcoins, while the second one – just over 100 bitcoins.
• Liquid reassured that it’s working with other exchanges to freeze and recover the funds. This was supported by KuCoin’s CEO, who confirmed that the platform has already blacklisted the addresses associated with the hack.
• CryptoPotato reached out to the victim but has not received an answer by press time.