Hours after crypto exchange HTX (rebranded as Huobi) reported a hack that resulted in a loss of $8 million, Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao offered the help of the exchange's security team to investigate the stroke.
Timely intervention is key to tracking and recovering stolen cryptocurrencies, as hackers attempt to cover their tracks using mixers or converting loot into privacy tokens. On September 24, blockchain analysis platform Cyvers identified a hack that managed to drain 5,000 Ether (ETH) from one of HTX's active wallets.
Code Red Yesterday, our ML-based system detected a suspicious transaction involving @HuobiGlobal and @HTX_Global.
Despite our attempts to communicate, we received no response. An EOA received 5K $ETH 7.9 million dollars @HuobiGlobalThe hot wallet.This morning we saw... pic.twitter.com/3oqHhAVi8P
- Cyvers Alerts (@CyversAlerts) September 25, 2023
To minimize the damage, HTX proactively offered 5% of the drained funds as a “white hat bonus,” which would be equivalent to nearly $400,000. However, the hacker has been given seven days to comply. HTX communicated the offer in Mandarin (Chinese) as shown in the screenshot below.
On a lighter note, CZ joked about the recently rebranded HTX's resemblance to Sam Bankman-Fried's infamous FTX cryptocurrency exchange. However, the loss of funds on both exchanges is incomparable, given that HTX was hacked and FTX was an alleged scam.
In response to a tweet from Tron founder Justin Sun, who also serves as an advisor to HTX, CZ appointed Binance's security team to help track down the stolen funds. Furthermore, Sun confirmed that HTX will cover all losses of its users. He added:
“Eight million dollars represents a relatively small sum compared to the $3 billion worth of assets held by our users. It also equates to just two weeks of revenue for the HTX platform.”
HTX also implemented real-time monitoring mechanisms to prevent such losses. While Sun denies owning a major stake in HTX, he has committed to holding several livestreams, in English and Chinese, to discuss the security of the exchange.
Binance did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph's request for comment on the ongoing investigations into the HTX hack.
Related: CoinEx Hack: Compromised private keys led to $70 million theft
Just one day before the HTX hack, decentralized peer-to-peer network Mixin Network lost nearly $200 million in a hack that involved the compromise of a third-party cloud service provider's database.
[Announcement] In the early morning of September 23, 2023, Hong Kong time, the database of cloud service provider Mixin Network was attacked by hackers, resulting in the loss of some assets on the main network. We have contacted Google and the blockchain security company @SlowMist_Team…
- Mixin Kernel (@MixinKernel) September 25, 2023
An independent investigation by Web3 SaaS analytics platform 0xScope revealed the hacker's historical relationship with Mixin Network. In 2022, the address 0x1795, which has been linked to the hacker, received 5 ETH from Mixin and was deposited on Binance later.
Deposits and withdrawals on Mixin Network will resume "once the vulnerabilities are confirmed and fixed." Plans to recover lost assets for users were not immediately announced.
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