KuCoin Crypto Exchange Got Hacked, $150M In BTC And ERC20 Stolen

The KuCoin crypto exchange got hacked and about $150 million in Bitcoin and ERC20 tokens were reportedly stolen as we are about to read more in the latest crypto news.

KuCoin confirmed the hack attack and stated that roughly $150 million in BTC and ERC20 tokens were taken but they did promise to cover the losses from the users’ funds. The KuCoin crypto exchange got hacked a few hours ago despite touting itself as the “most advanced and secure crypto exchange to purchase and sell Ethereum, Bitcoin, Litecoin, USDT, TRON, NEO, KCS, XRP and more.”

In the meantime, the confusion and lack of communication has led to KuCoin Shares ($KCS) price dropping by a notable amount.

src: https://t.co/sCpOKqZdDO pic.twitter.com/xa7NdfjDaD

— beta.mycrypto.com (@MyCrypto) September 26, 2020

The company confirmed that “Bitcoin, ERC20, and other tokens in KuCoin’s hot wallets were transferred out of the exchange.” The hot wallets got hit but the cold ones are safe. The exchange claimed in its announcement:

“If any user fund is affected by this incident, it will be covered completely by KuCoin and our insurance fund.”

The trouble started once the users started complaining about having issues with withdrawals. Initially, KuCoin’s Telegram channel indicated that the users should not deposit or withdraw funds given the situation while claiming that the transaction is simply pending. It then became apparent that about $150 million worth of tokens were moved to a different address which received 11,484 ETH  which is worth about $4 million-plus the additional $146 million in transactions of other tokens.

It seems #Kucoin got hacked.

Usually, after being hacked, the $BTC outflow increases rapidly and then becomes zero. Since 20:00 UTC on September 25th, the outflow has continuously been zero.

Chart: https://t.co/kHsUEzh92C pic.twitter.com/qgycevVsnT

— CryptoQuant (@cryptoquant_com) September 26, 2020

Adding to the confusion, the crypto data company CryptoQuant posted on Twitter that the large amount of Bitcoin left on the KuCOin exchange wallets stopped, saying that Since 20:00 UTC on September 25^th, the outflow has continuously been zero.” According to the CEO of CryptoQuant Ki-Young Ju, the spike is a sign of a hack. If it was merely a system issue, the outflows would have gone right to zero without a spike. KuCoin CEO Johnny Lyu had a Livestream to provide more details as well.

According to the latest data from CoinMarektCap, KuCoin is the 16^th most popular cryptocurrency exchange when it comes to accounting trading activity, volume, and traffic. KuCoin is also responsible for $112 million in volume over the past day, according to the latest data that we have in our latest cryptocurrency news. Also as recently reported about this exact exchange, KuCoin warned its users regarding an impersonating website that uses the branding of the exchange in an attempt to steal cryptocurrency and according to the report, the website offered false incentives to entice the users into deposit digital assets.