One of South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Upbit, has announced that it lost 58 billion won ($49.2 million) worth of Ether to theft, as unknown hackers were able to transfer the funds out of the exchange’s hot wallet, to an unknown wallet.
In a blog post published by CEO Lee Seok-woo of Upbit’s parent Dunamu the company said that a total of 324,000 ETH has been lost.
“At 1:06 PM on November 27, 2019, 342,000 ETH (approximately 58 billion won) were transferred from the Upbit Ethereum Hot Wallet to an unknown wallet. Unknown wallet address is 0xa09871AEadF4994Ca12f5c0b6056BBd1d343c029.”
Consequently, Upbit decided to move all funds from hot wallets to cold wallets immediately. Also, all deposits and withdrawals have been temporarily disabled as well. Seok-woo has promised that all lost funds will be replaced by the company, but asked customers to allow up to two weeks for regular activity to return.
Some customers had also noted that several other unauthorized transfers were carried out on the exchange. The CEO however explained that only ETH was involved in the theft and everything else was a result of the company’s efforts to secure funds, so no more is lost.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has pledged support in a tweet, promising that any of the stolen funds that find its way to Binance will be immediately frozen.
Months ago, four Korean exchanges including Upbit, were faced with stricter regulations, according to recommendations from the Financial Task Force (FATF).
Image Credits: Pixabay
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