Hacked AscendEX to Reimburse Users, Says ‘Relatively Small Percentage’ Impacted

Source: AdobeStock / Vitaly Vodolazsky

Crypto trading platform AscendEX, formerly known as BitMax, which was hacked on Saturday for about $ 78 million in digital assets, intends to “100%” reimburse all affected users.

While informing users of the incident, the AscendEX team stated that the hackers had hacked one of the exchange’s hot wallets, allowing them to access and transfer digital assets hosted on the Ethereum (ETH), Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and Polygon (MATIC) blockchains. …

AscendEX insisted that cold wallets are unaffected and that the affected assets represent “a relatively small percentage of total exchange-traded assets.”

In detailing its approach to this issue, the exchange stated that it will initially “pay 100% compensation to all affected users.”

“Second, work with forensic firms and law enforcement agencies,” AscendEX said, adding that they are working with cryptanalytic firms to monitor transferred assets.

“We are also in close contact with other CEX [centralized exchanges] blacklist the wallets associated with the incident, ”the exchange said, reporting the addresses of the wallets to which the stolen assets were transferred.

The total estimated loss is $ 77.7 million, according to blockchain security and data analytics company PeckShield, with the majority (around $ 60 million) stolen from assets hosted on the Ethereum blockchain.

PeckShield data shows that stolen tokens include large chunks of stablecoins (USDT and USDC), some of the lesser known tokens such as taraxa (TARA), and smaller amounts of other digital assets such as Shiba Inu (SHIB), AAVE. and connection (COMP).

For now, AscendEX’s I / O services are frozen, but the team noted that they are working to restore them over the next few days. “After a thorough security review, we intend to reopen the platform and allow all users to seamlessly transfer assets,” the team said.

According to CoinGecko, AscendEX’s 24-hour trading volume is around $ 104 million, up from $ 190 million on December 7. The exchange is now in 35th place in terms of daily trading volume.

Notably, the hack happened just a week after the BitMart crypto exchange was hacked into digital assets worth about $ 200 million. Bitmart also promised to pay compensation to affected users.