FTX Hacked: Mysterious Transaction of $600M

After at least $473 million vanished from the network, the bankrupt bitcoin transaction transferred user assets to frozen storage.

After declaring bankruptcy just hours earlier, hundreds of millions of dollars were looted off the cryptocurrency exchange, worsening the fall of FTX, already one of the most spectacular financial disasters in history.

Late on Friday, more than $600 million was stolen from FTX's cryptocurrency wallets. Soon after, FTX announced that it had been compromised in its official Telegram channel and advised users not to install any new updates and to remove all FTX apps.

"A hack was made on FTX. FTX apps include viruses. Take them out. The chat window is open. Don't visit the FTX website since it could download Trojans "In the FTX Support Telegram channel, an account administrator posted something. Ryne Miller, general counsel for FTX, posted the statement.

Miller revealed in a tweet hours later that due to the Friday bankruptcy, FTX US and FTX.com had been transferring all of their digital assets to cold storage. After discovering fraudulent transactions, the process was sped up this evening, he claimed.

Many owners of FTX wallets complained that their FTX.com and FTX US wallets had no balances. This could be explained by the fact that the FTX API appeared to be unavailable. On-chain data shows that a number of Ethereum tokens, as well as the Solana and Binance Smart Chain tokens, left FTX's official wallets and transferred to decentralized exchanges like 1inch. It appears that both FTX and FTX US are impacted.

After allegedly misusing or losing billions of dollars in customer payments, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States on the same day that the transfers took place. Online rumors began to surface, but they are mostly speculation at this moment, about whether an internal attack on the business might have actually been the cause.

What is FTX:

FTX is a Bahamian cryptocurrency exchange. FTX is incorporated in Antigua and Barbuda and headquartered in The Bahamas. The exchange was founded in 2019 and as of February 2022 had over one million users. FTX also operated FTX.US, a separate exchange available to US residents.