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Cryptocurrency exchange DragonEx hacked with customer funds stolen
Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange DragonEx Inc. has been hacked and customer balances stolen in yet another cryptoheist.
The first sign that something was not right at the exchange came Sunday, when a notice on the DragonEx website said that the company was “working on system maintenance due to data exception during which all trading and deposit and withdrawal will be temporally delayed.”
DragonEx employees later said on a private Telegram group that the exchange had “encountered attacks from hackers” and that customers balances had been stolen
In a possibly promising sign, the company noted that “part of the assets were retrieved back and we will do our best to retrieve back the rest of stolen assets.”
“Several Judicial administrations were informed about this cybercrime case including Estonia, Thailand, Singapore, HongKong etc. and we’re assisting policemen to do [an] investigation,” the company added. “All platform services will be closed and the accurate assets loss recovery situation will be announced in a week.”
The amount stolen, however, remains a complete mystery.
According to numbers from XBT, DragonEx had a daily trading volume of about $82 million in various cryptocurrencies before it ceased trading, although Coin Market Cap put the figure at $188 million. The volume of trades does not equal the amount of cryptocurrencies held by DragonEx at the time it was hacked, but it is indicative that the amount stolen could easily be in the tens of millions, if not somewhat higher.
DragonEx may not be alone in having been hacked in the last few days. Coinbene Ltd. also stopped trading ostensibly for unscheduled maintenance. Coinbene is yet to have address rumors that it has been hacked, but some are claiming that balances have been stolen.
Nick Saponaro, chief information officer of blockchain startup Diviproject, claimed today that there have been large amounts of tokens being moved from Coinbene accounts, while others are claiming that it may be an exit scam. One user on Twitter even suggested that more than $100 million in balances may have been stolen from the exchange, pointing to ongoing withdrawals from wallets controlled by the exchange, despite the service apparently being down for maintenance.
Image: DragonEx
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