KuCoin has been hacked, roughly $150 million in Bitcoin and ERC20 tokens were reportedly taken, KCS token down 10%
Cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin, based in Singapore, was reportedly hacked earlier today.
We detected some large withdrawals since Sep 26 at 03:05 UTC+8. According to the latest internal security audit report, part of BTC, ERC-20 and other tokens in KuCoin’s hot wallets were transferred out of the exchange, which contained few parts of our total assets holdings, Kucoin’s tweeted.
While exact details are yet to be known, $150 million worth of funds were moved out of KuCoin to an unknown address. The address received transactions of 11,481 Ether, worth roughly $4 million, plus $156 million in transactions of other tokens.
Source: Etherscan.
Adding to the confusion, Crypto data company Cryptoquant noticed that a large amount of Bitcoin left the KuCoin wallets quickly then stopped. “Since 20:00 UTC on September 25th,” it tweeted, “the outflow has continuously been zero.”
It seems #Kucoin got hacked.
Usually, after being hacked, the $BTC outflow increases rapidly and then becomes zero. Since 20:00 UTC on September 25th, the outflow has continuously been zero.
Chart: https://t.co/kHsUEzh92C pic.twitter.com/qgycevVsnT
— CryptoQuant (@cryptoquant_com) September 26, 2020
According to Cryptoquant CEO Ki YoungJu, that spike is a telltale sign of a hack. If it were merely a systems issue, outflows would go straight to zero without a spike.
The fastest fact-checker for exchange hacking rumors is Exchange Outflows. Hacked exchanges have a significant outflow of stolen #BTC and become zero after the surge. If there’s no hacking issue and just system down, the outflow goes zero without surge.https://t.co/LHnFzfbjpr pic.twitter.com/T6dxND6fWL
— Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju) June 28, 2020
KuCoin’s admin team seemed to maintain that it was experiencing a systems issue. At least one admin message on KuCoin’s Telegram channel indicated that users should not withdraw or deposit funds “given the situation.” It claimed that “transactions are simply pending.”
KuCoin CEO Johnny Lyu is holding a live stream at 12:30 (UTC+8) on September 26 to provide more details.
The confusion and the alleged lapse in communication on the management’s part have also led to KuCoin Shares ($KCS) dropping significantly by 10-15%.
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