Mercado Bitcoin, Brazil’s largest crypto exchange, began letting customers back into their accounts on Monday, seven days after a breach drained $48.6 million from its wallets.
Users will still be unable to trade, withdraw or deposit but they can view their balances while waiting for trading to resume.
Has Mercado Bitcoin resumed operations?
Mercado Bitcoin confirmed on X that it will restart its operations phase by phase following a breach that drained $48.6 million from its wallets.
The phased restart was also announced in an updated help-center FAQ. It will start with web logins open from 16:00 local time and reach all Mercado Bitcoin customers by 18:00.
Even though logins will be permitted, account holders can only check their total balance, net worth, and investments, which will be broken down by category and by asset.
API access is set to return later, as well as everything that involves moving money including trading, crypto and Brazilian real withdrawals, deposits, transfers, the MB card, Pix and TED payments. New account signups will also remain offline for now.
The exchange said each phase is being cleared through security checks before it comes back, and that it chose to start with balance viewing while the rest is validated.
The FAQ explains that when withdrawals do return, Pix withdrawals will initially be limited to accounts under the customer’s own name and CPF tax ID. Every user will have to revalidate their registration details and set a new password through the app before touching their balance.
The balances that will be displayed on the website will show each account’s position on November 2, the day of the attack, before the breach.
How will Mercado Bitcoin replace the stolen crypto?
Mercado Bitcoin says customers won’t lose any funds. The exchange plans to cover all the missing coins using its own money. In a video posted on November 5, FabrÃcio Tota, the vice president of new business, said the company is already buying crypto through partners in Brazil and abroad to rebuild its reserves.
The company is relying on the roughly $300 million it has raised since it was founded to fund the repurchases. The $300 million balance includes a $20 million investment from Tether in July.
More than 33% of the stolen funds have reportedly been frozen, but the portion not yet recovered amounts to about 3% of Mercado Bitcoin’s total custody. Tota guessed that the hacker still had roughly $33 million in their possession.
Bitquery traced $48.6 million leaving Mercado Bitcoin across 11 blockchains on November 2. It said that the attacker could sign for customer deposit addresses and emptied 36,042 of them on Ethereum. The attack also continued for about four hours after Mercado Bitcoin said it had been contained. Stablecoin issuers, led by Tether, Circle and Paxos, froze about $11.8 million of the loot.
This hack followed closely behind a huge $6.3 billion theft from Binance on October 29. BitMart was also hit that same day, though for less money. Its founder, Sheldon Xia, says one group is responsible for all of these attacks.
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This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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