Poloniex, a cryptocurrency exchange owned by Tron’s Justin Sun, recently fell victim to a “hack incident”. The attack resulted in the theft of over $126 million in crypto assets from one of its wallets. This breach was part of a concerning trend, as several hacks have plagued the cryptocurrency space in 2023.
The suspicious transfers from the “Poloniex 4” wallet to the hacker’s wallet were initially detected by blockchain security firm Peckshield. The stolen assets include ETH, TRON, stablecoins like USDT and TUSD, and meme coins such as PEPE, FLOKI, and SHIB. The hack extended its reach beyond the Ethereum blockchain. Data from Arkham Intelligence reveals that a total of more than $126 million were taken. A combination of 288 million Tron’s native token TRX and 865 Bitcoin.
The hacker’s modus involved shifting assets to one of their wallets before primarily converting them to USDC using MetaMask’s swapping feature. However, a notable error occurred in one transaction. The hacker mistakenly sent $2.5 million in stolen Golem tokens (GLM) to the token contract, rendering recovery impossible.
Response After Poloniex Fell Victim To Hack
After falling victim to Hack, Poloniex’s initial response was to disable its wallet for maintenance, with plans to provide updates once it was re-enabled. Amid this turmoil, Justin Sun took to Twitter to announce that the exchange was actively investigating the incident. He reassured users by stating that Poloniex maintained a robust financial position, ensuring reimbursement for affected users. Sun also mentioned collaborating with other exchanges to facilitate the recovery of the appropriated funds.
See Related: Poloniex celebrates its 9th anniversary
Recorded Hacks Of The Year
This hack was just one of several to hit the cryptocurrency landscape in 2023, raising concerns about the security of digital assets. This prompts a heightened focus on cybersecurity within the industry.
In 2023, the cryptocurrency sector experienced a series of significant hacks, starting with the Bitrue Exchange heist in April, resulting in a loss of $23 million. This was closely followed by the GDAC hack on April 9, with losses near $13 million, and the perplexing Crypto Whale Mystery in the same month, leading to a $10 million loss.
In March, Euler Finance suffered a massive $200 million hack, and Deus Finance lost over $6 million in May. The middle of the year saw the Atomic Wallet and Curve Finance hacks in June and July, with losses of over $100 million and $60 million, respectively. July also witnessed the MultiChain hack or rug pull, amounting to approximately $125 million.
August brought the CoinsPaid phishing scam, resulting in a $37 million loss. September was particularly harsh with the Mixin breach, TrustWallet scam, Stake hack, and CoinEx hack, collectively amounting to over $350 million in losses. The series of hacks concluded in October with a $4.4 million loss due to the LastPass data breach. The total amount lost in recorded cryptocurrency hacks in 2023 is approximately $929.4 million.
