Over $600 Million Stolen From FTX Exchange, Crypto Market Loses $201 Billion In One Week
More than $600 million in cryptocurrency disappeared from the wallet of defunct cryptocurrency company FTX, for no apparent reason.
Soon after, FTX announced that it had been hacked in its official Telegram channel and advised users not to install any new updates and to delete all FTX apps.
FTX has been compromised. FTX apps include viruses. Take them out. The chat window is open. Do not visit the FTX website as it may download Trojans, said a chat admin in the FTX Support channel. Ryne Miller, general counsel for FTX, posted
Different Ethereum Tokens, as well as Solana and Binance Smart Chain tokens, have left FTX’s official wallets and transferred to decentralized exchanges such as 1inch, according to on-chain statistics. It appears that both FTX and FTX US are affected.
- FTX General Counsel Ryne Miller tweeted that he was “investigating wallet movement anomalies related to the aggregation of ftx balances across exchanges.”
- The transfers come on the same day that FTX formally filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after reportedly losing billions of dollars in user payments. The transfers have not been officially approved by FTX management.
FTX USA and FTX.com wallets have also been reported as having $0 balances by several wallet owners. The FTX API may be unavailable in this case.
- FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was the target of dirty jokes and insults included in some of the transactions. Members of the cryptocurrency community speculated on Twitter that the funds had been siphoned off in an attack.
- Others believed that a member of Bankman’s inner Fried’s circle could be responsible for organizing the outflows.
- The market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies fell to $841 billion, a drop of $201 billion in just seven days. The risk of contagion in the industry is at an all-time high, and the FTX bankruptcy action also concerns 130 organizations with which the company was affiliated.
Undoubtedly, the week before was the most challenging, surprising and devastating in a very long time. One of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, FTX, voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with the United States after refusing to allow customer withdrawals and citing a multi-billion liquidity hole.
- Millions of customers have been denied access to their bitcoin holdings by the exchange, and it remains unclear if or when they will be able to get any of it back.
- Many participants are incredulous, predicting more difficult times as contagion will begin to spread in terms of valuation and regulatory conditions. This is a significant blow to the industry’s integrity.
