Hackers continue to take a toll on the crypto industry as they target more crypto exchanges in 2020. The latest victim has been popular crypto exchange KuCoin, which saw more than $150 million worth of funds stolen from two of its wallets in less than 30 minutes on September 26.
While there has been no official announcement about the total funds lost, the entire crypto community has come together to try and recover the lost funds.
Industry leaders unite
Right after the event, Paolo Ardoino, the CTO of crypto exchange Bitfinex and stablecoin maker Tether, announced that both the companies have frozen a total of $33 million worth of stolen assets. Bitfinex froze $13 million USDT on the EOS network followed by Tether freezing $30 million on the Ethereum Network.
Binance also reached out to help with CEO Changpeng Zhao pledging the company’s support in the quest to recover the funds. His tweet reads:
“As always, #Binance has been actively helping other exchanges that got hacked. The sooner we get notified, the more we can help. We will work together to make the industry #SAFU-er.”
“Our team got notified relatively early for this one. We will do what we can to help.”
Zhao adds that Binance will be helping by “Freezing deposits that come our way. Help with blockchain analysis, security audits/advices, and even helping connecting with other exchanges, or to law enforcement agencies in different parts of the world.”
Justin Sun, CEO of popular cryptocurrency Tron, took to twitter to notify that TronScan will be flagging the addresses of the hackers to help other exchanges track the funds.
“We sympathize w/ all users & @kucoincom team, we hope they can recover their funds soon. @TRONSCAN_ORG will label the hacker’s address so that all exchange partners are made aware. @Poloniex are on high alert in case the stolen funds are transferred to Poloniex.”
KuCoin is covering all losses
Meanwhile, KuCoin’s CEO shared some more details regarding the incident over a live stream. The exchange supposedly had the private keys for two of its hot wallets leaked, but the exchange was able to remove most of the funds in the wallet to a cold wallet.
The exchange is working with the international police, its largest clients, and industry experts to further investigate the incident. Almost all major exchanges have been notified to blacklist the hackers’ wallet address.
KuCoin has assured that victims of the hack will have their losses covered by the company’s insurance. The company has also announced a $100,000 bounty in exchange or valid information regarding the incident.
“KuCoin is investigating the incident with international law enforcement, and we will offer rewards of up to $100,000 to those who can provide valid information to us regarding this incident. Please contact business@kucoin.com.”
