Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange BingX’s estimated loss from a suspected hack has more than doubled to over $52 million, following further investigations.
Initial reports had pegged the loss at $26 million, but blockchain security firm PeckShield later identified additional wallets involved in the breach, bringing the total damage across multiple blockchain networks into clearer focus.
For its part, BingX confirmed that it has been hacked, with nearly $43 million worth of digital assets stolen in multiple tranches.
Despite the loss, the firm’s chief product officer (CPO), Vivien Lien, reassured users that the total loss was “minimal and manageable,” and that BingX plans to fully compensate users for any lost funds.
Lin also noted that security firms had managed to freeze around $1 million of the stolen funds. However, trading services will continue as usual while withdrawals and deposits are temporarily delayed and expected to be restored within 24 hours.
The stolen funds include $13.25 million in Ether (ETH), $2.3 million in Binance Coin (BNB), and $4.4 million in Tether (USDT), among others. Hackers also drained more than 360 different types of altcoins.
Hakan Unal, senior security operations lead at Cyvers Alerts, said that their threat intelligence system had summed the total losses across all chains, leading to the updated estimate of $52 million. Unal explained that earlier estimates, including figures like $13 million, were incomplete and that the losses grew as more affected wallets were identified.
Other security firms, including Beosin, offered a lower estimate, suggesting around $45 million was stolen across three funding lines. Despite the varying estimates, it is clear that the total loss from the cyberattack is significant.
Data from Etherscan shows that the stolen crypto was mostly swapped for ETH and BNB through decentralized exchanges (DEXs) such as Uniswap and Kyberswap. As of press time, the wallet tied to the hack contains over 1,000 ETH and tokens worth an estimated $5 million.
The breach at BingX comes amid a wave of cyberattacks on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges in Asia. Notable incidents include the $20.58 million hack on Indonesian exchange Indodax on Sept. 10, and Indian exchange WazirX losing $234.9 million in a major breach on July 18.
The largest attack of 2024 so far occurred on May 31, when Japan’s DMM Bitcoin lost $305 million in assets. Security experts have pointed to North Korea’s state-backed Lazarus Group as being responsible for the attacks on Indodax, WazirX, and DMM Bitcoin.
