Mercado Bitcoin Assures Users Won’t Lose Funds Following $38M Security Breach

Mercado Bitcoin told customers they would not lose funds after a security incident led the Brazilian crypto exchange to suspend deposits and withdrawals on Monday, with affected assets valued at about $38 million. The exchange said it had blocked $11 million in coordination with Tether, Circle, Paxos, BRL1, and Chainalysis. Hypernative initially estimated more than $40 million had moved from wallets tied to Mercado Bitcoin across at least 10 blockchains, and said the transfers appeared to be ordinary signed transactions, with the first suspicious transfer at 2:15 UTC. The blockchain security firm said it was unclear how the attacker obtained the ability to sign them.