Japanese Crypto Exchange Liquid Suffers $94 Million Hack

Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Liquid has fallen victim to a hacker attack. Unknown hackers breached the exchange’s servers and stole crypto assets valued at approximately $94,000,000 at current rates. While the company investigates the incident, deposits and withdrawals have been temporarily suspended.

How the Hack Happened

According to Liquid, the theft occurred because the attackers gained access to the exchange’s hot wallets, which are used to store funds for daily transactions. Liquid is now transferring the remaining assets to cold wallets and working to block the hackers’ access to its network.

The company published a series of tweets listing the wallet addresses where the stolen funds were sent.

Details of the Stolen Funds

Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic reports that the criminals stole just over $94 million in cryptocurrency (the amount was calculated at the time of the attack, as some crypto prices began to fall after news of the breach). Researchers say this includes about $45 million in Ethereum tokens, which the thieves are already converting into other assets through decentralized exchanges like Uniswap and SushiSwap in an attempt to avoid having the stolen funds frozen.

Not the First Attack on Liquid

Interestingly, this is the second time Liquid has faced a security breach. The first attack occurred in November 2020, when hackers infiltrated the company’s internal network and stole some client data, but were unable to steal any cryptocurrency.