Upbit said in a notice at 9:00 UTC on Wednesday that there is an abnormal transaction that led to the announcement of Upbit Etherium theft.
Someone sent 342,000 Etherium from the U.S. Upbit Etherium hot wallet to unknown wallets at around 04:00 UTC. Though there’s a possibility of internal and/or external hacking, Upbit didn’t raise this subject.
WhaleAlert, a global transaction detail notification service, said earlier that around 1:06:41 p.m. KST or 04:00 UTC the abnormal transaction of 342,000 ETH from Upbit’s Etherium wallet to an unknown wallet.
Not only Etherium, but the Upbit theft also involved others cryptocurrencies as well
There are also suspicious transactions that included dozens of cryptocurrency to some external wallets. The cryptocurrencies involved include TRX, BTT, XLM, OMG, EOS, NPXS, and SNT.
The suspicious transfers went on from 05:00 UTC. Starting from $1.51 million worth of Tron (TRX). Then, $3.5 million-worth of BitTorrent (BTT),, $8.7 million-worth of Stelar (XLM), $1.08 million in OmiseGo (OMG). The largest is $22 million worth of EOS. And at last $3.4 million in status (SNT).
All transferred from Upbit’s wallet to the Bittrex crypto exchange wallet. The size of cryptocurrency that has slipped from Upbit to the outside wallet amounts to about $49 million.
Upbit said in a notice that it will cover the loss from this Etherium theft by its own assets. Adding that the transfer of the remaining cryptocurrency occurred during the transfer from Hot Wallet to Cold Wallet.
The cryptocurrency exchange then announced that it temporarily halt withdrawals and deposits due to server maintenance. It also estimated that it might take “at least two weeks” before operating normally.
Meanwhile, cryptocurrency traders have previously fallen below that of other exchanges when news broke of the U.S. hacking incident.
Upbit itself is a new form formed back in 2017. It is a partnership between Dunamu and U.S. based Bittrex. Dunamu is Kakao Corp‘s subsidiary for blockchain business. While Bittrex is one of the oldest cryptocurrency exchanges in the US.
Ironically, it hasn’t been months since Upbit named as the only transparent exchange in Asia.