Hackers stole $4.5M from Singapore-based Bitrue and sent the crypto market in a tailspin
- Bitcoin and all major altcoins are collapsing rapidly
- Bitrue hack may be behind the massive crypto sell-off.
Bitcoin (BTC) and all major altcoins are deep in red, nursing losses from 2% to 13% on a day-on-day basis. The total market capitalization collapsed to $350 billion from $365 billion registered during early Asian hours; an average daily trading volume decreased from $138 billion to $128 billion.
While the fundamental reasons for the collapse are not readily available, the news that hackers used vulnerabilities of Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitrue and stole $4.5 million in XRP and ADA coins.
The company admitted the breach in a series of tweets posted in the official Twitter account and Telegram Channel.
“At approximately 1am June 27 (GMT+8), a hacker exploited a vulnerability in our Risk Control team's 2nd review process to access the personal funds of about 90 Bitrue users."
The administration tried to assure the community that the situation was under control and users would not suffer any losses due to the breach. The company suspended the activity on the platform and alerted the receiving exchanges about the situation. Singaporean authorities were also informed of the incident.
"Once again, I want to assure everybody that their personal funds are insured, and anybody affected by this breach will have their funds replaced by us as soon as possible,” the company wrote.
BTC/USD dropped as low as $12,073 before recovering towards $12,270 by press-time. ETH/USD is changing hands at $320, down 3% from this time on Wednesday, while XRP/USD has lost over 8% of its value to trade at $0.4285.
Author
Tanya Abrosimova
Independent Analyst
