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HTX Loses $258M to Hackers, Struggles to Recover
The HTX exchange, a digital asset trading platform associated with China-born industry magnate Justin Sun, has seen a net outflow of US$258 million (S$346 million) after resuming operations following a massive hack.
After a Nov. 22 hack caused the cryptocurrency exchange HTX (previously Huobi) to halt operations and lose US$30 million in total, investors have begun withdrawing their funds from the exchange.
DefiLlama data indicates that from Nov. 25, the day HTX reopened for business, and Dec. 10, the exchange had net outflows of almost US$258 million.
According to DefiLlama statistics, HTX's reserves are made up of 32.3% Bitcoin BTC US$42,108 and 31.8% Tron TRX US$0.1043. TRX is the native currency of Sun's Tron blockchain, which was established in 2017.
According to CoinMarketCap statistics, HTX is the 16th largest crypto exchange by daily trading volume at the time of publishing, with a total of US$1.6 billion in trading activity in the past 24 hours.
Following the resumption of HTX on November 25, Sun informed any impacted HTX customers that they would be completely paid for any hot wallet losses and stated that an investigation was underway.
HTX and other Sun-related businesses, such as crypto exchange Poloniex and the HTX Eco Chain (HECO) bridge, have been hacked four times in the last two months.
On September 24, 2023, less than two weeks after the exchange was relaunched as HTX, an unknown attacker stole approximately US$8 million in cryptocurrency.
The US$100 million Poloniex exchange exploit on November 10 was purportedly caused by a private key breach.
On Nov. 22, HTX's HECO Chain bridge which acts as a mechanism for exchanging digital assets between HTX and other blockchain networks was also compromised. Hackers gained access to HECO and transferred at least US$86.6 million to questionable locations.
Meanwhile, November was the worst month for cryptocurrency theft in 2023, with hackers and other criminal actors stealing US$363 million in digital assets.