Another exchange hacked, Liquid exchange.

[Charles-Tim]

A Japanese exchange, Liquid has been hacked, over 80 million US dollars worth of crypto assets were stolen from warm wallet (which I believe it means hot wallet) after the exchange was compromised on Thursday, it is reported that the remaining crypto assets has been transferred to a cold wallet.

The following assets had been transferred to hacker's following addresses (Further investigation to come):

BTC: 1Fx1bhbCwp5LU2gHxfRNiSHi1QSHwZLf7q

ETH/EWT: 0x5578840aae68682a9779623fa9e8714802b59946

TRX: TSpcue3bDfZNTP1CutrRrDxRPeEvWhuXbp

XRP: rfapBqj7rUkGju7oHTwBwhEyXgwkEM4yby

Crypto exchanges are often hacked, some people make use of crypto exchanges for holding which is wrong, why not move the crypto assets on exchanges into you decentralized (noncustododial) wallet, have your seed phrase or private key and have full control over your crypto assets and protect it from hackers, the main focus of hackers are exchanges because they are holding huge amount of customer's crypto assets online which give hackers the hope of hacking exchanges which are successfully hacked at times.

Also, another issue is data breaches, data of the customers that make use of exchanges can leak to hackers, hackers will be able to know a lot in details about the customers which can later be used to impersonate some of the customers.

If you are not trading, I see no reason why using exchanges, and if you have inactive funds on exchanges, better move it to your noncustododial wallet and protect your seed phrase and private perfectly and absolutely.

[jackg]

I wonder how much funds the cold wallets were holding and if any effects will be passed on to users of the exchange or if the exchange can afford such a hack.

It'd be weird if exchanges did store kyc data online, realistically those should be stored offline for reference once the verification steps are complete.

The hacker(s) seemed to do quite a few transactions to get all of the funds though which seems quite strange, perhaps the exchange thought it had better security than it did by trying to diversify their wallets a bit?

[Raytheon]

It's sad to hear this. Liquid once was a Japanese unicorn. I had strong belief that Liquid could compete again Binance and waited for 2-3 years to see that but it couldn't. Liquid's service was pleasant anyway. My account had an issue with 2FA when I moved to a new phone but its Help Center resolved within a few minutes. Luckily I have moved all of my assets. This might me the end for Liquid.

[UserU]

You could say that their funds got... liquidated.


I'll see myself out.

[Lucius]

A Japanese exchange, Liquid has been hacked, over 80 million US dollars worth of crypto assets were stolen from warm wallet (which I believe it means hot wallet) after the exchange was compromised on Thursday, it is reported that the remaining crypto assets has been transferred to a cold wallet.

Maybe it's the same hacker who recently hacked and then returned $600 million in crypto?

I wonder what happened to Japanese discipline and precision when things like this happen to them, and where is their common sense if they keep so much crypto in a hot wallet? Fortunately, who else uses Japanese exchanges (besides the Japanese), after Mt.Gox hacking, which has not yet been legally resolved after so many years...

[TheNineClub]

You could say that their funds got... liquidated.


I'll see myself out.

you sir have the type of humor I appreciate. Well done!

These types of breaches are a constant looming threat, but unfortunately, we still use exchanges and keep our assets on them because fast trading tends to be easier, and in crypto being fast meant the difference between winning or losing. News like this suck because it hits close to home, it can happen anytime to anyone.

[mk4]

I wonder what happened to Japanese discipline and precision when things like this happen to them, and where is their common sense if they keep so much crypto in a hot wallet?

To be fair, assuming CoinMarketCap data is accurate, their trading volume on bitcoin alone is $70 million. I'm not 100% sure on how exchange wallet structure's work, but I'd assume they have $80 million worth of crypto in their hot wallets as so they can process user withdrawals quickly.

https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/liquid/

[bL4nkcode]

$80 million is pretty small compare to previous hacked exchanges that exceeds hundred of millions of dollars. If liquid is one of the top exchanges in japan then its good to assume that they can handle the loss with the work of their insurance funds.

[FloridaKid]

Here we go again, is this ever going to end? Are there no permanent fix to all this crypto exchange hacks? It's been like forever and no better solution all along, sigh, this is why it's bad leaving funds on exchanges anything can just happen and day

[Cornia]

Again exchange hacked! Liquid exchange hacked few days later the incident of poly network hacking. Is the crypto market going to be occupied by hackers? I am very embarrassed by such incidents. The security of exchanges should be made stronger.

[UserU]

Again exchange hacked! Liquid exchange hacked few days later the incident of poly network hacking. Is the crypto market going to be occupied by hackers? I am very embarrassed by such incidents. The security of exchanges should be made stronger.

At least the hacker was kind enough to return most of the funds. In fact, Poly decided to hire him.

[bL4nkcode]

Here we go again, is this ever going to end? Are there no permanent fix to all this crypto exchange hacks?

No and no. Not unless they invest a lot on the security of the platform just like what top exchanges did (Binance, OKEx)

It's been like forever and no better solution all along, sigh, this is why it's bad leaving funds on exchanges anything can just happen and day

As long as there is no huge adoption for DEX and people keep using CEX, then hack incidents is inevitable

[Smartvirus]

This goes to prove to users with the mentality that, exchanges are relatively safe for there holdings that, you never know when the hacker would strike. If you did know, then there would be no point because, users of the exchange must have moved them coins safely to a wallet.

Moving coins from exchanges to wallets is always a had choice for traders for sure as, most traders aside from looking to trade them coins to make the most of it, exchanges seems the only place where you could retain your coins value in stable coin during the bear market.bone thing that should be of note when thinking in these parts is that, its better to have your asset devaluate than loosing it all becuase, cryptos as it is, would always appreciate much later.

[Coyster]

Again exchange hacked! Liquid exchange hacked few days later the incident of poly network hacking. Is the crypto market going to be occupied by hackers? I am very embarrassed by such incidents. The security of exchanges should be made stronger.

I'm afraid, there is no problem with the network, the problem is inherent in users of the network and more often than not, a successful scam stems from the actions of people who do not know how to properly be their own bank. I mean it's basically easy for people to understand that their funds should not be stored in an exchange wallet, they also should know that they have to be in control of their private keys and if centralized exchanges have it, then it's "not their funds", all these are the basics that crypto users have to know, if one fails to and gets scammed, then it's on them and not the network.

We can talk about the security of centralized exchanges all we want, but in truth, you're meant to be your own security as far as dex crypto is concerned, you should take up that responsibility all to yourself, if you pass it over to centralized services, then do not complain when they fail to properly do 'your' job for you.

[Ryker1]

Here we go again, is this ever going to end? Are there no permanent fix to all this crypto exchange hacks? It's been like forever and no better solution all along, sigh, this is why it's bad leaving funds on exchanges anything can just happen and day

Well sad to know --there is no safe thing over the internet, there could be a chance that you will get hacked because those hackers now are being smart when it comes to hacking and they are willing to spend their small amount to set up another clickbait. As we saw now, how many of them this year that crypto market was scammed, this means that this always reminds us that exchange is not a wallet, don't store your crypto asset under on exchange wallet since it is very easy to compromise.

[boyptc]

Damn, looking at that btc and eth address, that's really a lot.

This goes to prove to users with the mentality that, exchanges are relatively safe for there holdings that, you never know when the hacker would strike. If you did know, then there would be no point because, users of the exchange must have moved them coins safely to a wallet.

This goes for both type of exchanges, dex and cex. People who have been confidently leaving their funds on exchanges, they should start to scatter their funds or just safely put that into cold storage of their own.

[Charles-Tim]

where is their common sense if they keep so much crypto in a hot wallet?

One thing that always surprise me is that exchanges make use of hot wallet more often, the reason is for fast processing of transactions. I have been reading news about exchanges that were hacked, I have never read that hackers was able to get through a cold wallet of an exchange, they were all using hot wallet, and the reason for the frequent hack, and the comment I have read all the time about exchanges making use of hot wallet is because of the transaction processing time (time to broadcast the transaction not to be delayed), but it would have been safer if exchanges are deploying means they can directly connect to cold wallet rather than depending on hot wallet, hot wallet has been their usual means.

[Darker45]

Figures vary according to sources, however, apparently, it is more than $80 million. Various sources claim it is $97 million. That's huge. And even if Liquid is a considerably large exchange that has been operating for several years, this is still a heavy blow to them. This might be the beginning of the end for this exchange.

Oftentimes, exchange hacks, especially those involving new and unknown exchanges, don't matter much to me. But if hacks involve large exchanges with years of more or less good track record, it seems it is also a blow to cryptocurrency in general.

This serves as another reminder that centralized exchanges are ticking bombs.

[pooya87]

To be fair, assuming CoinMarketCap data is accurate, their trading volume on bitcoin alone is $70 million. I'm not 100% sure on how exchange wallet structure's work, but I'd assume they have $80 million worth of crypto in their hot wallets as so they can process user withdrawals quickly.

$70 million trading volume doesn't mean they own $70 million worth of cryptocurrencies because volume is very different from balance. For example when you deposit $1000 and buy $1000 worth of some shitcoin then dump it later on at lets say $1200 the exchange trading volume becomes $2200 but the balance of cryptocurrency there is still $1200. Now imagine how many trades each day trader makes every day and you'll see that the total balance is far below the total volume.
On top of that the exchanges usually report fake volumes too because they don't pay any taxes so they can easily lie without cost.

[Charles-Tim]

Oftentimes, exchange hacks, especially those involving new and unknown exchanges, don't matter much to me. But if hacks involve large exchanges with years of more or less good track record, it seems it is also a blow to cryptocurrency in general.

It is not a blow to cryptocurrencies, or to be more specific, it is not a blow to decentralized cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. Irrespective of an exchange being old or new, there is no guarantee or 100% assurance that it can not be hacked, the exchanges are making use of online wallets, online wallets is not safe from hack, it can be hacked, that is why we can not have in mind that exchanges are safe, thinking it can not be hacked. Best is to just move our funds from the exchanges into cold or segwit noncustododial wallet or both combined which guarantee safety.