Shortly after the crypto exchange HTX, formerly known as Huobi, reported an $8 million hack, Binance’s CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao stepped forward to offer the assistance of Binance’s security team in investigating the breach.
Swift intervention is essential when dealing with crypto thefts, as hackers often employ tactics to cover their tracks, such as using mixers or converting stolen assets into privacy tokens.
On September 24th, the blockchain analytics platform Cyvers detected a hack that siphoned off 5,000 Ether from one of HTX’s hot wallets.
In a proactive effort to mitigate the damage, HTX extended an olive branch by offering a “white-hat bonus” equivalent to 5% of the pilfered funds, totaling nearly $400,000, to the hacker.
However, the hacker was granted a seven-day window to comply with the offer. HTX communicated this proposition in Mandarin (Chinese).
In a more lighthearted vein, CZ humorously remarked on the striking similarity between the rebranded HTX and Sam Bankman-Fried’s infamous crypto exchange, FTX.
Nevertheless, the comparison ends there, as HTX suffered a hack while FTX was embroiled in allegations of being a scam.
Responding to a tweet from Justin Sun, the founder of Tron and an adviser to HTX, CZ enlisted Binance’s security team to assist in tracking the stolen funds.
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Sun confirmed that HTX would cover all losses incurred by its users, stating, “The $8 million represents a relatively small sum compared to the $3 billion in assets held by our users and just two weeks’ revenue for the HTX platform.”
HTX also implemented real-time monitoring systems to avert future losses.
While Sun denied holding a significant stake in HTX, he committed to conducting live streams in both English and Chinese to discuss exchange security.
As for the ongoing HTX hack investigation, Binance had not responded to Cointelegraph’s request for comment at the time of this report.
A day before the HTX breach, the decentralized peer-to-peer network Mixin Network experienced a hack that led to losses of nearly $200 million, stemming from a compromise of a third-party cloud service provider’s database.
Independent investigations by Web3 SaaS analytics platform 0xScope revealed the hacker’s previous interactions with Mixin Network.
In 2022, an address linked to the hacker had received 5 ETH from Mixin, which was later deposited into Binance.
Deposits and withdrawals on Mixin Network would resume once vulnerabilities were confirmed and rectified, but plans for recovering the lost assets for users were not immediately disclosed.
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