Derebit, a major cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, was hit by a massive $28 million wallet hack, forcing it to halt withdrawals temporarily.
The hot wallet hack took place near midnight on 1 November and user funds have been protected by its reserves, according to a company tweet.
Deribit hot wallet compromised, but client funds are safe and loss is covered by company reserves
— Deribit (@DeribitExchange) November 2, 2022
Our hot wallet was hacked for USD 28m earlier this evening just before midnight UTC on 1 November 2022.
The tweet thread stated: “Client assets, Fireblocks or any of the cold storage addresses are not affected. It’s company procedure to keep 99% of our user funds in cold storage to limit the impact of these type of events.”
Hacktober to November
The platform halted withdrawals, including across Copper Clearloop and Cobo, to ensure the platform was fully secure before reopening.
Derebit’s Telegram chat added: “Due to our hot wallet policy we were able to limit loss of user funds.” It added it was in a “financially sound position” and that the hack would not impact ongoing operations.
CoinGecko data indicated Derebit’s daily trading volumes were $280 million, making it one of the largest cryptocurrency derivatives exchanges in the world.
Binance also temporarily halted transactions after being compromised in early October and fund transfers were temporarily suspended, with company chief executive Changpeng Zhao apologising for the incident.
