Crypto.com “Unauthorized Activity” Leads to Potential Stolen Ethereum
• January 18, 2022 11:29 am • CommentsAccounts around the world have been suddenly logged out requiring users to log back in again yesterday leaving many scratching their heads as to why.
Late January 17th, some users reported unusual activity. The crypto wallet giant said in a Twitter post that the app was suspending trading temporarily to allow it to improve security and it would resume activity once the update was complete. The company also added that all funds are safe.
We have a small number of users reporting suspicious activity on their accounts.
We will be pausing withdrawals shortly, as our team is investigating. All funds are safe.
— Crypto.com (@cryptocom) January 17, 2022
Next came Dogecoin founder Billy Markus when he a suspicious transaction pattern as well on Etherscan that prompted the company to halt all transactions temporarily.
I see odd activity on one of the Ethereum hot wallets on https://t.co/AbuAAkBxG1 – https://t.co/7l7MgCLnoG
It’s a pattern, the wallets receiving look like this https://t.co/2Gf48D3fqm, multiple of the same transactions to a new wallet between 2-5 ETH, funds not moved after that. https://t.co/tbGJ5RqpXS
— Shibetoshi Nakamoto (@BillyM2k) January 17, 2022
Crypto.com has over 10 million users and is arguably the most popular wallet and trading platform combined in the USA. The platform has recently enlisted a massive publicity push using noteworthy celebrities such as Matt Damon and securing title sponsorship of the Los Angeles sports center known previously as Staples Center.
Later updates from Coindesk have alleged:
The $15 million in ether (4,600 ETH) stolen from Singapore-based Crypto.com is currently being laundered via Tornado Cash, an Ethereum Mixer, according to on-chain data.
However, this claim is not backed up by Crypto.com, who, after a full assessment has stated the issue is resolved and no funds have been lost, backed by a statement by Kris Marszalek:
Some thoughts from me on the last 24 hours:
– no customer funds were lost
– the downtime of withdrawal infra was ~14 hours
– our team has hardened the infrastructure in response to the incidentWe will share a full post mortem after the internal investigation is completed.
— Kris | Crypto.com (@Kris_HK) January 18, 2022
However, as of this writing, InvestorPlace also just reported a second claim of losses:
Indeed, a hack of the Crypto.com platform today is sending fear into some of the coin’s investors. The hackers went in and stole $15 million worth of Ethereum (CCC:ETH-USD) from the exchange. One can see the stolen funds being laundered through a crypto-mixing service called Tornado Cash. Meanwhile, the platform is slow to acknowledge the scope of the hack; a brief trading pause was instituted just after the hack, with the platform downplaying this multi-million dollar hack as “suspicious activity.” The project’s CEO took to Twitter some time later to further assess the situation, reporting that no customer funds were stolen, but remaining silent on the missing $15 million in ETH.
The past 24 hours have seen a loss in most of the major cryptocurrencies of 2-4% with the exception of Ethereum which is as of this writing holds up. Even with all of the uncertainty, most investors are seeing an opportunity as the dip is relatively mild, and the numbers are already starting to trickle back up as of 11 AM EST.
Are you scared?
I was there when #Bitcoin dropped 80%. This is nothing!
Just enjoy the brief discount. pic.twitter.com/0hPKjgAGXe
— Helin ULKER (@beautyofhelin) January 18, 2022
In addition, long looks strong, according to Reuters/Yahoo:
Since last July, for example, the amount of bitcoin held in digital wallets with no outflows for more than five months has been steadily increasing, according to digital currency brokerage Genesis Trading.In addition, the amount of the bitcoin held in “illiquid” wallets – which spend less than quarter of their inflows – is also rising, meaning fewer coin are being actively traded, it added, citing wallet data across several exchanges.
“The number of bitcoins that haven’t moved in over a year has been climbing since July,” said Noelle Acheson, head of market insights at Genesis Trading. “That’s pretty staggering.”
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