Japanese crypto exchange DMM Bitcoin announced on Friday that over $300 million worth of Bitcoin was stolen from its primary wallet, in what appears to be one of the digital asset industry’s largest hacks in years.
Around 1:30 pm local time, the company said, it noticed that some 4,503 BTC—worth about $308 million at the time—”illegally leaked” from its wallet. DMM has not yet given further explanation as to how the apparent hack was carried out, but said it was investigating the matter and had taken measures to prevent such an attack from happening again.
Decrypt reached out to DMM Bitcoin but did not immediately receive a response.
The company says that it will continue to guarantee all customer BTC deposits following the exploit. It has, however, suspended the buying of orders for spot trading, the opening of leveraged trading positions, and “screening of new account openings.”
Biggest Crypto Exploits and Hacks of 2023
Hacks and exploits continued to plague the crypto industry in 2023, with billions of dollars lost as crypto criminals took advantage of weak security. The good news? This year wasn’t as bad as last year, which was the worst on record, according to analysts. Blockchain intelligence company TRM Labs said in a December report that while “a few large hacks could close the gap in December,” 2023 would likely finish with “significantly lower totals than 2022”—during which a massive $4 billion was sto...
Further, DMM has suspended processing of crypto withdrawals for the time being. Withdrawals of Japanese Yen are still permitted, but may take longer than usual.
The hack marks the most substantial crypto-related exploit the industry has suffered in some time. No hack so far this year, or in 2023 for that matter, approached it in scale.
Bitcoin Meme Coins Surge as DOG's 85% Jump Calms Fears That 'Runes Are Dead'
The emerging market of Bitcoin-based meme coins showed signs of life Thursday, as the price of several so-called Runes tokens increased—all while the value of memetic assets on other networks fell. The market capitalization of meme coins tracked by CoinGecko had fallen 4.6% over the past day to $66 billion, yet Bitcoin Runes token DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON (aka DOG) has increased 20% to $0.007, as of this writing. Not far behind, the Bitcoin-based meme coin PUPS has also jumped 15% over the past 24 hou...
2022, however, saw a string of massive exploits directed at a mix of layer-1 blockchains, sidechains, crypto exchanges, and DeFi protocols. The largest hack that year, of the BNB Chain (formerly Binance Smart Chain), made away some $566 million worth of BNB.
Today’s crypto hack appears to be the second largest in Japan’s history. Back in 2018, hackers raided Coincheck, one of the country’s largest exchanges, for over $550 million worth of XEM, a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
