Turkish Exchange BtcTurk Falls Victim To Hack

One of Turkey’s most prominent crypto exchanges BtcTurk has suffered a cyber attack leading to unauthorized access to some of its hot wallets. The exchange has reported some level of asset loss, however, they claim enough financial stability to overcome this setback.

$5.3 Million Recovered By BtcTurk, But How Big Is The Loss?

In a recent status update,  BtcTurk shared that its team detected a hack had occurred on its platform on June 22 raising much concern in the crypto community. 

While the total amount lost was not disclosed, BtcTurk stated that this incident only led to the compromise of the hot wallets of 10 cryptocurrencies while all cold wallets, which the Turkish exchange claims hold the majority of its assets, remain safe. 

Commenting on the incident, Richard Teng, CEO of Binance, announced a collaborative investigation effort between both exchanges leading to the recovery of $5.3 million worth of the stolen assets. 

Teng said:

Binance is assisting BtcTurk with investigations and has frozen over $5.3M in stolen funds so far. 

Our investigations & security teams work around the clock as part of our proactive efforts to protect the ecosystem from bad actors. We will provide further updates as relevant.

Meanwhile, renowned on-chain investigator ZachXBT has provided some insights into the possible identity of the bad actors behind this hack. 

According to ZachXBT, the hackers are likely affiliated with the address 0x327a81d0d128db8886d265be73c9fdda97194f30 which he observed recently transferred 1.96 million AVAX ($54.2 million) to Coinbase and THORChain leading to a 10% decline in the price of AVAX.  ZachXBT has based his premonitions on BtcTurk having its market AVAX address on the Avalanche X-chain. 

For now, the Turkish exchange has neither confirmed nor denied this theory but all withdrawal and deposit transactions on the trading platform have been disabled. BtcTurk claims that the hack has not affected its robust financial position and has assured all users of the safety of their assets.

2024 Sees Second Crypto Exchange Hack – Growing Cause For Concern?

The cyber attack on BtcTurk represents the second hack on a crypto exchange in 2024 after Japanese platform DMM Bitcoin lost $305 million in BTC in a security breach in May. 

Generally, hacks on crypto exchanges draw much attention due to the custodial nature of these platforms which allow them to own the private keys of their customers. 

Moreover, these platforms are known to hold larger funds than their DeFi counterparts. For context, Coingecko reports that Binance, the world’s largest exchange, records 13x the daily trading volume of the most prominent decentralized exchange, Uniswap.

Nevertheless, all forms of hacks or attacks reinforce the need for continuous and collaborative security advancements in the crypto ecosystem.

Featured image from WIRED, chart from Tradingview