BitMart

On December 4, 2021, BitMart, a Cayman Islands-based cryptocurrency exchange, was struck by a massive hack, losing $196 million from its Ethereum ($100 million) and Binance Smart Chain ($96 million) hot wallets, as reported by PeckShield and CoinDesk. Detected at 16:30 EST, the breach, confirmed by CEO Sheldon Xia via Twitter (@sheldonbitmart), involved a stolen private key, likely via phishing or malware, enabling hackers to drain 29 ERC-20 tokens, including $33 million in SHIB and $28.6 million in SAITAMA, and 20 BEP-20 tokens, like $51.8 million in SAFEMOON, per Merkle Science. The attackers, possibly linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group per Elliptic, swapped funds using 1inch and PancakeSwap, funneling 21170 ETH ($85.36 million) and 56523.78 BNB to Tornado Cash for mixing, per Merkle Science.

BitMart, with $1.3 billion daily volume per CoinMarketCap, suspended withdrawals, secured remaining assets, and fully reimbursed users using its own funds, resuming operations by December 7, as announced on Telegram. Twitter’s @CoinDesk praised the swift response, but Reddit’s u/CryptoSkeptic flagged SAFEMOON’s 20% price crash, per CoinGecko. No funds were recovered in 2021’s loose regulatory environment, despite FinCEN’s AML/CFT focus and the DOJ’s NCET launch, per The Block. One of 169 blockchain hacks that year totaling $7 billion, per Merkle Science, the incident fueled demands for multi-signature wallets, real-time blockchain monitoring, and limiting hot wallet assets to under 10% to shield the crypto ecosystem.