Cryptopia

On February 1, 2021, Cryptopia, a New Zealand-based cryptocurrency exchange already in liquidation, suffered another hack, with hackers stealing NZD 62,000 (~$45,000 USD) in XSN tokens, as reported by Stuff.co.nz. Detected at 08:00 UTC, the attackers accessed a dormant wallet holding $1.96 million in XSN, Stakenet’s native token, which had been inactive since Cryptopia’s $30 million hack in January 2019, per the article. The wallet was under the control of liquidators Grant Thornton, appointed in May 2019, who were criticized by Stakenet for failing to secure the assets, per Twitter (@Stakenet). Cryptopia, with a peak of $1 million daily trading volume and 1.4 million users per CoinMarketCap, was already shuttered, and no public response from Grant Thornton was issued, per the article.

No funds were recovered, and the incident followed a July 2020 theft by a former employee of NZD 250,000 ($182,300), which was later recovered, per NZ Herald. One of 251 crypto hacks in 2021 costing $3.2 billion, per Chainalysis, this incident, alongside Altilly’s $1 million loss, highlighted risks in liquidation-phase security, fueling calls for enhanced wallet access controls, cold storage, and liquidator accountability to secure crypto assets.