Cryptocurrency Heist in Japan: Hackers Steal Nearly $100 Million From Liquid Company's Wallets

Tokyo, August 20: Hackers have stolen cryptocurrencies worth nearly $100m from digital wallets of Japan-based Liquid, a cryptocurrency exchange. Liquid on Thursday announced that some of its "warm" wallets have been "compromised", hence, they are shifting cryptocurrencies to "cold" wallets that are more secured. It is the second major incident of crypto heist to take place in recent days. What Is CumRocket? Here's All You Need To Know About The Cryptocurrency That Surged After Elon Musks' Cryptic Tweet.

"We are sorry to announce that #LiquidGlobal warm wallets were compromised, we are moving assets into the cold wallet," Liquid said on Twitter. "We are currently investigating and will provide regular updates. In the meantime deposits and withdrawals will be suspended," the company added. Based online, "warm" wallets are less secure. "Cold" wallets, on the other hand, are offline and harder to access. Cryptocurrency in India: Banks Slash Ties After RBI's Advise, Worries Crypto Traders, Says Report.

While Liquid did not disclose the worth of stolen assets, according to analysis by blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, just over $97 million in cryptocurrencies have been stolen. The stolen cryptoassets include $45 million in Ethereum tokens, which, Elliptic said, are currently being converted into Ether using decentralised exchanges (DEXs) such as Uniswap and SushiSwap.

Of the stolen cryptocurrencies, Liquid said, "16.13mm USDe of ERC-20 assets have been frozen (disabled for onchain movement) due to the assistance of the crypto community and other exchanges". "Liquid’s teams are still assessing the attack vector used and taking measures to mitigate the impact to users," the company assured.

Founded in 2014, Liquid is one of the world's top 20 biggest cryptocurrency exchanges by daily trading volumes. Earlier this month, cryptocurrency platform Poly Network had lost $610 million in a hack. However, almost all the stolen assets were returned by the hacker, who it dubbed a "white hat".

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 20, 2021 04:17 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).