Crypto Exchange Deribit Suffers $28 Million Hack, Halts Withdrawals

Leading cryptocurrency futures and options exchange Deribit has been hacked with the attackers draining $28 million from its hot wallet. Deribit revealed the incident in a tweet on Wednesday, saying that the hack impacted its BTC, ETH, and USDC hot wallets.

Deribit Hacked for $28 Million

“Our hot wallet was hacked for USD 28m earlier this evening just before midnight UTC on 1 November 2022,” Deribit said.

According to the exchange, clients’ assets, Fireblocks, and their cold storage addresses are not affected by the exploit. The company noted that it keeps 99% of its users’ funds in cold storage to limit the impact of these types of attacks.

Deribit also stated in its tweet that client funds are safe and losses will be covered by the company reserves.

The exchange said despite the hack, it remains financially healthy, and ongoing operations will not be impacted.

Deribit Halts Withdrawals Following Hack

Deribit said it is currently carrying out security checks and has suspended withdrawals including third-party custodians Copper Clearloop and Cobo until it is certain that it is safe to resume again.

“Deposits already sent will still be processed and after the required number of confirmations, they will be credited to accounts,” the exchange said.

The exchange noted that it has increased “the minimum number of confirmations for the moment causing a delay in crediting funds.” Deribit said it urges users not to send new deposits until it re-opens wallets again.

Launched in 2016, Deribit is one of the largest cryptocurrency derivatives exchanges that enables users to trade derivatives and options on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and USDC.

2022 – Year of Hackers

Deribit has now joined a long list of crypto-related firms to be targeted by hackers in recent months. Last month, Binance-linked blockchain BNB Chain suffered a cross-chain bridge exploit which allowed the attackers to withdraw a total of 2 million BNB tokens from the pool.

A recent report by blockchain analytics platform Chainalysis revealed that at the rate at which hackers are targeting crypto projects in recent months, 2022 will likely surpass 2021 as the biggest year for hacking on record. Per the report, hackers have stolen more than $3 billion across 125 hacks this year.