Brazilian crypto exchange Mercado Bitcoin has scheduled the return of client access to accounts for November 9. The estimate of what was stolen in the hack has risen to $48.6 million. Immediately after the attack, about $46 million was mentioned.
What exactly was hacked. The money left the exchange's own wallets and clients' deposit addresses. A deposit address is a wallet where a client sends coins to be credited to their exchange account.
Why this matters to a trader. While withdrawals are closed, no one can dispose of assets on the platform.
What will open on November 9?
At the first stage, only viewing via the website will be available.
- Will open - balances, statements, portfolio and investments.
- Will remain closed - trading, transfers and withdrawals.
- Condition for restoring operations - independent security testing.
How deep did the attack go?
Scale. Blockchain analytics service Bitquery traced unauthorized transfers across 10 networks.
Both the exchange's hot wallets and clients' deposit addresses were drained. Hot wallets are storages connected to the network. On the Ethereum network alone, 36,042 addresses were cleaned out from 15:27 to 19:56 Moscow time on November 2.
Where does the time discrepancy come from?
- 15:56 Moscow time, November 2. The exchange publicly stated that the incident was contained.
- About four more hours. Transfers continued after that statement.
- Open question. The attacker's access may have been interrupted, but when control over the wallet infrastructure was actually cut off is unclear.
How much money was returned?
More than $15 million was blocked. Chainalysis, together with law enforcement and token issuers, first helped freeze about $10 million.
- Over $9 million - in USDT. USDT is the Tether stablecoin, pegged to the dollar.
- Participants in the freezes - Tether, Circle, Paxos, Ripple and Agora.
- About $5.9 million - the Tether token share according to a later Bitquery count.
What happens next?
The exchange promises to replenish the affected assets with its own funds. Its trading desk is preparing to buy coins on the domestic and international markets.
Key point: the final loss will depend on the volume of freezes, returns and the price of this buyback. Until withdrawals open, part of the risk remains with clients rather than the platform.
If you trade crypto, it's worth checking in advance where it's even available and on what terms.
Are your coins also sitting on an exchange?
While withdrawals are closed, assets remain on the platform's balance for everyone who traded there. In prop trading, trades go through the company's account, and there's a different set of questions there. Which crypto instruments are on the list, what leverage applies to altcoins, whether you can hold a position overnight and over the weekend. Each prop firm spells this out in its own way, and you need to read it before paying for a challenge. The matching tool shows in a minute where your crypto is actually traded and where only BTC and ETH are available.