Poloniex, a cryptocurrency exchange owned by Justin Sun, has fallen victim to a hack resulting in the loss of at least $60 million. In response, Sun is collaborating with other crypto exchanges to recover the stolen funds.
Launched in January 2014, Poloniex is a prominent crypto exchange under the leadership of Justin Sun, the founder of the Tron blockchain. The exchange recently experienced a “hack incident” that resulted in the unauthorized withdrawal of approximately $60 million worth of crypto assets from one of Poloniex’s wallets.
The suspicious activity on Poloniex’s wallets was initially detected by blockchain security firm Peckshield. Following the discovery, Poloniex made an official announcement via its customer support account on X (formerly Twitter). The exchange informed users that the affected wallet had been temporarily disabled for maintenance, promising to provide updates regarding the issue.
Data from blockchain explorer Etherscan shows the hacked wallet made several transfers to the hacker’s wallet, including ETH, TRON, USDT, TUSD, and meme coins such as PEPE, FLOKI, and SHIB. A tweet from Lookonchain showed the Poloniex hacker selling stolen assets on blockchain explorer Etherscan and Tronscan.
Another user on X(formerly Twitter) also tweeted: “Lmao did Poloniex exploiter got so confused transferring tokens he sent GLM to the contract address.”
Following the incident, Justin Sun tweeted that Poloniex was investigating the incident, had a strong financial position, and would compensate the affected users. Sun also stated that the exchange was working with other exchanges to track and recover the stolen funds.
In his latest tweet, he mentioned “We are offering a 5% white hat bounty to the Poloniex hacker. Please return the funds to the following ETH/TRX/BTC wallets. We will give you 7 days to consider this offer before we engage law enforcement.”
Security researcher Officer’s Notes suggested that the hack could be caused by several factors, including compromised private keys, malware, or social engineering.
In addition, Arkham, an intelligence platform, has joined the efforts to identify the individuals or organizations responsible for the attack. The firm has established and funded a bounty program to aid in the identification of the perpetrator.
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