FTX seems to have been hacked according to people with knowledge of the matter. Crypto Twitter is now reporting live on the current situation and how FTX wallets are being emptied. Ryne Miller, the general counsel of the cryptocurrency exchange, informed on Telegram that the exchange has been hacked. At the same time, he wrote on Twitter that they are investigating abnormalities with wallet movements related to the consolidation of FTX balances.
FTX Allegedly Hacked, Over $380M Leave FTX Wallets
If FTX was in a bad situation, things are getting even worse. Ryne Miller informed that they are investigating abnormalities when it comes to the consolidation of FTX balances on different exchanges.
https://twitter.com/_Ryne_Miller/status/1591281729125613570
At the same time, the recognized developer foobar said that hundreds of millions of dollars were flowing out of different FTX wallets. Moreover, he mentioned that these are not typical times for fast and large movements from wallets. Furthermore, other withdrawals have been swapped from USDT to DAI.
On that matter, Foobar wrote on Twitter:
“Hundreds of millions of dollars are now flowing out of FTX wallets, some speculate liquidators but it’s late on a friday night, not typical times for such rapid heavy movements. Some withdrawals are being swapped from Tether to DAI. Hack or insider actions? $26 million here.”
Hundreds of millions of dollars are now flowing out of FTX wallets, some speculate liquidators but it's late on a friday night, not typical times for such rapid heavy movements. Some withdrawals are being swapped from Tether to DAI. Hack or insider actions? $26 million here pic.twitter.com/8wWlaE7na9
— foobar/ (@0xfoobar) November 12, 2022
Additionally, he continued to report that the attacker seemed to be moving everything from FTX. From USDT, the funds were exchanged to DAI, and from DAI they were swapped to stETH and then ETH, with a huge slippage. In the beginning, it could have been possible to think of liquidators trying to get funds from FTX, but this is not something that would be performed by liquidators.
Nevertheless, there is no clear information on whether this issue is an inside or outside job, as explained by Foobar. Another thing to take into consideration is that there were updates available on FTX, which tried to get root access to users’ private keys. Therefore, people that have to yet update FTX’s app shouldn’t do it.
Ryne Miller wrote on Twitter once again the following message:
“Following the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings – FTX US and FTX.com initiated precautionary steps to move all digital assets to cold storage. The process was expedited this evening – to mitigate damage upon observing unauthorized transactions.”
Meanwhile, Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that the current FTX meltdown/ransack is currently being tracked in real-time on Twitter.
FTX meltdown/ransack being tracked in real-time on Twitter
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 12, 2022
The current situation that the market is experiencing has been one of the worst for digital currencies in years. This is something that has affected the whole ecosystem and that pushed Bitcoin to new lows in recent months. It will be a matter of time to see if the market recovers.
At the moment of writing this article, Bitcoin is being traded at close to $16,800 and it has a market capitalization of $323.2 billion. Meanwhile, other digital currencies have registered losses of over 30% in the last 7 days, with FTX falling below $2 per coin.