Crypto Exchange Deribit Loses $28 Million To Cybercriminals

Deribit, a leading cryptocurrency futures and exchange, becomes the first victim of crypto hackers for November 2022 as its hot wallet was drained of $28 million.

The cyber attack affected the exchange’s Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDC hot wallets. The company, however, has already given its assurance to immediately compensate the losses with the use of its funds.

Things could have been worse but luckily Deribit already prepared for this kind of eventuality and made it a policy to store 99% of its funds into a cold storage in order to protect its clients.

Meanwhile, more details about the hack are expected to be released soon as investigations are still underway.

Deribit Transactions Slowed Down After The Attack

Following the security breach, Deribit implemented security checks that slowed down some of its transactions.

User withdrawals as well as that of third-party custodians have been temporarily halted and will only be opened after the company has ascertained that it has the situation completely under its control.

Meanwhile, deposits that have already been sent for processing will be credited as soon as the required number of confirmations has been met.

“We have raised the minimum number of confirmations for the moment causing a delay in crediting funds. Until we open wallets again we request you not to send new deposits,” said Deribit in an appeal to its clients to bear with the situation for now and abstain from doing such kind of transaction.

The crypto exchange also allayed possible fears of its operations being impacted by this cyber attack, reiterating that it is of sound financial position and that there is no significant effect on its conduct of day-to-day business.

Remaining As Crypto Options Giant

The Panama-based Dutch derivates exchange continues to lead the way as far as Bitcoin options interest is concerned with its 89.76% share.

Chicago’s CME comes second behind Deribit but only holds 6.87% worth of share. Also included in the top five are Okex and FTX.

With Ethereum options market, the crypto exchange has monopoly with its 96.64% share that comes with almost complete control of the market.

Still, even with the reputation it has built over the years, Deribit has fallen victim to the exploits that target crypto assets in order to easily earn millions.

It can be recalled that during the first two weeks of October, cyber criminals were able to take away $718 million worth of cryptocurrencies from various projects, platforms and wallets.

With over $3 billion worth of digital currencies already at the hands of hackers, 2022 is slowly but surely becoming the biggest year for hacking, surpassing 2021 that saw $3.2 billion worth of crypto assets slip away from their rightful owners’ hands.

Currently, the recently tally for this year is already $3.25 billion and there’s still two months before 2022 ends.

Crypto total market cap at $961 billion on the daily chart | Featured image from TechNewsWorld, Chart: TradingView.com