AscendEX Hacked, $77.7M Lost From Hot Wallets

Latest News A significant crypto hack occurred at AscendEX on Dec. 11, 2021, the third major attack in less than two weeks.

Cryptocurrency exchange AscendEX has disabled deposits and withdrawals following revelations from a security audit that various tokens had been transferred out of its hot wallets. The hack took place at 10 pm UTC on Dec. 11, 2021. It resulted in the transfer of ERC-20, Binance Smart Chain, and Polygon tokens amounting to $77M out of hot wallets, according to blockchain security firm Peckshield Inc. AscendEX has assured that they will replace all user funds that are lost and will gradually resume deposits and withdrawals. ERC-20 token transfers accounted for approximately $60M in losses, while $9.2M was lost on the Binance Smart Chain, with $8.5M lost on Polygon. The largest token transfers from Ethereum were the lesser-known TARA token and USDT, with approximately $10.8M and $5.7M lost, respectively.

AscendEX hasn’t released official figures regarding the losses, but Etherscan does provide the raw data if one wishes to trace the transactions involved in the hack. It is unclear how the hack occurred, but what is clear is that cold wallets are not affected.