$97 million Stolen From a Japanese Cryptocurrency Exchange

Hackers stole a $97 million worth of Ethereum and other altcoins from a Japanese cryptocurrency exchange. The Tokyo-based firm called Liquid reported in a statement that it had detected unauthorized access of some of the crypto wallets managed by the company.

The cryptocurrency exchange company has been struggling to recover the stolen assets from the minute the heist was made. The company recently announced in a tweet that some of its digital currency wallets have been compromised, making this the second-largest crypto fraud made in recent days. It comes second after the $600 heist from the digital token platform Poly Network just a little over a week ago.

Elliptic, a London-based blockchain analytics firm which helps track stolen cryptocurrencies, made an analysis of the heist and reported that over $97 million worth of crypto have been received by the accounts identified by Liquid as belonging to the thief. Elliptic investigators are also aiding Liquid with tracking the stolen funds at the moment.

Hackers trying to steal cryptocurrencies apparently moves the funds through many different accounts at a super fast speed, that can shoulder hundreds of thousands of transactions at a time, in an attempt to cover their tracks. But industry players too have upped their game. They are gradually becoming better at identifying and blocking stolen coins. Liquid said $16.3 million worth of stolen Ethereum has already been frozen thanks to the help gotten from the crypto community and other exchanges.

A Little About Liquid

Liquid was founded in 2014 and it operates in over 100 countries, serving millions of customers all around the world. It is one of the world’s top 20 biggest cryptocurrency exchanges by daily trading volumes. Liquid is also ranked among the top 10 cryptocurrency exchanges globally based on daily traded spot volume with deep BTC/JPY liquidity. They are focused on providing a great user experience & world-class service levels.

Bottomline is Liquid is a big-time company with pretty tight security, which just seems like the perfect combination hackers are looking for these days. We hope the entire money lost will be gotten back somehow like Poly Network’s was.

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