CoinEx exchange suspected of being hacked as $27M worth of crypto moved

A CoinEx hot wallet transferred $27.8 million of various tokens to a wallet with no previous history, leading experts to suspect a cyberattack.

On Sept. 12, crypto exchange CoinEx experienced abnormally large outflows to an address with no prior history, leading security experts to suspect the exchange was hacked. Blockchain security platform Cyvers Alerts has estimated the losses to be approximately $27 million.

Red CodeOur AI-powered model detected suspicious transactions related to @coinexcom 2 hours ago

The potentially stolen funds amount to $18.12M #Eth $8.5M #Tron and $291K in #Polygon

Possible causes: access control violations, private key leakage, rug pulling, insider job https://t.co/Wzw84azM9M pic.twitter.com/2bqHmE18Sr

— Cyvers Alerts (@CyversAlerts) September 12, 2023

At approximately 1:21 p.m. UTC on Sept. 12, a known CoinEx hot wallet transferred around 4,947 Ether (ETH), worth $7.9 million at the time, to Ethereum account 0x8bf8cd7F001D0584F98F53a3d82eD0bA498cC3dE. The receiving account had no prior history before this transaction.

Immediately after this transaction, the CoinEx hot wallet began transferring large amounts of tokens to the same address. Approximately 408,741 DAI stablecoin, 2.7 million Graph (GRT) tokens, 29,158 Uniswap (UNI) tokens, and many other tokens were transferred from the wallet.

Blockchain security firm PeckShield reported the outflow as “suspicious.” CryptoQuant head of research Julio Moreno also claimed that the behavior of the CoinEx wallet was “strange” as Ether reserves “are now basically zero ETH.”

At the time of publication, Coinx has not made a public statement about the incident.

This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.