HTX took a proactive stance to mitigate potential harm by providing a “white-hat bonus” equivalent to nearly $400,000, which constituted 5% of the funds that had been drained.
Shortly after HTX, the cryptocurrency exchange formerly known as Huobi reported a hacking incident resulting in an $8 million loss, Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao offered the assistance of Binance’s security team to investigate the attack.
This proactive intervention is crucial for tracing and recovering stolen cryptocurrencies, as hackers often use mixers or convert stolen assets into privacy tokens to conceal their activities.
On September 24, the blockchain analytics platform Cyvers detected a hack that siphoned 5,000 Ether from one of HTX’s hot wallets.
To mitigate the damage, HTX took the initiative to offer a “white-hat bonus” equivalent to 5% of the stolen funds, totaling nearly $400,000.
However, the hacker was given a seven-day window to comply with this offer. HTX communicated this proposal in Mandarin (Chinese), as illustrated in the screenshot.
On a lighter note, CZ made light-hearted remarks about the similarity between the rebranded HTX and Sam Bankman-Fried’s infamous cryptocurrency exchange, FTX.
Nonetheless, the comparison is inappropriate, as HTX fell victim to hacking, whereas FTX faced allegations of being a scam.
In response to a tweet from Justin Sun, Tron’s founder and an HTX advisor, CZ appointed Binance’s security team to assist in tracking the stolen funds.
Additionally, Sun confirmed that HTX would cover all losses incurred by its users. He stated:
“$8 million represents a relatively small sum in comparison to the $3 billion worth of assets held by our users. It also amounts to just two weeks’ revenue for the HTX platform.”
HTX has also implemented real-time monitoring mechanisms to prevent such losses.
Although Sun denied owning a significant stake in HTX, he committed to conducting several live streams in English and Chinese to discuss exchange security.
A day before the HTX hack, the decentralized peer-to-peer network Mixin Network experienced a nearly $200 million loss in a hacking incident that compromised a third-party cloud service provider’s database.
An independent investigation conducted by Web3 SaaS analytics platform 0xScope revealed the hacker’s historical connection to Mixin Network.
In 2022, an address associated with the hacker received 5 ETH from Mixin and later deposited it into Binance.
Deposits and withdrawals on Mixin Network will resume once vulnerabilities are confirmed and fixed, although plans to recover the lost assets for users have not been immediately announced.
