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January 15th of this year marked the first time that an exchange of cryptographers was violated in 2019. The exchange that was affected was New Zealand-based cryptopenia. The exchange has since been undergoing maintenance, as the Cryptopia team continues to assess the damages and losses incurred during the hack. They are also collaborating with the New Zealand authorities to assure criminals to justice.
No clear figure of how much was lost
Since then, many crypto enthusiasts and traders have been aware that the losses were in the millions, but it was not an exact figure to provide some clarity on the extent of the financial damage caused.
New estimate of $ 16 million in Ethereum (ETH) and stolen ERC20 tokens
Since then, a new report from the Elementus data company has provided a better picture of what value of digital resources has been taken from the exchange. The company puts the estimate at $ 16 million in Ethereum (ETH) and ERC20 tokens stolen from Cryptopia. The breakdown of hacking losses was provided by Elementus and can be found below.
- ETH – $ 3,570.124
- Dentacoin – $ 2,446.212
- Oyster pearl: $ 1,948,223
- Lisk ML – $ 1,718.610
- Centrality: $ 1,148.144
- Mother ship – $ 880,141
- Ormeus – $ 452.841
- DAPS – $ 384.425
- Zap – $ 147.158
- Pillar: $ 254.521
- Other tokens: $ 3,051,709
- Total – $ 16.002.108
How it was performed
The Elementus report goes on to explain that this hack has been unique in that many different portfolios have been involved. The report explains:
The funds were taken from over 76,000 different portfolios, none of which was a smart contract. Thieves must have had access to not a private key, but to thousands of them.
According to Elementus's investigation, the hacker continued for several days after Cryptopia discovered the security breach.
After Cryptopia discovered the hack, they saw the funds continue to flow out of their wallets another four days, apparently powerless to stop it. Since these portfolios were not smart contracts, there should have been no technical complications that would prevent Cryptopia from securing the funds.
The only plausible explanation for the inactivity of cryptopia is that they no longer have access to their wallets.
Attempts to sell stolen funds in exchanges
The cryptic community was able to alert Binance's CEO Changpeng Zhao about the presence of funds in the exchange that had been stolen from the cryptopia. The exchange quickly frozen those funds. The Elementus report further breaks the trade that the hackers tried to use to liquidate their loot.
Conclusion
After investigating the cryptic hack, Elementus concluded the following.
- 1,948 Ethereum portfolios and $ 46,000 in ETH could still be at risk
- Possibility of cryptopia with additional funds securely hidden somewhere
- Recommendation for exchanges to freeze these funds as soon as they arrive
What are your thoughts on the new $ 16 million stolen in the ETH and ERC20 tokens during the cryptopia hack at the start of this month? Let us know in the comments section below.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to give financial advice. Any additional opinions reported here are purely that of the author and do not represent the opinion of Ethereum World News or any of its other writers. Perform your research before investing in one of the numerous cryptocurrencies available. Thank you.
