ZachXBT says CoinSpot wallets appear to have lost around $2 million of crypto in possible hack

Quick Take

  • Australian crypto exchange CoinSpot might have suffered an exploit, according to blockchain sleuth ZachXBT.
  • Two of the exchange’s wallets appear to have lost more than 1,282 ETH in a matter of 5 minutes.

Two wallets connected to CoinSpot, an Australian crypto exchange, appear to have been drained of funds worth around $2 million, an on-chain crypto sleuth who goes by the nickname ZachXBT posted in his Telegram channel.

ZachXBT pointed at two transactions as evidence. In one of them, 1,262 ETH -1.091% left Coinspot's wallet for a presumed attacker's address; in the other one, 20.99 ETH were sent to the same address. According to data at Etherscan, whoever received the coins then swapped them for wrapped bitcoin, USDC and USDT, using Uniswap, THORchain and WBTC -0.68% smart contract.

CoinSpot was founded in 2014, according to Crunchbase. There haven't been any large hacks of the exchange reported to date. However, in December 2021, its users were targeted in a phishing attack.

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CoinSpot did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Block. The exchange says on its website that it "maintains industry best-practice by securing a vast majority of assets in highly secure offline locations."


© 2023 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

About Author

Anna is a senior policy reporter at The Block. She has a background in political journalism and covered Russian civil society for a range of news outlets in Moscow, including the award-winning newspaper Novaya Gazeta. Before joining The Block, Anna spent the past five years investigating cryptocurrency policies and adoption around the world at CoinDesk. Anna owns bitcoin and a gift NFT of sentimental value.

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