Cryptopia Hack

Ethereum-only estimate $16.0M
Ethereum
Suspected private-key compromise

What happened

Cryptopia's Ethereum wallets were drained beginning January 13, 2019. Elementus valued the ETH and tokens taken in the initial sequence at about $16 million using January 19 prices. That estimate covered Ethereum only.

Technical root cause

The breadth of affected ordinary wallets led Elementus to infer access to private keys or the system storing them. The specific way that access was obtained was not established.

How it happened

  1. Funds first left two main hot wallets, followed by residual balances in more than 76,000 secondary wallets.
  2. Cryptopia suspended trading on January 14 and disclosed the breach on January 15.
  3. Elementus traced withdrawals through January 17 and subsequent transfers to exchanges.
  4. Its January 21 analysis found most of the stolen value still concentrated in two addresses.

Protocol details

Classification Key Compromise
Protocol Type CEX

Evidence

Same attack technique

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