Bybit suffers a $1.4 billion crypto hack, triggering Ethereum and Bitcoin price drops. Binance, Bitget, and MEXC provide emergency financial support.
Bybit, a well-known cryptocurrency exchange, suffered a massive hack today. Theft operations led to hackers obtaining approximately $1.4 billion worth of Ethereum-based tokens. Overall the market showed a fast response to this incident. Ethereum’s price dropped by 2.6% to $2,695. The trading value of Bitcoin declined past 1.9% to a price of $96,357.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou released information about the hack through his X account. Zhou disclosed to his followers that the attackers successfully exploited a schedule for wallet transfers at Bybit’s infrastructure. The system operators made a mistake when they allowed the hackers to change their smart contracts. Bybit’s ETH cold wallet became vulnerable after the hackers obtained control through that system modification. The attackers succeeded in taking control by which point they directed all funds to an unknown wallet.
Zhou assured users that their other cold wallets remained secure despite the incident. According to Bybit, withdrawals are functioning normally.
Bitget and MEXC Move Millions to Support Bybit Liquidity After Hack
During this time, the crypto community reacted to the crisis. Binance CEO Richard Teng notified the public that the Binance team is actively supplying assistance for the situation. Major crypto platforms transferred funds between each other to provide financial support to Bybit during the crisis.
MEXC as another cryptocurrency exchange performed a transaction by moving 12,652 stETH worth $33.75 million to Bybit’s cold wallet. Bybit accepted a 64,452 ETH (worth $170 million) financial assistance from Bitget during this time. The funds from this loan would be used to address immediate liquidity demands. Bitget removed the funds first from Binance and MEXC prior to moving them to Bybit.
An institutional entity transferred 11,800 ETH worth $31 million through Binance to Bybit’s cold wallet storage system. Bybit received combined total financial contributions worth more than 50,000 ETH from Binance together with Bitget. The ETH deposit Bitget made accounted for 25% of the entire funds Bitget had. The analysis indicates that Bybit manually organized the fund transfers because they maintained a non-standard deposit system.
Bybit team members are currently investigating the breach as they take measures to protect their system. The security vulnerabilities of cryptocurrency exchanges become increasingly demanding because of this incident. The incident shows how users face dangers while dealing with the cryptocurrency industry.
