2019’s Most Controversial Hacks

The recent hack event targeted at Upbit serves as a reminder of just how risky it is storing your digital assets on an exchange. We will be looking at seven prominent hacks that happened to exchanges in 2019.

1- Cryptopia got disabled on the 15th of January after it learned about an infringement in security that caused substantial losses. It remained quiet all from January up until February. It was later uncovered that about $16 million was stolen from the exchange after which it filed for bankruptcy in May.

2- DragonEx was the victim of a hack that happened on the 24th of March. It was later disclosed that the hackers made away with $7 million. However, DragonEx didn’t seem to guarantee its affected customers with a full refund.

3- Bithumb got hacked sometime in March and initially, it was thought to have lost $13 million in EOS, however, it was later uncovered that it also lost $6 million in XRP. This hack is suspected to be an “inside job”.

4- Binance was the victim of a hack that occurred in May and saw the exchange lose $41 million in Bitcoin. The exchange halted all activities for about a week to strengthen security. The exchange assured a full refund to the affected customer.

5- BiTrue was hacked in June and lost about $4 million in XRP and ADA of customers’ capital. The hackers also tried to move about $12 million into other exchanges, but BiTrue was quick to contact those exchanges to seize the money.

6- Bitpoint is the sixth on our list. It was hacked in July and lost $28 million which affected about 50,000 customers. It is still unknown how the hackers broke into the exchange. The hack caused Bitpoint to restrict all trading activities for a month.

7- Upbit is the most recent victim of hacking. The exchange lost a whopping $49 million on the 26th of November after 342,000 ether was stolen in minutes. The exchange has assured affected users a full refund but has restricted all activities for the time being.