Stolen Upbit Ethereum Tokens Suspected to be on the Move

Suspicious activities have been observed in one of the addresses involved in the recent hack involving Upbit, which saw the perpetrators move about $50 million in Ethereum tokens to an unidentified wallet.

Whale Alert, a statistical analysis website focused on tracking huge cryptocurrency transactions, alerted that a 10,000 Ethereum token (about $1.5 million) transaction was executed on the 3rd of December from the suspected wallet.

Just five minutes after that transaction, another smaller transaction of 1,001 Ethereum tokens ($150,000) was recorded from that same wallet.

Another 10,000 Ethereum token transaction has been recorded again just a few hours later. In total, six transactions have been made from that wallet.

Suspected Case of Internal Robbery
Upbit, a subsidiary of South Korea’s Kakao, announced last week that 342,000 Ethereum tokens were stolen from its hot wallet on the 27th of November.

The robbery is suspected to be an “inside job” rather than an outside robbery as the act was perpetrated at a period when the exchange was in the process of transferring assets between its hot and cold storage.

Other exchanges like Binance, have pledged solidarity promising that they would not allow the stolen asset to be transacted on their platforms. However, the transactions that were executed have all been identified as affiliated with the hack event but were carried out with success on the platform nonetheless.

Upbit Promises Full Refund to Affected Customers
Upbit has guaranteed the affected customers that they would all receive full refunds from the exchange’s corporate capital.

Upbit is one of the four most prominent exchanges in the country. It is also a member of the Korean Blockchain Association, which comprises 14 cryptocurrency trading platforms. Members of the association are mandated to manage its customers’ tokens separately from its own and publish audit and financial reports frequently.

In 2018, the prime four exchanges developed a hotline for reporting any suspected illicit transactions to flag and freeze such transactions.