Poloniex hacked — all my low liquidity coins gone

A tragic turn of events for the Justin Sun-owned cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex transpired on Thursday, as the platform was hacked for over $100 million worth of cryptocurrencies. The hacker was able to make away with tens of millions worth of mainstream, highly liquid cryptocurrencies like USDT, bitcoin, ether, and USDC — but they also weren’t particularly picky in their choices, snagging dozens of low liquidity trash tokens as well.

The hacker appears to have made off with nearly $40 million worth of stablecoins and nearly $30 million worth of bitcoin and ether. Whoever took the funds had about an hour to drain Poloniex wallets and made sure to take everything they could.

Ultimately, many low liquidity coins were also taken. Some were even unable to be sold off because there was literally no one to sell to.

He also tried selling $PYR(~$700k), and $MDT(~$120k), only to realize there is no liquidity on AMMs

Also, 200m $OX was stolen and frozen by $OPNX, however this probably doesn't make any difference. (Send it to 0.)https://t.co/3AqoUWdzmY
— DeFiac (@TheDEFIac) November 10, 2023

In what can only be described as a stroke of luck, Vulcan Forged (the company that won The Next Crypto Gem reality TV show) and Measurable Data Token both had tons of coins involved in the hack – but the hacker couldn’t sell them.

Other low liquidity coins, like WIN, BTT, and SUN have seen prices take dramatic hits since the hack because the hacker was able to sell them off.

Poloniex offers bounty following hack

In a short tweet thread, Poloniex acknowledged that it had been hacked and ensured that users would be reimbursed for any losses. A 5% white hat bounty was offered if the hacker chooses to give the almost $120 million worth of assets back. If the hacker takes Poloniex and Sun up on the bounty, they’re looking at a roughly $6 million payday.

Only a couple of months ago, Justin Sun’s other exchange, formerly known as Huobi and now called HTX, was also hacked for 5,000 ETH — far less than the ongoing Poloniex hack, but still a significant amount of user funds.

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