Mercado Bitcoin Loss Estimate Rises to $48.6 Million After Hack

Losses from the Mercado Bitcoin hack were estimated at $48.6 million across 10 blockchains, and funds continued moving from customer deposit addresses for about four hours after the Brazilian exchange said the incident was contained.

Mercado Bitcoin discovered the security incident Nov. 2. The revised estimate is about 34% above the $36.3 million the exchange disclosed Nov. 3, a $12.3 million gap. The address-level breakdown included 36,042 Ethereum addresses used to receive customer deposits, with a combined balance of about $266,000.

Mercado Bitcoin pledged to absorb all customer losses and had more than $15 million frozen with help from Tether, Circle and Chainalysis. The exchange had not commented on the higher estimate by Nov. 5.

Deposits and withdrawals remained paused. The exchange’s website was expected to reopen in read-only mode Monday, Nov. 9, allowing customers to view balances and transaction histories; no date was given for restoring transfers.