Crypto.com Loses $15 Million Worth of Ethereum to Hackers

Major cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com has lost roughly $15 million worth of Ethereum (ETH) to hackers, according to blockchain security company PeckShield.

The @cryptocom loss is about $15M with at least 4.6K ETHs and half of them are currently being washed via @TornadoCash https://t.co/PUl6IrB3cp https://t.co/6SVKvk8PLf pic.twitter.com/XN9nmT857j

— PeckShield Inc. (@peckshield) January 18, 2022

Half of the stolen crypto is being laundered with the help of the Ethereum-powered coin mixing service Tornado Cash.   

On Monday, Crypto.com announced that it had halted withdrawals due to “suspicious activity.” Some users started complaining about losing funds.

It took 14 hours for the Singapore-headquartered company to resume withdrawals.

In a recently posted Twitter thread, CEO Kris Marszalek said that no customer funds were lost. He also added that the Crypto.com team had bolstered the exchange’s infrastructure in response to the incident. The exchange is still conducting an internal investigation of the security incident.

Some thoughts from me on the last 24 hours:

– no customer funds were lost
– the downtime of withdrawal infra was ~14 hours
– our team has hardened the infrastructure in response to the incident

We will share a full post mortem after the internal investigation is completed.

— Kris | Crypto.com (@Kris_HK) January 18, 2022

Some Twitter uses slammed Crypto.com for never mentioning how much crypto has been stolen as the result of the hack.   

Their twitter is “all funds are safe, back to normal” but they never mentioned how much has been stolen or giving information of what happened… such poor communication from them.
Thank you PeckShield!

— Mas ? (@JTuxon) January 18, 2022

While rug pulls and hacks are rampant in the decentralized finance space, it remains unclear how a centralized exchange of such a high caliber fell victim to the attack. Marszalek has promised to publish a post-mortem as soon as the investigation is completed.    

Earlier this month, American actor Matt Damon faced backlash for a “cringe-worthy” Crypto.com ad that was originally revealed last year.

In November, the Singapore-based company bought naming rights to the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles for $700 million.