Bitbns Questioned Over Possible Concealment of $7.5M Hack

The on-chain sleuth ZachXBT is alleging that the Indian exchange Bitbns was hit by a $7.5 million hack last month but claims the exchange disguised it as “system maintenance.”

BeInCrypto contacted Gaurav Dahake, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Bitbns, regarding the allegations. Dahake mentioned that they reached out to the on-chain sleuth and would clarify further in an Ask me Anything (AMA) session.

Let’s call out the crypto exchange @bitbns for hiding a $7.5m hack from their users on February 1 2022 and then proceeding to tell them it was “system maintenance”
0x24f361E1eeEdF29fd6D724C9393132D61c51ebB1 pic.twitter.com/a3aBqlgW0z
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) February 28, 2023

Bitbns Hacker Used Tornado Cash

When Bitbns shut down for “system maintenance,” its hot wallets experienced large withdrawals at the same time. A sizeable chunk of withdrawals was from the wallet, “0x4960,” to “0x24f3.” A Twitter user’s customer support tweet to the exchange proves that 0x4960 was a Bitbns hot wallet.

Evidently, 0x24f3 sent funds to wallet 0x4895 and used Tornado Cash to withdraw the funds. Funds have been withdrawn from 0x4895 in batches of 100 Ethereum (ETH) for the last year. The latest transaction was on Feb. 28 2023, for 3 ETH.

activity of the BitBNS hacker — Source: Etherscan

It is worth noting that BNS upgraded the contract to V3 roughly a week after the hack. The community has questioned the reason for the upgrade.

The CEO Gives Assurance

Lastly, Dahake confirmed in the AMA that their wallet was compromised. But, it coincided with the system maintenance and the upgrade to V3. He added that the company wanted to share the reports of the hack once the investigation was complete.

The CEO of the Indian exchange also clarified that users could withdraw funds even after the incident. But conversely, some users have shared screenshots of the INR withdrawal window of Bitbns. It mentions that the withdrawals will be processed in “more than 30-60 banking days.”

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Disclaimer

BeInCrypto has reached out to company or individual involved in the story to get an official statement about the recent developments, but it has yet to hear back.

Source: https://beincrypto.com/bitbns-questioned-concealment-7-5m-hack/