HTX Sees $258M Net Outflow in Hack Aftermath: Report

Cryptocurrency exchange HTX, formerly Huobi, has recorded a net outflow of approximately $258 million since it suffered a hack that saw roughly $30 million in assets siphoned from its hot wallets last month.

According to a Bloomberg report citing data from decentralized finance total-value-locked aggregator DefiLlama, HTX saw outflows between November 25 and December 10, indicating that investors are reacting to the exchange’s security hassles.

HTX Records Major Outflows

On November 22, HTX and Heco cross-chain bridge – a protocol connecting the exchange and the Ethereum network – suffered an attack that led to the loss of over $116 million in crypto assets. Following the incident, Tron founder and HTX advisor Justin Sun announced that the exchange would fully compensate the affected users for any losses from the hack.

Before this incident, HTX had experienced a hack in late September that saw assets worth $8 million stolen from the platform. However, the assets were returned after negotiations with the hacker, and Sun tagged the attack a white-hat incident.

Interestingly, Poloniex, another digital asset exchange linked to Sun, was hacked in mid-November, with stolen funds running into $125 million. While the exchange’s management could not recover the stolen assets, Sun informed affected users that they would receive reimbursement for their losses through an airdrop.

HTX, Heco Bridge, and Poloniex have been hacked for almost $250 million within three months. The massive outflows are a sign that users have become uncertain about the safety of their assets on these platforms.

A Potential Cause for Alarm

Besides the frequent attacks on the Sun-linked platforms, HTX’s reserves may be a potential cause for alarm. At the beginning of the year, well-known cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Tether (USDT), and Wrapped Ether (WETH) made up the bulk of the reserves, but as the year runs out, data from DefiLlama shows that Sun-linked tokens now make up over 50% of the assets.

On January 1, Huobi Token (HT) and Tron (TRX) made up 33.1% and 16.1% of the reserves, while BTC, USDT, and WETH were 20.7%, 20.7%, and 4.8%, accounting for 46.2% of the total assets. However, as of December 8, TRX, HT, and staked USDT (stUSDT) – another asset tied to Sun – comprised 31.8%, 14.4%, and 12.2% of the reserves, while BTC and USDT were 32.9% and 1.7%.

Currently, more than 58% of HTX’s reserves are made up of TRX, HT, and stUSDT, which are all tied to Sun.