$50 Million UpBit Hack: 342,000 ETH Stolen From The Exchange

South Korean crypto exchange UpBit suffered a significant hit to its operations, as 342,000 ETH were transferred to a single wallet address. As of press time, the total worth of Ethereum tokens stolen from UpBit's hot wallet is $49,248,000.

The first news about the hack came from the South Korean news and search engine outlet Naver. Dovey Wan, a Primitive Ventures founding partner, mentioned Naver`s publication on Twitter.

UpBit quickly transferred all of their crypto assets to a "cold" wallet and seized all deposit/withdrawal operations until the issue is resolved. The crypto exchange clarified that no investors' funds are lost, as UpBit is going to recover the missing 342,000 ETH tokens from their asset vault.

UpBit estimates that deposits/withdrawals would be resumed approximately in two weeks time. The Twitter-based blockchain monitoring service WhaleAlert also discovered a security breach, but clarified that despite the variety of cryptocurrencies present in UpBit's hot wallet, only Ethereum funds were stolen.

The attack is the eight significant occasion on which thefts are being made by hackers in the crypto sector. Crypto research company The Block concluded that the total amount of cryptocurrencies stolen in 2019 is estimated at around $1,44 billion.

Earlier in November, the Vietnamese crypto exchange VinDAX also suffered a hackers attack and lost over half a million of dollars worth of cryptocurrencies. Bitpoint, a Japanese crypto exchange, was hacked in July, resulting in over $32 million worth of cryptos stolen. Hackers managed to hit other crypto exchanges as well, including Bithumb, Binance, Cryptopia, and Bitrue.