The crypto industry was greeted with shocking news in the early hours of November 12; the FTX exchange was hacked, recording a loss of $600 million.
Hundreds of millions of dollars are now flowing out of FTX wallets, some speculate liquidators but it's late on a friday night, not typical times for such rapid heavy movements. Some withdrawals are being swapped from Tether to DAI. Hack or insider actions? $26 million here pic.twitter.com/8wWlaE7na9
— foobar/ (@0xfoobar) November 12, 2022
Unusual Whales, a platform that tracks the activity of digital assets, made this announcement on their Twitter page, stating they got the information from FTX’s official telegram channel.
The announcement sparked different reactions from the crypto community on Twitter. Some find it hard to believe; others think it’s a joke, while some are confident that it’s an inside job, a potential rug pull.
Other crypto enthusiasts also reported the incident; among them is Foobar, a crypto developer and writer.
He reported on his Twitter page that in the late hours of November 11, millions of transactions in stablecoins like DAI, Tether, and ETH were executed.
At first, it was speculated that they must be liquidators. However, such heavy movements of funds rarely happen on a Friday night.
The actions that followed revealed it was a cyber attack, and the hacker, who remains anonymous, made some dubious moves.
First, they swapped USDT to DAI; after that, they swapped stETH to ETH directly, consuming a massive slippage fee—something no liquidator will ever do.Â
Another crypto enthusiast, Vella Crypto, also reported the incident on her Twitter page, pointing out that it looks like an insider job.
FTX, however, has warned their users on their telegram channel that they should not operate their wallet for the time being and ignore any notifications for updates as the hacker still uses this to siphon whatever crypto funds are connected to their device.
The general public is still unsure whether this was a malicious attack or an insider job. However, the best option is to wait and see how the events unfold.
Nonetheless, the FTX exchange, which recently declared bankruptcy, has been wiped clean of all remaining assets that have not yet been liquidated or withdrawn by users because of this hack.
