Overview
Mercado Bitcoin, which describes itself as Latin America's largest digital assets investment platform with about 4.5 million customers, suspended all deposits and withdrawals on Monday, November 2, 2026 after a cybersecurity incident. Blockchain security firms said more than $46 million left the platform late Sunday night. The company has not confirmed that figure.
What We Know
- Company statement: Mercado Bitcoin said it is investigating, tracking the assets, and working with authorities. It said the attack did not harm customers or cause a data breach, and it pledged to restore the platform in the coming days. It also published destination addresses for the stolen funds.
- Disputed claim: Other security experts disputed that customer funds were untouched, citing blockchain evidence that attackers drained some customer wallets.
- Freezes: Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the issuer froze roughly $4.5 million, and other platforms froze about another $2 million.
- Tracing: Chainalysis is tracking the coins so the industry can identify, freeze, and disrupt impacted funds.
The attack vector has not been disclosed.
Context
The incident follows the roughly $6.3 billion Binance theft days earlier, which the FBI and U.S. Secret Service attributed to North Korea-linked hackers. Several exchanges have lost more than $100 million each in recent attacks. Chainalysis also disclosed its own incident the prior week, in which attackers used AI-backed tools to access internal systems and took user IDs, names, email addresses, and organization role labels.
Recommendations for Users and Operators
- Users: Keep only what you need to trade on exchanges, and prefer self-custody for long-term holdings.
- Users: Watch for phishing that exploits the news, and only trust the exchange's official channels for restoration updates.
- Operators: Rehearse rapid freeze coordination with stablecoin issuers and analytics firms; the quick freezes here show how much it can recover.
- Operators: Segregate hot-wallet signing infrastructure and enforce independent approval for large outflows.