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By Yashasvini Razdan, 1:11 PM ET
Japanese cryptocurrency exchange, Liquid, announced that nearly $97 million in cryptocurrencies has been stolen by hackers in a cyber attack.
Liquid said that some of its digital currency wallets had been “compromised,” and that hackers were transferring the assets to four different wallets.
The firm has moved all the assets into the cold wallet for now.
A cold wallet is a cryptocurrency wallet that cannot be compromised because it is not connected to the Internet. It is also called a hardware wallet and offline wallet”. It stores the user's address and private key and works in conjunction with compatible software on the computer.
The cryptocurrency exchange platform tweeted their further course of action. “We are currently investigating and will provide regular updates. In the meantime deposits and withdrawals will be suspended,” they wrote.
Blockchain analytics company, Elliptic, confirmed in an analysis that out of the total haul of $97 million, $45 million in tokens were being converted to ethereum through decentralized exchanges. These exchanges are blockchain-based platforms that require no intermediaries such as, Uniswap and SushiSwap.
This enables the hacker to avoid having these assets frozen - as is possible with many Ethereum tokens, said Elliptic in a blog post.
The analytics company has added the addresses associated with the hacker into Liquid’s system, to alert its clients in case they receive any of these funds.
Earlier this month, cryptocurrency platform Poly Network lost $610 million in a hack and later offered the hacker or hackers a $500,000 “bug bounty.
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