Mercado Bitcoin Confirms Hack as $36M–$49M Drains Across 11 Blockchains
Mercado Bitcoin, Brazil's largest cryptocurrency exchange, confirmed on November 2, 2026 that attackers drained wallets linked to the platform across at least 10 blockchains, forcing it to suspend deposits, withdrawals and trading. The exchange said it identified and quickly contained the incident, that no customer data was leaked, and that customers will not bear any losses.
The scale of the theft remains disputed. Mercado Bitcoin's own latest estimate puts the assets involved at about $36.3 million. Blockchain analytics firm Bitquery traced $48.6 million in transfers across 11 networks, while security firm Hypernative flagged more than $40 million in suspicious movements. The exchange has said it will absorb the loss, a position reported by Bloomberg.
On-chain analysis has challenged the exchange's account of how fast it stopped the attack. Bitquery said the attacker drained 36,042 Ethereum customer-deposit addresses between 12:27 and 16:56 UTC on November 2 — roughly four hours after Mercado Bitcoin said the incident was contained at 12:56 UTC. The transfers were plain blockchain transactions, not a smart-contract exploit, and how the attacker obtained signing access remains unknown. No group has been identified, and there is no public evidence linking the attack to the $6.3 billion Binance theft of October 29.
Stablecoin issuers moved to limit the damage. Tether froze about $4.5 million in USDT linked to the incident, and Bitquery said issuers had frozen $11.8 million in total as of November 4. Mercado Bitcoin published destination addresses to help track the funds and said it is working with Tether, Circle, Paxos and Chainalysis.
Services remain suspended. The exchange plans to restore view-only account access on November 9, while deposits, withdrawals and trading have no restart date. Bitquery has warned customers not to reuse old deposit addresses until the exchange confirms they are secure.
Bitcoin spot on Binance opened November 2 at $78,354 and traded near $75,771 at the time of writing, down about 3.3% since the incident; Ether opened at $2,275 and traded near $2,234, down about 1.8%. No price move can be isolated to this incident, as markets were already under pressure from the Binance hack days earlier.
Still unknown: how the attacker gained signing access, the final loss figure, and when full services will resume.
This article is for information only and is not financial advice. Do your own research before making any investment decision.