🚨 UK crypto exchange stops trading after $22m is lost 🚨
In the latest sign that crypto hackers are exploiting private keys, Lykke, a UK-based crypto exchange, shut down trading on June 6, citing “unauthorised access” to its platform.
The closure came two days after the exchange was hacked, according to SomaXBT, a web researcher, who first reported the incident.
The exchange has sustained $22 million in suspicious outflows, said Taylor Monahan, a MetaMask developer and crypto defence expert.
Lykke recorded $2.5 million in cumulative volume in the last month. Its users are currently unable to withdraw their assets from the platform with several of them stating their account balances have been emptied ― another sign the exchange may have been hacked.
Half of the sum was in Bitcoin, and the rest was a mix of Ether, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash, according to onchain data.
Onchain data also shows the Ether withdrawn from the exchange was immediately swapped to the DAI stablecoin, which MakerDAO issues.
At the same time, the stolen Bitcoin has been divided among several wallets — a common tactic hackers employ to obscure the transaction trail when they try to launder the stolen funds.
The exchange has largely been mum about the incident. On June 6, b Lykke CEO Richard Olsen apologised for the platform’s downtime in an email sent to customers.
Private key leakage
With 2024 almost halfway done, crypto theft this year has crossed $582 million, DefiLlama data shows.
That figure exceeds the $433 million recorded in the first half of last year.
Most of the biggest hacks this year have been due to private key leakage ― a security problem identified by cybersecurity outfit Cyvers as a potential major concern for crypto companies.
Private keys function like passwords and they control access to crypto wallets. If hackers gain control of a crypto company’s private keys, they can syphon all the funds it keeps in the affected wallets.