Attackers behind the Poloniex heist stole a whopping 577 billion Shiba Inu tokens and other crypto assets from the exchange.
Hackers recently stole billions of Shiba Inu (SHIB) tokens from popular cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex.
577B SHIB Lost in Poloniex Heist
The unfortunate incident, which took place yesterday, saw the attackers cart away 577 billion SHIB worth $4.74 million at the time of the incident.
Interestingly, the value of Shiba Inu tokens stolen from Poloniex has surged in the past few hours. With Shiba Inu recording a gain of 6.2%, the 577B SHIB are now worth around $5.15 million.
According to Spot On Chain, Shiba Inu was among the top five crypto assets that account for 64% of the total $114 million loot. Below are the other top four assets in the list: 32.7 million USDT ($32.7 million), 443 Bitcoin ($16.5 million), and 6,103 ETH ($12.7 million).
Aside from the abovementioned assets, the attackers also stole other cryptos, including XRP, TRX, OX, TUSD, ELON, USDD, FLOKI, LINK, GLM, PEPE, and MATIC.
Since the incident occurred, the attackers have swapped most of the tokens, including SHIB and stablecoins, for 14,825 ETH, worth around $30.34 million at the time of writing this line.
🚨🚨 An overview and latest updates of the @Poloniex hack
1. The attack happened ~15 hours ago and ~$114M was drained on both #Ethereum & #TRON networks
2. Top 5 assets accounted for 64% of the stolen funds, including:
• 32.7M $USDT (mostly on TRON)
• 443 $BTC ($16.5M) on… pic.twitter.com/MOSl1xbDqE— Spot On Chain (@spotonchain) November 11, 2023
Poloniex Trading Volume Plunges 36% in 24 Hours
Launched in 2014, Poloniex is among the leading exchanges that allow users to buy and sell various crypto assets, ranging from Bitcoin to Shiba Inu.
The exchange was acquired by prominent entrepreneur Justin Sun in 2019. At press time, Poloniex supports a total of 408 coins and 640 trading pairs, according to CoinGecko data.
Poloniex users have continued to show their loyalty to the exchange even though the platform suffered a $114 million heist. Per CoinGecko data, Poloniex has a 24-hour trading volume of $409.44 million. The exchange’s volume is down 36.52% over the past 24 hours.
Poloniex Moves to Recover Stolen Funds
Meanwhile, the Poloniex team has made moves towards recovering the stolen funds. Following the attack, Sun took to the X platform yesterday to offer a 5% bounty to the attackers only if they agree to return the funds.
We are offering a 5% white hat bounty to the Poloniex hacker. Please return the funds to the following ETH/TRX/BTC wallets. We will give you 7 days to consider this offer before we engage law enforcement.
ETH Wallet: 0x176F3DAb24a159341c0509bB36B833E7fdd0a132 TRX:…— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) November 10, 2023
The crypto entrepreneur provided TRX, ETH, and BTC addresses to which the funds can be sent. He gave the attackers a seven-day ultimatum to return the stolen fund while they keep the bounty. However, he threatened to engage law enforcement agencies if the attackers failed to accept the offer.
In the meantime, Poloniex is working with other exchanges to recover the funds.
