Losses from a large-scale cryptocurrency hack have doubled — hackers stole $ 250 million

Updated information on the large-scale cryptocurrency hack of the Multichain platform, which provides services for transferring digital assets between different blockchains, has been published online. Yesterday, it was reported that $ 125 million was stolen, and today the amount of losses has doubled to $ 242 million.

As crypto detective Colin Wu found out, another $ 117 million has been withdrawn from the Multichain protocol over the past 12 hours. The abnormal outflow of assets affected such networks as Arbitrum, Avalanche, Polygon, Optimism, and Fantom. All funds were transferred to one address.

According to MetaSleuth, $ 125 million was previously distributed to 6 addresses, and some of them were «burned.» PeckShield attached a screenshot with the amount in question, stating that hackers stole millions of dollars in stablecoins such as USDT and USDC, as well as ETH and BTC.

«The team is not yet sure what exactly happened, and we are investigating. We recommend that all users suspend the use of Multichain services and revoke all permissions for Multichain-related contracts ,» the company said in a statement. Later, Multichain representatives said that all platform services were suspended, and any transactions through the bridges would be blocked.

In May, the Multichain platform experienced several technical problems. The project team also reported that it had lost contact with its CEO after rumors of his detention in China.

Multichain’s crisis worsened in early June. Then, server management problems that arose due to the absence of the CEO forced the protocol to suspend service to a number of blockchains.