Mercado Bitcoin plans phased reopening and loss coverage following major hack

Brazilian cryptocurrency exchange Mercado Bitcoin announced that it will start a phased reopening of customer accounts on Monday following a recent security incident. Cointelegraph and The Defiant reported that users will initially receive view-only access through the website to check balances, statements, and investments. Account operations such as transfers, withdrawals, and trading remain suspended pending independent security checks. [1][5][9]

Estimates regarding the scale of the exploit vary across industry reports. Cointelegraph and Memeburn reported that blockchain analysts estimated stolen assets at more than $46 million. However, CoinDesk reported earlier that the losses were near $40 million. Mercado Bitcoin committed to using internal company funds to replace all affected customer assets. [1][5][8][9][11]

The incident at Mercado Bitcoin coincides with security issues at other trading platforms. Reports from portalcripto.com.br, Crypto News, The Cryptonomist, Cryptopolitan, and The Crypto Times confirmed that the founder of BitMart acknowledged a separate, smaller hack on its platform. The founder stated that the security breach at BitMart may be linked to the same attack group that targeted Mercado Bitcoin. [2][3][4][6][7]

Mercado Bitcoin previously halted all deposit and withdrawal operations immediately following the security breach, according to reports from The Paypers and Memeburn. The platform confirmed that full functionality, including active trading and asset transfers, will only resume in later phases after independent security testing is completed. [1][5][10][11]