Major South Korean crypto exchange Upbit suffers $37M “abnormal withdrawal”

It appears that another major crypto exchange has been hacked, forcing South Korean platform Upbit to halt withdrawals and deposits and initiate a search for the stolen funds.

In a post today, Oh Kyung-seok, CEO of Dunamu, the operator of Upbit, described the incident as an "abnormal withdrawal," adding that KRW 54 billion ($37 million) worth of Solana (SOL) blockchain-powered cryptocurrency had been sent to "unknown external wallets."

Besides SOL, multiple other popular tokens, such as official Trump (TRUMP), bonk (BONK), USD coin (USDC), and others, were stolen today.

However, in cooperation with other parties, Upbit was able to freeze KRW 12 billion worth of crypto assets.

"We continue to trace the remaining assets and are cooperating with related projects and institutions to implement additional freezing measures," the CEO said.

According to him, all of the platform's assets were transferred to cold wallets, or offline devices that store private keys to crypto assets, while the company is also reviewing its entire digital asset deposit and withdrawal infrastructure.

In either case, Oh said that Upbit will cover all the losses, ensuring that users avoid any damage.

Meanwhile, the official X account of Upbit Global hasn't mentioned any incident today, only posting about "scheduled server maintenance for improved trading experience."

In the past 24 hours, trading volume on Upbit surpassed $1.9 billion. On Monday, Bloomberg reported that the company is considering launching an initial public offering on the Nasdaq exchange.

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