It’s quite an awkward moment for Upbit, as South Korea’s largest crypto exchange has suffered a US$36 million (AU$55.1 million) hack – just a few days after Naver Financial agreed to a US$10 billion (AU$15.3 billion) takeover of its parent company, Dunamu.
The exchange said on Thursday that an attacker carried out an unauthorised withdrawal of Solana-based assets, including stablecoins, from its wallets. Dunamu CEO Oh Kyung-seok said all customer losses would be fully covered by Upbit’s own holdings.
Upbit has temporarily halted deposits and withdrawals and stated it has managed to freeze some of the stolen digital assets on-chain, though the majority remains under active tracking.
The affected tokens are SOL, BONK, DOOD, JTO, PENGU, ORCA, TRUMP, USDC, and more. The platform said it will use its reserve assets to compensate affected users.
Bad Timing
Earlier this week, Crypto News Australia reported that Naver Financial, a subsidiary of internet group Naver, agreed to acquire 100% of Dunamu in a US$10.3 billion (AU$15.8 billion) stock-swap deal, issuing 2.54 Naver shares for each Dunamu share. The merger is expected to lift Naver’s fintech arm to a market value of about US$13.6 billion (AU$20.8 billion).
The Upbit hack adds to what has already become a record year for crypto security incidents. Losses from exchange and DeFi hacks have surpassed US$2 billion (AU$3.5 billion) so far, including the US$1.5 billion (AU$2.30 billion) Bybit exploit in February.
A lot of it has to do with North Korea ramping up its hacking efforts. Recently, at least six operatives were exposed as the perpetrators of a US$680K (AU$1 million) crypto hack that took place in crypto app Favrr.
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