Mercado Bitcoin Suspends Deposits and Withdrawals After Incident

Mercado Bitcoin temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals after identifying and containing a security incident in one of its systems, the Brazilian cryptocurrency exchange said November 2. The company described the restrictions as a precaution and said it was investigating, tracing assets and coordinating with authorities. It did not announce when the services would resume. Mercado Bitcoin said customers suffered no losses and no data was leaked. Those assurances came from the exchange’s statement; the company did not provide technical details about the affected system or disclose whether any assets had been transferred without authorization. It also did not say whether trading or other platform functions were affected. Blockchain security firm Hypernative estimated that roughly $40 million in suspicious transfers involved wallets attributed to Mercado Bitcoin across multiple blockchains. The exchange’s statement did not directly link those transfers to the incident, and the reported estimate does not establish the amount of any loss, whether the transfers were unauthorized or who owned the assets. One account of Hypernative’s analysis described transfers from the...