Researchers have called the theft of about $200 million from cryptocurrency startup Mixin early on Saturday, the largest crypto theft of the year. The company made the announcement on social networking platform X on Monday.
According to LinkedIn, Mixin is based in Hong Kong and has announced that “hackers attacked the database of our network’s cloud service provider, resulting in the loss of some assets,” with “approximately US $200 million” at stake.
According to their website, Mixin is a network for exchanging digital assets. The website boasts of a user base of one million.
It said on X (previously Twitter) that it had temporarily disabled withdrawals as it patched security flaws, but that customers’ ability to send and receive money was unaffected and that services will resume once the flaws were rectified.
According to Mixin, a decision on “how to deal with the lost assets” will be made soon.
According to Elliptic, a blockchain research organization, if the breach were to steal $200 million worth of cryptocurrency, it would rank as the 10th largest crypto theft in history.
According to studies conducted by Chainalysis, a company specializing in blockchain technology, hackers stole cryptocurrency valued at up to $3.8 billion in 2017.