Wintermute, a new $160 million cryptocurrency heist (and other big heists)

First modification: 09/20/2022 – 18:20

Wintermute calls itself “one of the biggest players” in the global crypto markets. He says he manages “hundreds of millions” in assets and trades more than $5 billion a day. Its founder and CEO, Evgeny Gaevoy, calls herself a “wishful cynic” on her Twitter account of just under 20,000 followers.

Based in London, this cryptocurrency trading company is the latest cyber heist in an industry plagued by this kind of crime. Gaevoy revealed in a tweet that “we have been hacked for around $160M in our DeFi operations. Cefi and OTC operations are not affected”.

DeFi applications are platforms that facilitate cryptocurrency-denominated loans outside of traditional banking, using algorithms that set rates in real time based on supply and demand.

The company is still solvent after the attack, its owner added in the Twitter thread: “If you have money in Wintermute, again, we are solvent, but if you feel more confident getting your investment back, we absolutely can.”

It is not the first or the only “hacked” cryptocurrency platform

Decentralized finance software, which aims to provide cryptocurrency-based financial services without traditional gatekeepers like banks or state authorities, has been the target of numerous heists in recent years for being a loosely regulated sector.

Of the millions of dollars that have disappeared from the platforms, little has been officially said, although the analysis firm CipherTrace does a detailed follow-up. One of its most recent reports highlights that, for all of 2020, losses in the cryptocurrency sector through fraud and crime were $1.9 billion.

And, although many of these cyber-thefts do not come to light, it is enough to mention some of those that have been reported.

Just two weeks ago, crypto intelligence firm Chainalysis revealed that the United States seized more than $30 million worth of crypto from the popular online game Axie Infinity that had been stolen by hackers identified as Lazarus and linked to North Korea.

In March 2022, hackers had already stolen cryptocurrencies worth almost 615 million dollars from a “blockchain” project (the technology they use in these transactions) also related to Axie Infinity.

Ronin is a “blockchain” network that allows users to transfer cryptocurrencies in this, which is one of the most popular online games in the world. Its products include a digital wallet for storing crypto and a “bridge” that allows users to move funds in and out of the game. This is where the cryptocurrencies were stolen.

Just a month earlier, in February 2022, Jump Trading said it quickly restored more than $320 million to its Wormhole crypto platform after the site was hit with one of the largest crypto heists.

In late 2018, Japanese cryptocurrency firm Tech Bureau Corp revealed that it had suffered the theft of some €51 million in digital currency, months after another heist of $530 million in digital currency from the US-based cryptocurrency platform. Tokyo Coincheck Inc., one of the most notorious cases.

With Reuters and EFE