Mercado Bitcoin Transfers Continue After Withdrawal Pause
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Written by:
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Isabelle Castro
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staff writer
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Bryan O'Shea
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staff editor
Mercado Bitcoin wallets show post-hack transfers after $46M theft
Latest News
Published: Nov 2, 2026
Brazil’s exchange Mercado Bitcoin paused deposits and withdrawals after a security breach, stating that customer funds and data were safe.
Mercado Bitcoin, one of Brazil’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, confirmed a security incident on Monday, estimated to have drained over $46 million from its wallets. Despite the company’s announcement of a suspension, transfers continued from addresses associated with the breach for hours afterward.
Senior security engineer at Certik, Dickson Wu, published a post-mortem analysis, revealing that attackers targeted eight small chains for four hours, including Base, Optimism, and Arbitrum. The attack then shifted to Mercado Bitcoin’s hot wallets, transferring tiny amounts of Ether (ETH) from 27,160 different addresses.
“So whoever did this can also move money out of MB’s customer deposit addresses,” he wrote.
Security firms have stated that the hack was conducted through standard transfers, not through a smart contract exploit. Mercado Bitcoin claimed the breach would have no financial impact on customers.
Funds move despite suspension
According to Wu, even after Mercado Bitcoin announced the suspension, funds continued to move from addresses linked to the breach, followed by thousands of small ETH transfers into a single address.
A Mercado Bitcoin spokesperson confirmed to Cointelegraph that no customer losses occurred and no data was leaked, but did not comment further on the continued transfers. The incident could also trigger notification requirements to Brazil’s data protection authority.
The hack remains under investigation and has not yet been attributed to a specific organized group. Of the stolen funds, approximately $6.2 million had been frozen by stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle by 4:42 pm UTC. Around $20 million had been transferred into newly created wallets, while over $20 million remained in associated addresses identified by Mercado Bitcoin, including all 106 BTC.
Mercado Bitcoin joins a growing list of breaches, including Binance's $6.3 billion hack days earlier, and the closure of Chile’s Orionx exchange in September after a forensic audit found unauthorized transfers of customer assets.