Poloniex crypto exchange resumes withdrawals after $100M hack

Justin Sun’s cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex is preparing to resume operations after suffering a major hack in November, according to an official company announcement posted on Nov. 15.

In the statement, the company said that the platform has “mostly completed” the restoration efforts after the $100 million hack.

“The platform is now operating smoothly,” Poloniex said in its most recent update on the resumption of deposit and withdrawal services. The exchange has enlisted a “top-tier security auditing firm” to enhance the security of funds on Poloniex and is preparing to resume withdrawals soon, the firm said, adding:

“Currently, they are in the final stages of the security audit and verification processes for Poloniex. Upon completion of the audit, we will promptly resume deposit and withdrawal services on our platform.”

The firm added that the “evaluation process” is still ongoing and is estimated to take several more days.

Poloniex did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.

Poloniex suffered a major security breach on Nov. 10, with attackers stealing at least $100 million in cryptocurrency from the exchange. The Poloniex team subsequently disabled the wallet after discovering the suspicious outflows. According to the blockchain security firm CertiK, the incident was likely a “private key compromise.”

Related: Crypto exchange CoinSpot reportedly suffers $2M hot wallet hack

Poloniex owner Sun — who acquired the exchange in 2019 — took to X (formerly Twitter) soon after Poloniex disabled the wallet, reporting that the team was already investigating the hacking incident. Sun promised to fully reimburse the users affected by the breach, claiming that Poloniex “maintains a healthy financial position” and is looking for collaborations with other exchanges to recover the lost funds.

Earlier in 2023, Poloniex agreed to pay a $7.6 million settlement requested by the United States Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control related to more than 65,000 apparent violations of multiple sanctions programs.

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