The latest victim to fall in yet another crypto heist is the non-fungible token [NFT] marketplace Vulcan Forged. Announcing the same, the NFT platform revealed nearly 148 wallets holding its PYR tokens have been compromised which entailed a loss of at least 4.5 million PYR coins or approximately $100 million USD. In a series of tweets, the forum also divulged the wallet address of the supposed hacker and said that the owner of the stolen funds might have ‘KYCd on an exchange’. Further, it stated its intention to switch into a ‘complete decentralized wallet set-up’ and assured all stolen PYR coins to be reimbursed through its treasury.
Crypto heist getting bigger with time
Security Breach like these are not new in the crypto ecosystem, but the worrying trend is the sheer size of these hacks increasing rapidly in the backdrop of the price surge in cryptocurrencies over the last year and its growing mainstream adoption. Previously on 12th December 2021, cryptocurrency exchange AscendEX had been drained off roughly $80 million funds from a hot wallet.
This is the second such high-profile hack that has affected a centralized cryptocurrency exchange since the beginning of this month. Likewise, on December 5th, Tronweekly reported a major hack that saw prominent trading platform Bitmart falling victim to a security breach that caused a loss of about $200 million in various cryptocurrencies. Following that, the exchange firm had temporarily suspended withdrawals, which it resumed after some days and reassured to refund users from its own funds.
During the last summer, an anonymous hacker or hackers siphoned off a staggering $600 million in crypto assets from Poly Network, a cross-chain Bridge provider, by exploiting a vulnerability in the platform before returning back the stolen funds following a request by the team of the Poly Network. According to the blockchain forensics firm Chainalysis, the alleged attacker claimed to have hacked “for fun :)” and that he or she took it as a challenge and released the following statement,
“I take the responsibility to expose the vulnerability before any insiders hiding and exploiting it!. I understood the risk of exposing myself even if I don’t do evil. So I used temporary email, IP or _so called_ fingerprint, which were untraceable. I prefer to stay in the dark and save the world.”