A leading crypto market maker Wintermute has become a victim of a DeFi hack over $160M. However, the firm remains solvent after the hack.
The crypto verse continues to rise in exploits, hacks, Ponzi schemes, and frauds. These are one of the main reasons that create panic in the market and bring crypto winter. While the crypto market has just begun its recovery phase, a leading crypto market maker Wintermute reported a DeFi hack over $160 million.
Wintermute Becomes The Target
Evgeny Gaevoy, the founder and CEO of the leading crypto maker Wintermute confirmed the DeFi hack through a series of tweets today. The London-based Wintermute’s decentralized finance operation became the latest victim of a DeFi hack in the crypto market. However, the CEO confirmed that the funds in the centralized exchange (CEX) and over-the-counter (OTC) verticals are unaffected. According to Evgeny, the firm, which offers liquidity across major cryptocurrency exchanges and trading platforms, remains solvent after the DeFi hack.
Elaborating on this, he stated, “We are solvent with twice over that amount in equity left. If you have a MM agreement with Wintermute, your funds are safe. There will be a disruption in our services today and potentially for the next few days and will get back to normal after. Out of 90 assets that have been hacked only two have been for notional over $1 million (and none more than $2.5M), so there shouldn’t be a major selloff of any sort. We will communicate with both affected teams asap.”
According to Etherscan, nearly 70 different crypto coins were transferred to Wintermute exploiter. The DeFi hack includes $61,350,986 in USD Coin (USDC), 671 Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), nearly $13,030,061, and $29,461,533 Tether (USDT). The majority of the hack included USDC.
Wintermute Treats This Hack As A White Hat
The firm wants to treat this hack as a white hat event and requests the attacker to come forward. Evgeny said, “We are (still) open to treating this as a white hat, so if you are the attacker – get in touch.” White hat hackers are common in the crypto world, and sometimes they are rewarded by exchanges, companies with crypto, or job positions.
Wintermute provides liquidity with 50 exchanges and trading platforms, including Binance, Coinbase, FTX, and Kraken, as well as decentralized platforms like Uniswap and Dydx. The firm has been a bullish investor, backed by startups including Nomad, HashFlow, and Ondo Finance. Wintermute is located in Cheshire, and it is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
However, Wintermute did not announce the timing of the hack or how the hackers were able to succeed and withdraw such funds. In addition, the firm has not made it clear whether it has informed law enforcement about lodging an investigation.
Wintermute becomes the latest in a growing list of crypto firms to be victims of a hack in recent months. Previously, hackers stole over $190 million from the cross-chain messaging protocol Nomad. Axis Infinity’s Ronin Bridge also became a victim of a hack and lost over $600 million this April, and Harmony’s Horizon bridge was hacked for over $100 million in June. According to a report from crypto auditing platform Certik, over $1.3 billion were lost in the DeFi hack last year.
