BtcTurk, Turkey’s Largest Cryptocurrency Exchange, Falls Victim to Cyberattack

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On a recent Saturday announcement, Turkey’s renowned digital currency market BtcTurk disclosed a security breach incident, concurrently, a respected Bitcoin pundit reported a staggering theft of nearly 51 million euros.

“Examination by our security personnel revealed a digital intrusion on our system on June 22, 2024, which precipitated unauthorized transactions. The cyber intrusion affected a subset of our customer’s digital assets across 10 types of cryptocurrencies housed in hot wallets; however, assets stored in cold wallets remain uncompromised and secure,” the exchange declared.

A “hot wallet” refers to cryptocurrency wallets with an active internet connection or linked to a network device, as opposed to “cold wallets,” which are kept offline and are inherently more secure against cyberattacks.

“BtcTurk reassures that its financial reserves are considerably robust vis-à-vis the impacted amounts from this breach, and user holdings will remain unaffected,” the platform assured.

The exchange further announced that they are deep diving into the situation with detailed investigations, and have notified the appropriate security authorities.

“In light of safety measures, we have temporarily suspended all crypto transaction capabilities, with services to resume upon the conclusion of our comprehensive checks,” BtcTurk expressed.

The statement was concluded with words of gratitude for the users’ patience and a promise to communicate any progress concerning the event.

According to the statements by ZachXBT, an established authority in Bitcoin analysis, on platform X, it is believed that “the perpetrator might correspond to this traced address which is known for transfer movements totaling 1.96M AVAX (valued at $54.2M) towards destinations like Coinbase/THORChain.” He also provided the suspected cryptocurrency address along with his post.

In Turkey, cryptocurrencies have attained remarkable traction, rendering the nation as the fourth highest in global cryptocurrency exchange volumes.

Integral to the Turkish cryptocurrency landscape, the use of digital currencies began its precipitous rise in 2020 as a counterbalance to the lira’s significant depreciation.

Faruk Fatih Ozer, founder of Thodex, a major crypto trading platform in Turkey which was later exposed as a fraudulent operation, received a landmark prison sentence of 11,196 years last year for defrauding investors of substantial amounts of money.