WORLDTECHBitMart confirms small hack during court-supervised wind-down
The Cayman Islands-based exchange BitMart has confirmed a minor hacking incident dated November 2, 2026, while already working through a court-supervised restructuring. According to the outlet that reported the story, the breach adds strain to a platform that is winding down and facing user complaints about withdrawals.
Founder confirms breach and opens inquiry
Founder Sheldon Xia acknowledged the breach in a post on X the day after it occurred. He described it as a small-scale incident involving a limited sum of stolen funds, and said it immediately prompted an investigation intended to tighten the exchange's defences.
Xia also identified staffing as a persistent difficulty. The security team, he said, has been stretched thin during the restructuring, a shortcoming that a software update cannot resolve.
Wallets emptied across three networks
According to the reporting, $391,000 was pulled from wallets associated with BitMart. Those wallets, which hold the cryptographic keys that control digital assets, were drained across the Base, Arbitrum and Optimism networks.
Bitquery traced the bulk of those outflows, using blockchain records, to an address that had also been used in an attack on Brazil's Mercado Bitcoin. Analyses cited in the reporting suggest the attackers reached BitMart wallets about 53 minutes before they struck Mercado Bitcoin, where total losses reached roughly $48.6 million.
Wind-down and restructuring form the backdrop
The breach arrives while BitMart is already under court supervision. The exchange announced its wind-down on July 26, 2026 and brought all trading to a halt by August 26, 2026. Since then it has been pursuing a repayment plan intended to settle what it owes its users.
Over the same period, user complaints about withdrawals have reportedly accumulated. The outlet pointed to the exchange's record of security lapses and argued that the incident exposes weaknesses at crypto exchanges undergoing restructuring, with possible consequences for user confidence and repayment plans.
What is confirmed and what is not
The breach itself and the $391,000 figure rest on blockchain data and on the founder's own account. The link to the Mercado Bitcoin attack, however, is drawn from on-chain analysis rather than formal attribution, and should for now be treated as a working hypothesis.
Open questions
- Will BitMart formally confirm any connection to the Mercado Bitcoin attack?
- How will the breach affect the repayment plan for users?
- Will the exchange add security staff during its restructuring?