Leading Brazilian cryptocurrency exchange and Ripple blockchain payments partner Mercado Bitcoin has announced a temporary freeze on cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals after acknowledging a security breach.
As the firm revealed in an official announcement, the security breach did not cause any harm to its users or compromise their personal data.
“We detected and quickly mitigated a security issue in one of our systems this morning,” Mercado Bitcoin said.
Mercado Bitcoin stressed that the incident did not harm any customers or lead to a data breach.
Nevertheless, as a precautionary measure, the firm decided to temporarily halt deposits and withdrawals while its security teams conduct further investigations into the issue and try to locate any assets that could have been affected.
Additionally, Mercado Bitcoin said that it is working with the appropriate authorities to investigate the incident.
Mercado Bitcoin reveals suspicious wallet addresses
In the latest update, Mercado Bitcoin revealed that it continues to work on restoring its operations to normal.
“We are still working to safely restore operations and will keep our customers updated on our official channels,” the exchange announced.
Interestingly, the company also released some cryptocurrency wallet addresses related to suspicious transactions linked to the incident.
The move aims to assist blockchain investigators and other industry players in keeping track of possibly compromised assets on different networks.
According to preliminary analysis shared by blockchain security firm Hypernative, the incident allegedly involved more than $40 million in suspicious cryptocurrency transactions across various blockchain networks.
The list includes Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), Tron (TRX), Polygon, Arbitrum, Avalanche, BNB Smart Chain and Stellar (XLM).
Meanwhile, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino revealed that more than 4.5 million USDT tied to the security incident were frozen by the stablecoin issuer.
Mercado Bitcoin and its Ripple partnership
Mercado Bitcoin is known for having a strong partnership with San Francisco-based blockchain firm Ripple.
In October 2024, Ripple announced that Mercado Bitcoin, the Brazilian cryptocurrency exchange, would become the first customer in Brazil to utilize its managed end-to-end payments solution.
The partnership aimed to enable cross-border transactions and optimize treasury operations between Brazil and Portugal.
Apart from that, Ripple also revealed that the two firms planned to extend the service to enable international payments for corporate and retail users of Mercado Bitcoin.