BitMart reports minor hack as wind-down and restructuring drag on

Founder Sheldon Xia confirmed the breach on X, with on-chain analysis reportedly tying it to the larger Mercado Bitcoin attack BitMart stopped trading in August. Apparently, the hackers didn’t get the memo. The Cayman Islands-based exchange has reported a minor hacking incident that took place on November 2, 2026. Founder Sheldon Xia confirmed the breach in a post on X the following day, describing it as a small-scale incident involving a limited amount of stolen funds. The timing matters. BitMart is already in the middle of a court-supervised restructuring, user complaints about withdrawals are piling up, and the exchange has a long memory when it comes to security failures. What happened on November 2 Based on the research findings, the attack drained $391,000 from BitMart wallets spread across three blockchain networks: Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism. All three are Ethereum layer-2 networks. Xia said the breach triggered an immediate investigation aimed at shoring up the exchange’s defenses. He also pointed to a problem that is hard to fix with a patch: the security team has been understaffed during the restructuring process. Xia highlighted both security staffing difficulties and...