A surge of 147 transactions and an outflow of $1 million in a short period! HOYA BIT confirms "hot wallet theft"

Taiwan cryptocurrency exchanges are once again reported to have been hacked. According to market observers, HOYA BIT’s wallet address showed extremely unusual fund movements, with the wallet balance experiencing a “cliff-like plunge” in a short period of time, transferring out approximately $1 million USD, with a total of 147 transactions, sparking community speculation whether HOYA BIT was compromised. Market observers mentioned that generally, exchanges maintain a certain level of liquidity in hot wallets to handle users’ daily withdrawals. However, HOYA BIT’s wallet was “simply drained,” with funds being rapidly emptied in “integer amounts, large sums, and continuous transfers.” The behavior pattern more closely resembles automated script operations rather than sporadic, dispersed withdrawals by individual users, which quickly raised concerns about the security of the exchange. In response to market speculation, HOYA BIT officially issued an announcement this (23rd) early morning, confirming that during routine operations on January 22, they discovered abnormal withdrawal activity from some wallets and immediately activated their contingency measures. HOYA BIT emphasized that the platform employs a strict separation of cold and hot wallets. The recent attack only involved the platform’s own assets in the hot wallet, and user funds are stored in offline cold wallets and vaults, which were not affected. The announcement explained that since user withdrawals must go through hot wallets, to block the attack vector and prevent potential losses from moving cold wallet funds into the compromised hot wallet, the platform proactively suspended services on the morning of the 22nd, and launched a comprehensive review and security reinforcement of the hot wallet architecture. This included API keys, signing permissions, and backend management permissions. All related security enhancements have now been completed, and platform services have resumed normal operation. HOTA BIT stated that immediately after the incident, they activated third-party professional forensic and on-chain tracking operations, and maintained close contact and cooperation with relevant partners and law enforcement agencies.