Mercado Bitcoin freezes deposits and withdrawals after multimillion-dollar crypto heist

On 2 November 2026, Mercado Bitcoin — Brazil's largest cryptocurrency exchange — disclosed that it had "identified and quickly contained a security incident in one of our systems early this morning," and suspended all deposits and withdrawals as a precaution. The exchange said no customer lost money and that no personal data had been exposed, but blockchain analysts tracked a large outflow of assets from addresses tied to the platform.

Mercado Bitcoin has not confirmed a loss figure. Blockchain security firm Hypernative flagged more than $40 million in suspicious transfers in a preliminary analysis spanning at least ten blockchains, while on-chain tracker Arkham put the figure at roughly $46.3 million. The attacker moved funds across EVM networks, Bitcoin, Solana, Stellar and Tron, and the exchange published the destination addresses so other platforms and analysts could follow the money.

Response

The company said it was investigating, coordinating with authorities, and would post regular updates, but gave no date for reopening deposits and withdrawals. Tether chief executive Paolo Ardoino said the stablecoin issuer had frozen more than 4.5 million USDT linked to the incident, though a freeze does not by itself return assets to their owner. Mercado Bitcoin did not disclose how the attacker gained access and named no threat actor, and it explicitly declined to link the theft to the 29 October Binance breach that U.S. authorities attributed to North Korea's TraderTraitor group.

Why it matters

The theft is one of a string of exchange breaches in late 2026 and lands as Brazil's crypto sector draws growing attention from both regulators and criminals. Because the exchange has not detailed the intrusion vector, the episode underscores a recurring weakness in centralized platforms: funds concentrated in exchange-controlled wallets remain a high-value target, and once assets are swept on-chain, freezing a fraction of them is often the only immediate recourse.