Mercado Bitcoin Halts Withdrawals Over Security Incident as Hypernative Flags $40 Million Drain

Brazilian crypto exchange Mercado Bitcoin suspended deposits and withdrawals on Monday after what it called a security incident in one of its systems. Blockchain security firm Hypernative estimated that more than $40 million was drained from wallets it attributes to the exchange. In an official statement on X at 12:56 UTC, Mercado Bitcoin said it had identified and quickly contained the incident overnight. The exchange wrote in Portuguese that there were no losses to clients and that no data had leaked. Its teams were investigating, tracing the assets and coordinating with the authorities, it said.