Bitquery traced the funds to a wallet also implicated in the more than $46 million Mercado Bitcoin hack on Monday, Nov. 2, supporting Xia’s preliminary suspicion of a possible connection between the incidents.
Related: North Korea denies role in $6.3B Binance hack, points finger at US The latest breach comes amid months of uncertainty over BitMart’s future
The exchange announced in July that it would end trading on Aug. 26 and cease operations in January 2027. Following the announcement, users reported delayed withdrawals and frozen accounts, raising concerns about access to their funds. In August, BitMart’s Chinese-language X account alleged that employees had gone unpaid and demanded answers about customer funds.
The founder dismissed the allegations as fabricated, though it remained unclear who controlled the account at the time. In a restructuring proposal published Monday, the exchange outlined three potential recovery options for users, including liquid asset distributions and recovery-linked tokens, with plans to seek court approval in December or January. Cointelegraph contacted BitMart for details about the restructuring, security staffing and latest breach but had not received a response by publication.