AscendEX Hot Wallet Drained of $77.7M Across Three Chains, Days After BitMart Breach

Two centralized exchanges were hit within the same week. Days after BitMart disclosed losses of roughly $196 million, AscendEX confirmed a $77.7 million theft from what it described as a "compromised" hot wallet — the second such "compromised keys" claim from a centralized exchange in a matter of days, prompting questions about whether opportunistic actors were taking advantage of shaky market conditions.

AscendEX, which describes itself as run by a "group of Wall Street quantitative trading veterans," offered little beyond the compromised-key explanation and had not detailed how the breach actually occurred. The exchange also moved to delete at least one tweet posted the day before the hack became public, though not before it had already been captured elsewhere.

Funds were drained from the hot wallet across three blockchains starting just before 8:00 PM UTC on December 11, with AscendEX saying it was still investigating the cause. PeckShield put the losses at $60 million on Ethereum, $9.2 million on BNB Smart Chain, and $8.5 million on Polygon. The stolen assets were traced to a matching attacker-controlled address on each network:

• Ethereum: 0x2c6900b24221de2b4a45c8c89482fff96ffb7e55
• BSC: 0x2C6900b24221dE2B4A45c8c89482fFF96FFB7E55
• Polygon: 0x2C6900b24221dE2B4A45c8c89482fFF96FFB7E55

Among the assets taken on BSC was Bemil Coin, which has since fallen more than 98% in price, cutting roughly $6.5 million from the value of the BSC-side haul.

In its initial announcement, the team pledged full reimbursement for affected users, even as withdrawals were suspended. A later update laid out next steps, listing refunds as the first priority — though whether users are made whole before the remaining stolen assets lose further value remains to be seen.

The scale of the loss prompted one observer to note that it exceeded the entire amount AscendEX had raised in its Series B round.

Commentary aimed at the exchange continued in the aftermath, including reaction to a tweet AscendEX had published touting confidence in the platform's security just hours before the breach was disclosed. Perhaps the sharpest reaction came via a quote from commentator Zack Voell that circulated afterward: "People are losing airpods, and we think the mainstream is ready for private keys?"