HTX Loses $7.9M in Hot Wallet Breach Days After Huobi Rebrand
Justin Sun disclosed on Twitter/X that HTX, the exchange formerly known as Huobi, had lost $7.9 million to an attacker. The disclosure came less than twelve hours after Mixin Network conceded to a separate $200 million loss, making it the second major exchange-related incident acknowledged within a single day.
Sun characterized the loss as minor relative to the platform's overall holdings, which he put at $3 billion, and noted that the stolen sum amounted to roughly two weeks of the exchange's revenue. The framing drew criticism online for seeming dismissive of a hack affecting user funds.
01An awkward coincidence
The breach followed shortly after Huobi's rebrand to HTX, a timing that commentators likened to the circumstances surrounding FTX's collapse under Sam Bankman-Fried. Sun said he had not noticed the resemblance, a claim that Binance's CZ publicly mocked. Observers also pointed to a running joke about exchange naming, tracing a line from FTX to Three Arrows Capital's abandoned GTX project to HTX, with some wondering how many letters remain before the pattern runs out.
02What is known about the exploit
As is typical for centralized-exchange incidents, technical details of how the attacker gained access were limited.
On-chain records show 4,999 ETH, valued at approximately $7.9 million, moved out in a transaction at 10:00 UTC on Sunday. HTX managed to secure a further 633 ETH, worth about $1 million, a little over two hours afterward — funds that would otherwise have added to the attacker's haul.
The two addresses linked to the attacker are:
Questions remain about why the attacker did not drain everything available, and why, if HTX was aware of the incident as it happened (per Sun's account), recovering the remaining ETH still took as long as it did.
Sun stated that the identity of the hacker had been established, though no proof was offered publicly. HTX subsequently made an on-chain offer of a 5% bounty along with a job offer, giving the attacker seven days to respond before the matter would be referred to law enforcement.
03Security promises follow the downplaying
After the initial low-key response, Sun posted a follow-up thread announcing livestream sessions to discuss exchange security, stating that real-time monitoring mechanisms had now been put in place to prevent similar losses in future.
Critics noted that an exchange reportedly holding $3 billion in user assets might have been expected to have such monitoring already — though Sun's own reported habit of moving large sums through Huobi/HTX on short notice may have made such alerts a frequent, and easily ignored, occurrence.
04Part of a broader regional pattern
The HTX hack landed amid a cluster of negative news out of Asian crypto markets. The Mixin loss disclosed the day before had already put it atop the 2023 rekt leaderboard. Separately, Hong Kong-based exchange JPEX ceased operations following a regulatory warning, and Upbit users were reportedly targeted in a fake token top-up scam.
Tether, meanwhile, was pushing back on rumors of trouble tied to Singapore, even as some observers noted apparent efforts to exit USDT positions.
Whether the $7.9 million HTX incident ends up being a minor footnote for the exchange, or a sign of larger problems ahead, remains an open question.
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