BitMart reports minor hack as wind-down and restructuring drag on

BitMart stopped trading in August. Apparently, the hackers didn’t get the memo.

The Cayman Islands-based exchange has reported a minor hacking incident that took place on November 2, 2026. Founder Sheldon Xia confirmed the breach in a post on X the following day, describing it as a small-scale incident involving a limited amount of stolen funds.

The timing matters. BitMart is already in the middle of a court-supervised restructuring, user complaints about withdrawals are piling up, and the exchange has a long memory when it comes to security failures.

What happened on November 2

Based on the research findings, the attack drained $391,000 from BitMart wallets spread across three blockchain networks: Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism. All three are Ethereum layer-2 networks.

Xia said the breach triggered an immediate investigation aimed at shoring up the exchange’s defenses. He also pointed to a problem that is hard to fix with a patch: the security team has been understaffed during the restructuring process.

Xia highlighted both security staffing difficulties and threats the exchange experienced during the restructuring.

The Mercado Bitcoin connection

The BitMart incident does not appear to be a standalone event. On-chain analyses reportedly link it to a larger attack on Mercado Bitcoin, another crypto exchange.

The research indicates attackers targeted BitMart wallets approximately 53 minutes before they hit Mercado Bitcoin.

The main event was considerably bigger. Total losses in the Mercado Bitcoin attack came to around $48.6 million, dwarfing the amount taken from BitMart.

A link between the two incidents has been drawn from on-chain data rather than formally confirmed attribution, so the connection should be treated as a working theory for now.

A wind-down already in progress

BitMart was not exactly operating at full strength when the attack landed. The exchange announced its wind-down on July 26, 2026, and halted all trading activities by August 26, 2026.

Since then, it has been working through a restructuring under court supervision. The goal is a repayment plan that settles what the exchange owes its users.

Users have lodged complaints over withdrawal issues.

The ghost of December 2021

This is not BitMart’s first encounter with attackers. On December 4, 2021, hackers drained the exchange’s hot wallets on Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain, with estimated losses ranging from $150 million to $196 million.

The research findings indicate the current restructuring has been partially attributed to that incident, and restructuring documents note a projected shortfall of $319.5 million based on 2021 pricing.

What this means

For BitMart’s creditors, the immediate concern is straightforward. Every dollar lost now is a dollar that cannot go toward the repayment plan, and the exchange is working from a projected shortfall measured in hundreds of millions.

Xia’s acknowledgment that the security team has been understaffed suggests the exchange’s defenses are thinner than they were when it was a functioning business, even as it still holds funds that users are waiting to recover.

For the broader exchange sector, the reported link to Mercado Bitcoin is the more significant thread. If one group probed BitMart before hitting a much larger target, other centralized platforms may want to review their own exposure across layer-2 networks like Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism, where the BitMart losses occurred.

Things to watch from here include the results of BitMart’s investigation, any formal attribution tying the attack to the Mercado Bitcoin incident, and whether the stolen $391,000 affects the timeline or terms of the repayment plan.