BitMart founder flags a second hack in 24 hours, tied to Mercado Bitcoin

Another exchange hack just landed on crypto's plate, and this one may not be a solo job. BitMart founder Sheldon Xia confirmed the breach in a post on X, according to AMBCrypto, and early digging suggests the attackers could be the same crew behind the $38 million to $49 million exploit on Mercado Bitcoin. That makes two potentially connected hacks inside 24 hours.

On-chain sleuths are chasing the money. Roughly $11.45 million in altcoins has already hopped between wallets, stoking fears of a liquidation spree. About $1.1 million of that was VIRTUAL shuffled into a fresh wallet, with sales possibly going out in $20,000 batches. The attacker is still sitting on roughly $1 million worth of VIRTUAL.

The Mercado Bitcoin side is messier. The hacker has been dumping PEPE, AAVE, UNI, ONDO and ENA and rotating the proceeds into ETH, per AMBCrypto. Arkham Intelligence reports the wallet moved 31 different altcoins to address 0x848 and sold them for about $316,000 in ETH. The stash now stands at 7,988 ETH, worth around $18.19 million.

Ethereum is the number to watch. ETH is trading above $2.3k with a neutral RSI, but Spot ETH ETF flows have gone soft, logging seven straight days of net outflows. ETH dominance climbed nearly 2% this week, a signal that its recent strength owes more to Bitcoin's wobble than to real demand.

That's where the danger sits. If the hacker starts offloading $18.19 million in ETH, selling pressure could drag sentiment lower just as altcoins are already stumbling. The Altcoin Season Index has slipped below its third lower low, and macro jitters ahead of the US midterm elections aren't helping anyone.

Stack weak ETF flows, consecutive lower lows and two linked breaches on top of each other, and the setup points to a possible liquidity squeeze. Whether that snowballs into a wider altcoin crash depends on how fast those coins keep moving.