Mercado Bitcoin Reopens Read-Only After $49M Breach

View-only account access returned Monday, Nov. 9, roughly a week after the attack on the Brazilian exchange. Mercado Bitcoin announced the move on X in Portuguese, calling it the start of a gradual resumption and balance viewing. Detailed holdings are visible on the website, while the app shows a portfolio summary. Deposits, withdrawals, transfers and trading remain suspended.

Chainalysis, which helped trace the stolen funds, put the damage at about $49 million spread over 17 blockchains. The balances and their Brazilian real values customers now see reflect their pre-incident position on Nov. 2, the exchange says. Those valuations won't move with the market while the shutdown lasts — they'll refresh once trading resumes.

Next up, according to the exchange's roadmap: Pix deposits and withdrawals, plus credits for payments from digital fixed-income investments, described as arriving next week. Pix withdrawals will initially be capped to accounts in the customer's own name, though deposits may come from accounts held by other people. Before touching funds again, customers must confirm their registration details and set new passwords in the app.

Trading and crypto transfers sit further out, returning in later phases as each module clears security checks. Mercado Bitcoin gives no dates for either. Its status page still lists deposits and withdrawals as suspended. Open limit orders were canceled when the platform went offline on Nov. 2, so customers will need to place new ones.

The exchange says customer balance records are intact and that it is already using company funds to replace the assets taken from its wallets. In its Nov. 4 update, it said its trading desk was preparing repurchases in domestic and international markets. Its incident page now reports more than $16 million in blocked assets, with recovery work ongoing — blocked assets, not money already returned to the exchange.