Mercado Bitcoin withdrawals stay frozen as it traces 106 BTC to incident wallets

Mercado Bitcoin's doors are still half-shut. Deposits and withdrawals remain suspended after a security incident hit the Brazilian exchange on Nov. 2, and there's no word yet on when the taps reopen. The exchange says its teams are working to restore operations safely.

In an update, Mercado Bitcoin named destination addresses linked to the incident, sharing them, it said, only so investigators can identify and trace the assets. The disclosed Bitcoin address took in roughly 106.07 BTC, while an Ethereum transaction pushed 2,852.07 ETH to an Ethereum-compatible address. Tracing now spans Bitcoin, Ethereum-compatible networks, Solana, Stellar and Tron.

The on-chain paper trail is vivid. Explorer data shows the Bitcoin address collected seven receipts on Nov. 2 totaling 106.06780001 BTC — about $8.27 million — with a single 104.43 BTC receipt doing most of the lifting. Etherscan values the 2,852.07 ETH transfer at roughly $6.5 million, sent from a wallet Arkham identifies as belonging to Mercado Bitcoin. That same wallet also shipped tokens including VIRTUAL and ONDO to the destination, according to token-transfer records.

Those figures cover selected movements tied to the incident, not the exchange's total or net loss. Mercado Bitcoin said it quickly found and contained the problem in one of its systems, and in Portuguese told customers there were no losses and no data leak. It hasn't disclosed a total loss figure or a reopening date — which means the reassurance doesn't hand anyone their coins back.

The exchange says it's investigating, tracing assets and coordinating with the relevant authorities. Scale matters here: Tether said in its July financing announcement that Mercado Bitcoin served 4.5 million users, alongside a $20 million investment, as The Defiant previously reported. Until the suspension lifts, millions of those users are watching from the outside.