Crypto market-making firm Wintermute lost $160 million to a security breach, according to its CEO Evgeny Gaevoy.
In a tweet early Tuesday, the CEO confirmed that the loss was associated with the firm’s “DeFi operations” and will not affect its lending and OTC business. Also, the company still treats the hack as a white hat incident and hopes the mastermind returns the funds.
We’ve been hacked for about $160M in our defi operations. Cefi and OTC operations are not affected
— wishful cynic (@EvgenyGaevoy) September 20, 2022
Wintermute Hack
Wintermute did not disclose the exact “DeFi operations” for which it suffered the losses. Given there have been no major DeFi protocol hacks in recent times, it would appear the losses are only tied to the company’s security system.
Gaevoy disclosed that the company lost 90 different assets. Most of the assets are worth under $1 million. Two are calculated to be worth more, but not above $2.5 million. Ideally, this calms any fears that a major market sell-off in the tokens might result from the Wintermute hack.
The firm’s core market-making business will face disruptions over the next “few days,” after which Wintermute expects that things will get “back to normal.” The company remains “twice as a solvent” and can fulfill its lending obligations, according to the CEO.
Wintermute is the latest centralized crypto firm to suffer a security breach. Recall that in August, United States regulators opened investigations into BitMart. The centralized exchange had lost $200 million to a hack.
