BitMart confirms $391,000 hack during wind-down restructuring

BitMart founder Sheldon Xia confirmed a hack that drained $391,000 from exchange wallets on the Ethereum scaling networks Base, Arbitrum and Optimism on November 2, 2026, according to Crypto Briefing. Xia described the breach as small in scale and acknowledged the exchange's security team has been understaffed while BitMart proceeds through court-supervised restructuring.

Crypto Briefing reports that on-chain research links the BitMart theft to a much larger attack on Mercado Bitcoin, with the BitMart wallets reportedly targeted about 53 minutes before Mercado Bitcoin was hit for roughly $48.6 million. Whether that connection has been formally established or remains a working theory based on on-chain tracing is not confirmed, per the outlet.

BitMart said in July 2026 that it would wind down operations, and it stopped all trading by the following month as part of that process. Since then it has been working toward a repayment plan for users under restructuring. The exchange previously suffered a major hack on December 4, 2021, with estimated losses between $150 million and $196 million; restructuring documents cited by Crypto Briefing note a projected shortfall of $319.5 million based on 2021 pricing, tied in part to that earlier incident.

Crypto Briefing states that it remains unknown whether the newly stolen $391,000 will affect the timeline or terms of BitMart's repayment plan, and the identity of the attackers in either the BitMart or Mercado Bitcoin incidents has not been disclosed.