Brazil's largest crypto exchange, Mercado Bitcoin, suspended deposits and withdrawals on Monday, November 2, after a security incident. The company says no customer lost money and no data leaked, but security analysts see suspicious transfers of at least $40 million.
What happened on Monday
According to Decrypt, the exchange spotted the incident in one of its systems early in the morning. The team contained it quickly and halted deposits and withdrawals as a precaution. Mercado Bitcoin posted the statement in Portuguese on its X account.
"We identified and quickly contained a security incident in one of our systems early this morning. As a preventive protection measure, deposits and withdrawals are temporarily suspended."
- Mercado Bitcoin, from a statement on X dated November 2, 2026
In a follow-up post the exchange repeated that customers suffered no losses and no data was leaked. It did not say how the attackers got into the system. It also gave no date for resuming operations and promised regular updates on X.
The Hypernative estimate and addresses on five networks
The $40 million figure did not come from the exchange. It was cited by the blockchain security firm Hypernative in a preliminary analysis. According to that data, the suspicious transfers are spread across at least 10 blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and Tron. Mercado Bitcoin has not confirmed the number.
Separately, the exchange published the addresses where, by its account, the funds went. They cover five networks: EVM-compatible chains, Bitcoin, Solana, Stellar and Tron. The company explained that it released the list only so other market participants could recognize these assets and follow them on-chain.
A spread across ten networks means the funds would have to be tracked in several chains at once. For any exchange that is harder than a single-wallet case.
Tether steps in with a freeze
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said on X that the company froze more than 4.5 million USDT tied to the incident. USDT is a dollar-pegged stablecoin. The issuer can blacklist addresses, after which the tokens cannot be moved.
A freeze does not by itself return money to its owner. It only stops the tokens from moving, and the exchange, the issuer and law enforcement decide what comes next. Compared with the Hypernative estimate, roughly a tenth of the sum is frozen. Available reports do not mention blocks on other assets.
Open questions and the Binance context
The incident came days after the Binance hack of October 29, when more than $6 billion left the exchange. The FBI pinned that attack on the North Korean group TraderTraitor. Binance has since reopened withdrawals and says it replenished about 95% of the affected assets. Customers then pulled around $3.6 billion from the exchange, CoinDesk reports.
Mercado Bitcoin has not linked the two cases and has not said who is behind its own. The list of what is still unknown looks like this.
- how the attackers got into the exchange's system
- who organized the attack
- when deposits and withdrawals will resume
- whether the real sum matches the Hypernative estimate
What customers face now
With no date set, customers of the Brazilian exchange can neither top up accounts nor withdraw funds. Users have to wait for official updates on X. Bitcoin traded near $77,000 at the time of writing.
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