More than $120 million of a crypto firm's assets were moved to an unknown address - weeks after its CEO disappeared, report says
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- More than $120 million of a crypto firm's assets were "abnormally" moved to an unknown address, Bloomberg reported.
- Multichain, a cross-channel router, said in early May that it couldn't contact its CEO.
- The event has sparked chatter on Twitter of a possible hacking of Multichain wallets.
More than $120 million of a crypto firm's assets have been moved to an unknown address, weeks after the company reported having trouble contacting its CEO, according to Bloomberg.
In a tweet on Friday, Multichain – a crypto app that allows the transfer of assets across different blockchains – disclosed an unusual transfer had occurred, and said it was investigating the matter. It recommended customers suspend their use of its platform.
"The lockup assets on the Multichain MPC address have been moved to an unknown address abnormally. The team is not sure what happened and is currently investigating," Multichain said.
MetaSleuth, a crypto funds visualization and analysis company, replied on Twitter, noting that Multichain's tokens had been divided across six different crypto addresses.
"More than 120M assets were transferred from Multichain: Fantom Bridge and Multichain: Moonriver Bridge and are now distributed across 6 addresses. Additionally, 1.2M ICE (currently worth $1.8M) has been burned from address 0x9d57," it said.
After the news broke, several Twitter users said Multichain was likely hacked, according to CoinTelegraph.
Multichain did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
The company's latest headache comes weeks after it had trouble reaching CEO Zhaojun in late May.
"The team has done everything possible to maintain the protocol running, but we are currently unable to contact CEO Zhaojun and obtain the necessary server access for maintenance," it said in a tweet.
In a separate event, Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, experienced a $100 million worth crypto hack last October after an exploit on a cross-chain bridge.
Crypto investing clearly has its risks and drawbacks, but there are upsides to digital assets including potentially hefty returns. Bitcoin has rallied about 80% this year to over $30,000, in part because BlackRock recently filed an application to launch its first spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund.