Poloniex
HackedExchange · born 2014 · ✝ 2023
Hot wallets emptied across three chains in one night.
Poloniex was a long-running centralized exchange once owned by Circle and later associated with Justin Sun. In November 2023 attackers compromised its private keys and drained roughly $126M across Tron, Ethereum, and Bitcoin.
- Peak
- ~$126M stolen
- Cause
- Hacked
- Year of death
- 2023
☠️ Cause of death
Private keys to Poloniex's hot wallets were compromised by an unknown method, allowing the attacker to sweep assets across multiple chains.
📓 Lessons left behind
- —Hot wallets should hold only what you can lose.
- —Use multisig and HSMs for exchange signing keys.
- —Multi-chain custody multiplies the blast radius of a key leak.
🌱 The idea that survived
Hardware key custody
Pushed exchanges toward HSM-backed multisig and tighter hot-wallet limits.
#exchange#custody#private-key