- BitMart suffered a hack on November 2, with $391,000 drained; CEO Sheldon Xia confirmed the breach publicly on November 3.
- The BitMart attack began 53 minutes before the separate hack on Brazilian exchange Mercado Bitcoin, with the same attacker addresses linked to both.
- BitMart has been severely understaffed following a major restructuring, hampering its incident response capabilities.
- The exchange plans to file court applications in December 2026 and January 2027 as part of its legal and financial recovery efforts.
Breach Confirmed By BitMart CEO
Following a hack on November 2nd, 2026, cryptocurrency exchange BitMart lost around $391,000. The founder and CEO of BitMart Sheldon Xia admitted to the hack on November 3rd, saying on X: “Yes we got hacked yesterday as well”.
Yes, we got hacked yesterday too. The amount involved was small, and we acted quickly to investigate and strengthen security.
As a result of the restructuring, we have retained only a core team. Doxxing and threats from users, along with retaliation by certain disgruntled employees, including Elly, our former head of marketing operations, have made many technical staff reluctant to stay and maintain the systems in an environment where they face personal attacks.
It took considerable effort and individual conversations to persuade some key technical staff to remain and maintain our core systems. However, we continue to face numerous attacks. Our security team is currently severely understaffed, but we are still doing everything we can to safeguard data and assets.
Our preliminary investigation suggests that yesterday’s hack may have been carried out by the same group responsible for yesterday’s attack on Brazil’s Mercado Bitcoin.
— Sheldon (@sheldonbitmart) November 3, 2026
After hours of on chain analysts speculating about the incident, the relatively low amount stolen has led to analysts stating the reason behind the less loss was because the exchange had less liquidity after previous restructurings.
Same Attackers As Mercado Bitcoin
On chain analysis shows that the attackers behind the BitMart breach were the same individuals responsible for hacking into Mercado Bitcoin, a Brazilian exchange that lost around $40 million.
BREAKING: The Mercado Bitcoin hacker also drained wallets tied to BitMart.
It started on them 53 minutes before the $48.6M Mercado Bitcoin attack, on Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism. 19 hours later, it came back for more.
$391k taken. BitMart has not confirmed.
https://t.co/gx3GipMNNL
— Bitquery.io ( Bloxy ) (@Bitquery_io) November 3, 2026
The BitMart hack began 53 minutes before Mercado Bitcoin was attacked, however the two incidents can be traced back to the same attacker controlled wallets. This shows that one individual/group was responsible for attacking multiple exchanges at the same time.
Understaffing & Legal Response
The exchange admitted to being short staffed after a large restructuring occurred. This has made it difficult for the exchange to respond to the breach. However, they mentioned they will be applying for court cases in December 2026 and January 2027.
This means they could take legal action to freeze/recover any assets connected to the attacker wallets. They also mentioned users should stop making any new deposits until the investigation is complete and they have a stronger security set up.
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