Mercado Bitcoin Hack: Withdrawals Halted, $40M Flagged
The Mercado Bitcoin hack has frozen Brazil’s largest crypto exchange. It suspended deposits and withdrawals on Monday, November 2, after a security incident. An outside security firm puts suspicious outflows above $40 million. Here is what is confirmed, what is not, and what it does to miners at $77,475 bitcoin.
What happened in the Mercado Bitcoin hack
According to Decrypt and CoinDesk, the exchange detected an incident in one of its systems early on Monday. It says it contained the incident and paused deposits and withdrawals as a preventive measure. There is no date for reopening. The exchange says it will post updates on X.
The $40 million is not the exchange’s number
Blockchain security firm Hypernative flagged more than $40 million in suspicious transfers across at least 10 chains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and Tron. That is a preliminary outside estimate. Mercado Bitcoin has not confirmed it.
The exchange also says no customer lost money and no data leaked. Those two claims have not been reconciled. Mercado Bitcoin calls it a security incident, not a confirmed theft. It has not said how the attackers got in, and nobody has named them.
Tether froze part of the money
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the company froze more than 4.5 million USDT tied to the incident. A freeze stops the coins moving. It does not by itself hand them back. Mercado Bitcoin published destination addresses on five networks so others can track the funds.
A second exchange hit in one week
The timing is ugly. The Binance hack was only days ago, and the FBI attributed that one to North Korea’s TraderTraitor group. Mercado Bitcoin has not linked its incident to Binance, and we have seen no evidence that they are connected.
What the Mercado Bitcoin hack means for miners
Directly, not much. Hashrate is steady, so mining itself is untouched. The risk is sentiment. Two exchange breaches in a week can push buyers out of the market, and bitcoin price is the biggest lever on your margin.
The practical lesson is old but true. Do not leave mined coins on an exchange. Pay your pool out to a wallet you control. Our Binance Pool guide shows how.
Miner Math: your margin while the exchange hacks play out
Here is the live maths on November 2. Bitcoin is $77,436 and the network is 1046 EH/s, so hashprice is about $33.50 per petahash per day. That is what one PH/s of hashing earns before power.
| Machine | 5c/kWh | 8c/kWh | 12c/kWh | Break-even |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antminer S19 (95 TH/s, 3250 W) | -$0.72 | -$3.06 | -$6.18 | 4.1c |
| Antminer S19k Pro (115 TH/s, 2645 W) | $0.68 | -$1.23 | -$3.77 | 6.1c |
| Antminer S19 XP (141 TH/s, 3010 W) | $1.11 | -$1.06 | -$3.95 | 6.5c |
| Antminer S21 Pro (234 TH/s, 3510 W) | $3.63 | $1.10 | -$2.27 | 9.3c |
Numbers are profit per day after electricity, at the three power prices shown. Break-even is the most you can pay per kilowatt-hour before the machine loses money. Specs are the manufacturer ratings; network data comes from mempool.space. Try your own power price in our free bitcoin mining profit calculator. See what these machines really sold for in our used ASIC miner price index. Want to run the same numbers on a machine you can buy today? See our used ASIC miners, or buy several at once through bulk lots.
If a second hack in one week knocks bitcoin down 5%: the break-even power price on an S19k Pro falls from 6.1 to 5.8 cents per kilowatt-hour. At 8 cents, daily profit goes from -$1.23 to -$1.42.
What we think
Be blunt with yourself about the margin above. If a 5% drop turns your machine negative, you were already too close to the edge. See our miners in stock and the daily Bitcoin price prediction. We will update this story when Mercado Bitcoin confirms a loss figure.
-Nick
ING Mining
This is general information, not financial advice. Crypto is volatile, and you can lose money. Please do your own research.