Mercado Bitcoin Hack: Brazil Exchange Vows to Cover All User Losses

By Nodora News · 4 November 2026

Mercado Bitcoin says customers will not lose funds after a hack of up to $49 million, with $11 million frozen and withdrawals still paused in Brazil.

Mercado Bitcoin, Brazil's largest cryptocurrency exchange, says its customers will not lose any funds after a hack that drained its hot wallets on November 2, 2026, and that the company will absorb the loss itself. Blockchain analysts put the theft at between roughly $40 million and $49 million across Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL) and several other networks. About $11 million has been frozen so far, but deposits and withdrawals remain suspended with no restart date.

Key takeaways

• Mercado Bitcoin says customer balances are guaranteed and still recorded in their accounts.
• Only hot wallets were hit; the exchange says its cold storage was not affected.
• Loss estimates range from more than $40 million (Hypernative) to about $49 million (Chainalysis).
• Around $11 million has been frozen with help from Tether, Circle, Paxos, BRL1 and Chainalysis.
• The platform stays offline until the exchange is satisfied it is safe, and no date has been given.

What Mercado Bitcoin promised its users

In an update posted on its help centre on the evening of November 2 and repeated on X the next day, Mercado Bitcoin put the guarantee first: clients will not lose assets because of the incident, and their balances remain on record. CoinDesk reported that the exchange will cover the loss itself and that no customer data was leaked.

This is the second big "we will pay for it" pledge from an exchange in a week. Binance said it would absorb the cost of its record $6.3 billion hack rather than pass it to users. You can read our coverage of how that attack began in Binance (BNB) $6.3B Hack Began With a Fake Job Interview.

How the Mercado Bitcoin hack happened

Mercado Bitcoin says it spotted the breach in the early hours of Monday, November 2, triggered its security and governance protocols, notified the authorities and took the platform offline as a precaution.

The exchange explained the setup in plain terms. A small share of customer funds sits in online "hot" wallets, which it uses for everyday deposits and withdrawals, a bit like a shop's cash register. Most funds sit in offline "cold" wallets, which work like a vault. Only the hot wallets were hit.

Mercado Bitcoin has not said how the attackers got in, and it has not linked the incident to the Binance hack, which the FBI attributed to North Korea. We covered the first hours of the attack in Mercado Bitcoin Hack: Brazil Exchange Halts Withdrawals After $40M Loss and the later wallet sweep in Mercado Bitcoin Hack Grows to $46M as Attacker Sweeps Deposit Wallets.

How much was stolen and how much is frozen

The size of the loss depends on who is counting:

• Hypernative: more than $40 million in suspicious transfers across at least 10 blockchains
• Arkham: at least $46 million traced
• Chainalysis: about $49 million, according to Decrypt
• Mercado Bitcoin: about $11 million blocked, with roughly $38 million not yet blocked as of its November 2 update

Brazilian newspaper Valor Econômico also reported about $49 million taken, with $11.2 million blocked by the end of that day. Business outlet Exame later cited a newer company update putting the compromised amount at $36.3 million and the blocked amount at $12.9 million. The exchange has not published a single final figure, so these numbers may still change.

Tether, the company behind the USDT stablecoin, froze more than $4.5 million in USDT linked to the attack, according to CEO Paolo Ardoino. Freezing a token stops it from moving or being swapped, but it does not send it back on its own, which is why the exchange's promise to cover the gap matters so much for customers.

Why it matters and how the market reacted

For users, the pledge means balances should be made whole once the platform reopens. The catch is that it cannot be checked from the outside: a promise to cover losses is only as strong as the company's reserves, and exchanges are not required to show customers their books in real time.

The hack also lands during an unusually bad stretch for exchange security. Regulators in South Korea have already pushed local platforms to hold more funds in cold storage after the Binance breach, and more exchanges are likely to be asked the same questions about how much they keep online.

The wider market has shrugged off the news. According to OKX prices at the time of writing:

• Bitcoin (BTC): about $78,000, up 1.4% in 24 hours
• Ethereum (ETH): about $2,299, up 1.8%
• Solana (SOL): about $93.86, up 1.9%
• Avalanche (AVAX): about $8.54, up 1.7%

You can follow live prices on the Nodora charts page.

What to watch next for Mercado Bitcoin

• A reopening date. The exchange says it will restore services only once its systems are confirmed safe, and it plans to announce the timing through its app, website, Instagram and X.
• A final loss figure. Watch for one official number that reconciles the company's count with the higher estimates from Arkham and Chainalysis.
• More freezes. Mercado Bitcoin says it has found more funds that can be blocked and is working with protocols and exchanges worldwide.
• Attribution. No group has been named, and the exchange has not said how the breach started.

Mercado Bitcoin is also warning customers about scams. It says it will never ask for a password, verification code or recovery phrase, and it does not offer refunds through links, WhatsApp or phone calls. Anyone contacted that way should ignore the message and rely only on the exchange's official channels.

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This article is general information, not financial advice.