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CoinEx Hack: What Happened to the $53 Million in Cryptocurrency?

CoinEx’s September 2023 hot-wallet theft was estimated at about $53 million at the time, but later totals differ. Here is what the sources say about the amount, attribution and exchange response.
From TheFinanceBase Team2 min to read
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CoinEx detected unauthorized withdrawals from several hot wallets on September 12, 2023. BleepingComputer estimated the theft at about $53 million at the time, but later sources reported different totals, and the available figures do not establish a settled final amount. CoinEx said the incident likely involved a leaked hot-wallet private key; the Lazarus Group connection is reported, not confirmed by the cited FBI statement about CoinEx.

What happened in the CoinEx hack?

CoinEx said its risk-control system detected anomalous withdrawals from several hot-wallet addresses on September 12, 2023. In its initial assessment, the exchange said a hot-wallet private key had likely leaked. A hot wallet is connected to systems used to process transactions, making control of its keys essential to safeguarding the assets it holds.

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In a September 22 update, CoinEx listed stolen assets across multiple networks, including 4,953 ETH, 231 BTC, 135,600 SOL and 137,127,860 TRX. The company said exact values were still being liquidated, so these quantities do not by themselves establish a final dollar loss. CoinEx’s September 2023 update contains its incident figures and response statements.

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How much cryptocurrency was stolen?

Published estimates differ. They were reported at different times and may use different asset prices, cutoffs or scopes; the available accounts do not reconcile them into one final valuation.

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Source and year Reported amount What it establishes
BleepingComputer, 2023 About $53 million Contemporaneous estimate
Council on Foreign Relations incident tracker Almost $54 million Incident-tracker description
Chainalysis, 2024 retrospective $43 million Later retrospective figure

The $53 million headline figure is therefore best understood as a contemporaneous estimate, not a definitive final accounting. The source material does not provide an independently reconciled forensic valuation.

Was the CoinEx attack linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group?

The incident is associated with Lazarus Group in the Council on Foreign Relations’ tracker. BleepingComputer’s 2023 report also said on-chain investigator ZachXBT identified a connection to a wallet previously associated with Lazarus. These are meaningful reported links, but they should not be confused with a specific FBI announcement attributing the CoinEx theft to the group.

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The cited FBI release concerns a separate incident: the $41 million Stake.com theft, which the FBI attributed to DPRK cyber actors known as Lazarus Group/APT38. The tracker says some CoinEx funds went to a wallet that held proceeds from the Stake.com theft, but that does not make the FBI’s Stake.com statement an official attribution of CoinEx. The FBI release is explicitly about Stake.com.

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What did CoinEx do, and what did it say about customer funds?

CoinEx said it shut down hot-wallet servers and paused deposits and withdrawals on September 12. It said it moved remaining assets from affected wallets, contacted exchanges and wallets about freezing related accounts, and rebuilt its wallet system. The exchange reported that deposits and withdrawals for ten mainstream cryptocurrencies resumed on September 21.

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CoinEx also said its cold-wallet assets were unaffected and that its user asset security foundation would bear the losses. Those are the company’s statements; the cited material does not independently verify them or provide a separate final accounting of customer-level reimbursements. CoinEx’s update is the source for its recovery and customer-protection claims.

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