What the exchange has confirmed
In its morning notice on 2 November, Mercado Bitcoin said it had identified and contained an incident in one of its systems. It temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals while teams reviewed infrastructure, traced assets and coordinated with authorities. The company also said it had not found a customer-data leak.
A later update specified that the incident affected hot wallets used for day-to-day transactions. Mercado Bitcoin says most assets are held separately in offline cold storage. It had not yet published a verified attack sequence, a complete transaction accounting or a final loss figure.
Understanding the competing figures
Early outside reports estimated suspicious transfers above $40 million across several chains. That is an external reading of on-chain activity, not the exchange's final loss calculation. In its evening notice, Mercado Bitcoin said about $11 million had been blocked with help from Tether, Circle, BRL1, Paxos and Chainalysis, while around $38 million remained unblocked at that point.
A blocked asset has not necessarily been returned to the exchange. Nor should the two figures be treated as a fixed net loss: they describe a changing tracing and recovery status. Mercado Bitcoin published destination addresses on Bitcoin, EVM, Solana, Stellar and Tron to assist monitoring.
Customer funds and service access
Mercado Bitcoin says customers will not bear losses from the incident. That is the company's commitment, not evidence that every affected asset has already been recovered. It has not given a firm timetable for full reopening and says services will return only after security checks.
The suspension still limits access to deposits and withdrawals, even if customer balances are protected. Users should rely on the exchange's official website, app and channels for status updates. No compensation or restoration process requires handing over a private key or recovery phrase.
What to watch next
The next verifiable milestones are a formal service-resumption notice, a revised accounting of affected assets and a technical explanation of the breach. Until then, claims about the exact attack method or final loss remain unconfirmed.
The exchange has also warned about impersonation scams. It says it will never ask for a password, verification code or recovery phrase, or offer reimbursement through a messaging link or phone call. Fraudulent recovery offers can create a separate risk for customers during an outage.
- Mercado Bitcoin confirmed a hot-wallet incident on 2 November.
- At its evening update, about $11 million was blocked and roughly $38 million was not.
- The exchange says customers will not incur losses.
- Final figures, root cause and full-service timing remain open.
