Mercado Bitcoin Halts Withdrawals Following Potential $40M Breach

Mercado Bitcoin suspended deposits and withdrawals on Nov. 2, 2026, after detecting an unauthorized breach in one of its internal systems ¹. In an official statement published on X, the Brazilian exchange stated that it moved swiftly to contain the security incident during the early hours of the morning ¹. The firm asserted that customer funds remained secure and that no user data had been leaked during the event, framing the freeze on transactions as a preventive precaution ¹. At the time of writing, $BTC was trading at $77,334.

While the exchange has not disclosed how attackers gained access or confirmed the total scope of the theft, blockchain analytics company Hypernative identified upwards of $40 million in suspect transactions across at least 10 blockchain networks, including $ETH, Solana, Tron, and Bitcoin ¹. Mercado Bitcoin subsequently published destination addresses linked to the incident spanning EVM networks, Bitcoin, Solana, Stellar, and Tron to assist on-chain tracking efforts ¹. Tether Chief Executive Officer Paolo Ardoino confirmed on X that the issuer stepped in to freeze more than 4.5 million $USDT associated with the flagged addresses ¹.

Exchange Response and Industry Context

The breach arrives shortly after an unauthorized intrusion hit global exchange infrastructure, including the recent theft of over $6 billion from Binance on Oct. 29, 2026 ¹. Mercado Bitcoin has not linked its security breach to external incidents or identified the perpetrators responsible for the activity ¹.

Platform deposits and withdrawals remain offline at Mercado Bitcoin as investigations continue ¹. The exchange has not announced an exact timeline for when normal account functionality will resume, noting that it will share progress reports via official social media channels ¹.