Crypto market maker Wintermute loses $160m after decentralized finance operation is hacked

Crypto trading firm Wintermute has been targeted by hackers and has stolen $160 million worth of digital assets, the CEO claimed.

The heist is just the latest to hit the cybercrime-ridden industry.

The theft targeted Wintermute’s decentralized financial (DeFi) operations in London, boss Evgeny Gaevoy said in a tweet.

The company, which provides liquidity on major crypto exchanges and trading platforms, remains solvent after the hack, he added.

Decentralized financial platforms and software, which aim to provide crypto-based financial services without traditional gatekeepers such as banks, have been the target of numerous heists in recent years.

The sector is poorly regulated and victims of crime rarely have recourse.

Gaevoy and Wintermute did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Wintermute calls itself “one of the biggest players” in the global crypto markets. It says it manages “hundreds of millions” in assets and trades more than $5 billion a day.

Gaevoy said on Twitter that there will be an outage in our services today and possibly in the coming days, adding that some 90 assets have been hacked.

“If you lend to Wintermute, we’ll be solvent again, but if you feel safer calling the loan back, we can absolutely do that,” Gaevoy said.

He added that the company remains solvent with “twice more” than the breached $160 million in assets, which remain in equity.

Earlier this year, crypto firm Nomad was hacked and lost nearly $200 million, while Curve Finance lost $570,000 to tech pirates.

Certik, a blockchain security firm, lost a staggering $1.3 billion in decentralized financial hacks last year.

Gaevoy said he believes the Wintermute hacker was a “white hat,” that is, someone with good intentions who just tests the security systems and contacts the company.