Users of Justin Sun’s HTX Withdraw $258M After Hack

Users of digital asset platform HTX, which is backed by Justin Sun of TRON fame, have withdrawn $258 million after a hack in late November. The funds flowed out from the time the exchange reopened on Nov. 25 to Dec. 10, Bloomberg reported, citing DefiLlama data.

HTX lost crypto worth $30 million, which led to unease surrounding the platform’s safety, as the withdrawals show. On Nov. 24, Bankless Times reported that Heco Chain and HTX had lost a total of $115 million in a high-profile exploit.

HTX insists it is secure

An HTX spokesperson told Bloomberg the withdrawals were only a small part of their total reserves, indicating the platform’s reliability and stability.

Sun has connections to the Poloniex platform and Heco. The latter was established to enable transfers between blockchains.

After the hack in November, Sun posted on X that HTX would provide full compensation for the hot wallet losses. In related news, hackers stole $8 million from HTX during another incident in September.

A number of prominent recent incidents

Also in November, DeFi platform Raft lost the equivalent of $3.3 million in ether after suffering an exploit. The hacker sent the bulk of the 1,577 ETH he drained from Raft to a burn address, leaving just seven ether for himself and destroying the rest.

In August, Solana-based DEX Cypher announced plans to sell tokens in an effort to recover from a debilitating exploit, in which it lost more than $1 million in different assets.

Criticism against sector incurs record lobbying

The crypto industry’s troubles have resulted in a potentially record amount of funds spent on lobbying on its behalf this year. During the first three quarters of 2023, digital asset companies spent $18.9 million on lobbying, up from $16.1 million year on year. This figure is a fact despite the collapse of FTX, which was one of the biggest lobbyists.