BitMart founder Sheldon Xia confirmed a hack on Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, and said the exchange’s security team was severely understaffed after restructuring. He described the amount involved as small but gave no figure. Xia said threats against employees and alleged retaliation by former staff had made it harder to retain technical staff.
Blockchain analytics firm Bitquery identified about $391,000 in suspicious transfers from wallets mostly associated with BitMart. It traced the funds to a wallet also implicated in a hack of more than $46 million at Brazil’s Mercado Bitcoin on Nov. 2, supporting Xia’s preliminary suspicion of a possible link between the incidents.
BitMart has proposed three recovery options for users, including liquid asset distributions and recovery-linked tokens, and plans to seek court approval in December or January. The options have not been approved.
