BtcTurk Hacked for $48M as Exchange Halts Withdrawals

Highlights:

• BTCTurk hacked with losses reaching $48M in multi-chain transfers.
• The hacker moved assets to two addresses and began swaps.
• Deposits and withdrawals remain suspended during the investigation.

BTCTurk, a Turkish cryptocurrency exchange, has paused crypto deposits and withdrawals after a suspected $48 million exploit. Blockchain security companies detected irregular transfers of the hot wallets of the exchange. Ethereum, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, Mantle, and Polygon networks were affected by the movements.

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On Thursday, Cyvers Alerts first identified several suspicious transactions. The firm stated that the hacker quickly transferred the stolen money to two primary addresses. They then started to convert the assets into Ethereum and other liquid tokens.

🚨ALERT🚨$48M worth of digital assets have been detected in unusual activity across multiple chains involving Turkish exchange @btcturk

About 30 minutes ago, our system detected multiple alerts across $ETH, $AVAX, $ARB, $BASE, $OP, $MANTLE, and $MATIC networks. Most funds were… pic.twitter.com/ss4a7O2hUd

— 🚨 Cyvers Alerts 🚨 (@CyversAlerts) August 14, 2025

Funds Consolidated and Swapped Across Chains

The hacker confined the majority of the assets into two wallets based on Ethereum. A single wallet contained more than 17.5 million ETH and other Layer-2 coins in small amounts. The other stored approximately 16.8 million ETH and other tokens of niche networks. The stolen tokens were ETH, AVAX, ARB, BASE, OP, MANTLE, and MATIC.

The hacker also operated on Solana, with assets being sent via a tagged wallet called “PNUT Whale.” Meme tokens, SOL, and stablecoins were accommodated by this wallet. Weeks prior to this breach, analysts noted that the Solana address was receiving activity. The final Solana wallet had a balance of more than $6 million.

On Ethereum, the hacker was concentrated on converting minor assets into ETH. This centralization move was possible to enable faster liquidation on decentralized exchanges. Transactions went ahead to the extent of using MetaMask swaps, despite additional fees, to move funds faster. According to blockchain tracking, although huge transfers seem to have slowed down, certain tokens continue to flow into the wallets of the hackers. 

Looks like BtcTurk’s hot wallet might be hacked. Around 30M was transferred to another wallet and almost all assets are being converted to ETH. pic.twitter.com/fRQPi2Cioz

— helin (@helincesxyz) August 14, 2025

BTCTurk’s Response and Market Context

BTCTurk published an announcement on X indicating that it had halted deposits and withdrawals due to a “technical problem” on hot wallets. The exchange assured its customers that buy and sell orders and transactions in Turkish lira were continuing without interruption. However, there was no official confirmation that directly referred to the incident as a hack. The exchange is likely to make further announcements as the investigation goes forward.

The exploit comes on the heels of a similar event that happened in June 2024 when another wallet of BTCTurk was compromised. The hot wallets were also used in stealing assets in that case. 10 different cryptocurrencies were affected, although user balances were not affected. Later on, Binance assisted in freezing $5.3 million linked to the hack.

BtcTurk, one of Turkey's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, said it was attacked on June 22, and cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals have been stopped. Officials said that some balances in the hot wallets of 10 cryptocurrencies were affected, and the cold wallets that hold…

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) June 22, 2024

In addition, the BTCTurk hack comes amid a wave of high-profile crypto thefts that have been reported since July. Hackers made off with $142 million in July alone, in 17 incidents, compared to June losses of $111 million. Despite the rise, July’s losses were still less compared to the $266 million stolen in July 2024. According to market analysts, breaches in centralized exchanges have not been as frequent as hacks in decentralized finance. However, the multi-chain attack on BTCTurk shows that exchange hot wallets are still vulnerable targets.

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