India's Unocoin confirms server breach, services suspended

Indian crypto exchange Unocoin confirmed on November 12 that its server infrastructure was compromised. Logins, trading and withdrawals have been suspended since November 9, and the exchange says it is rebuilding its servers from scratch, which it expects to take 4⁠–⁠5 working days. It has not named a loss figure.

Details

According to Unocoin's statement, suspicious activity was first detected on November 6. The exchange immediately asked custodians Fireblocks (11:24 UTC) and BitGo (11:29 UTC) to freeze its enterprise accounts and says both confirmed. Further unauthorized activity on November 9 led it to halt all services; the investigation found the infrastructure had been compromised. The root cause is still unknown.

Separately, on November 12 Unocoin spotted outgoing transactions from one ETH address in its BitGo wallet setup, used to fund ERC-20 tokens, and escalated it to BitGo. The exchange says it cannot log in to the frozen accounts and cannot fully trace funds on-chain because of change addresses, so the size of those transfers is not yet known. It says more than 90% of customer funds sit in cold storage, but it stops short of confirming that nothing was lost; its earlier "no loss" statement referred only to the moment the first safeguards were applied.

Blockchain analytics firm Arkham shows zero balances across roughly 81,000 addresses linked to the exchange, Bitcoin.com News reported. That alone does not prove theft: funds may have been moved to untracked cold storage or relocated defensively. PANews reports the exchange described the suspension as a precaution.

What it means for the market

Unocoin is one of India's older exchanges, so the impact falls mainly on its customers, who cannot access funds until services return. A broader market effect is unlikely for now: no figure has been confirmed, and Arkham's empty-wallet view is not evidence of a theft.

Watch for BitGo's findings and the relaunch date. Until then loss estimates remain unverified. For the current market picture see the daily brief and the Bitcoin page.