Brazil's Mercado Bitcoin: Unauthorized Outflow Continued for 4 Hours Even After Hacking "Containment" Announced

Brazilian crypto exchange Mercado Bitcoin suffered an estimated $48.6 million hack, according to blockchain analytics firm Bitquery, with customer deposit addresses continuing to be drained for roughly four hours after the exchange announced the breach had been contained. The incident at one of Brazil's largest trading venues underscores persistent operational and security risks facing centralized exchanges, particularly the gap between incident-response claims and on-chain reality. The $48.6 million figure represents the total estimated losses identified by Bitquery across affected addresses. What to watch next: whether Mercado Bitcoin confirms or revises the loss estimate, how it handles customer reimbursement, and whether on-chain monitoring reveals the movement or laundering of the stolen funds.