Mercado Bitcoin Hack Freezes Withdrawals at Brazil’s Top Exchange, With 4.5 Million USDT Frozen

The Mercado Bitcoin hack has forced Brazil’s largest cryptocurrency exchange to suspend deposits and withdrawals, and the first reports point to losses in the tens of millions of dollars. The platform paused activity on Monday, November 2, 2026, after a security incident. The scale of the theft is still being pinned down.

What is known about the Mercado Bitcoin hack

The available reporting is thin. Decrypt describes the incident as a $40 million hack, while other accounts put the figure closer to $46 million. That gap suggests the total was still being tallied, or that outlets are counting different assets. The material reviewed does not explain the discrepancy, so the exact loss should be treated as unconfirmed.

What is clear is the operational response. Mercado Bitcoin halted both deposits and withdrawals, a standard emergency step that stops further funds leaving the platform while investigators work out how attackers got in. For customers, it means their balances are temporarily out of reach.

Tether freezes stolen funds

One concrete development is that Tether, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, froze more than 4.5 million USDT tied to the attack. Stablecoin issuers can blacklist addresses holding their tokens, which makes freezes one of the few tools available for clawing back stolen crypto quickly. The frozen amount is a small share of the reported losses, though, and most of the stolen value presumably sits in other assets that cannot be blocked so easily.

The sources do not say how the attackers breached the exchange, which assets were taken, or whether customer funds were affected directly or covered by the company’s own reserves. They also do not give a timeline for resuming withdrawals. The Decrypt excerpt cuts off just as it begins to relay Mercado Bitcoin’s statement to customers, so the company’s exact wording is not available here.

Why the Mercado Bitcoin hack matters

As the biggest exchange in Brazil, Mercado Bitcoin is a main on-ramp for the country’s retail crypto users. A prolonged freeze would hit a large customer base, and the incident will likely renew scrutiny of custody and security practices at major exchanges in Latin America’s biggest economy.

For now, the key questions are unanswered: the final size of the loss, the cause of the breach, whether users will be made whole, and when normal service returns. This article will need updating as Mercado Bitcoin and security analysts release more detail.

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