Crypto Market Maker Wintermute Hacked for $160M, OTC Services Unaffected

Cryptocurrency market maker Wintermute has lost $160 million in a hack relating to its decentralized finance (DeFi) operation, according to a tweet from the company's founder and CEO, Evgeny Gaevoy.

• The firm's lending and over-the-counter (OTC) services have not been affected. Decentralized finance refers to financial activities carried out on the blockchain without the use of third parties.
• Gaevoy said the company remains solvent, with "twice over" $160 million remaining in equity.
• Wintermute is the latest in a long list of crypto companies to be stung by hacks over the past few months. Crypto bridge Nomad had nearly $200 million drained in August shortly before DeFi protocol Curve Finance had $570,000 stolen. Blockchain security firm Certik estimated that more than $1.3 billion had been lost to DeFi hacks last year.
• Founded in 2017, Wintermute trades billions of dollars across crypto market daily as it provides liquidity across multiple venues. Last week it was named as the official DeFi market maker for the Tron network.

• Gaevoy added that the company is still treating the hack as a "white hat" event and asked the hacker to get in touch. The hacker's wallet has been tracked down by on-chain sleuth ZachXBT; it currently holds around $9 million in ether (ETH) and $38 million in other ERC-20 tokens.
• The firm suffered a mishap earlier this year when it sent $15 million of optimism (OP) tokens to a wrong address. The tokens were eventually returned by the recipient.
• Wintermute did not immediately respond to CoinDesk's request for comment.

UPDATE (Sept. 20, 08:28 UTC): Updates headline and adds context throughout and details on hacker's wallet.