KuCoin CEO says insurance covered remaining losses stemming from $285M hack in 2020

KuCoin CEO Johnny Lyu has revealed that users did not suffer losses on account of the hack that occurred in 2020. The KuCoin chief made this known as part of a letter titled “2020, 2021, and Beyond.”

Back in September 2020, the cryptocurrency exchange suffered a security breach with 230 different cryptos stolen from its hot wallet. At the time, the total theft amounted to about $285 million.

In the letter, Lyu revealed that the combined efforts of other exchange platforms and law enforcement agencies led to the recovery of $239.45 million. Indeed, back in November 2020, Cointelegraph reported that KuCoin had recovered about 84% of the stolen funds.

According to Lyu, the exchange utilized its insurance funds to cover the remaining $45.55 million (16%) of the funds stolen during the hack, thus ensuring that customer deposits were unaffected by the incident.

Commenting on the progress of the investigation into finding the perpetrators of the hack, Lyu said, “We have obtained substantial clues about the suspects, and the tracking is still in progress.”

As part of the letter, the KuCoin CEO also outlined some of the improvements made to the exchange’s security architecture in the aftermath of the hack. According to Lyu, KuCoin has upgraded its entire security system across web, app and API protocols.

KuCoin was one of five major crypto exchange hacks that occurred in 2020, with the platform experiencing the largest theft of the lot. On the whole, crypto exchange hacks declined in 2020 amid tightened security measured adopted by platforms.

Instead, the decentralized finance market segment accounted for about half of the hacks and exploits in the crypto space in 2020. However, KuCoin’s Lyu added that the DeFi story is still in its early stages, with more innovations on the horizon.

The KuCoin CEO also predicted that nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, are about to explode, stating, “When DeFi revolutionizes our financial services, NFT will gradually penetrate into our daily lives.”