Multichain fiasco: Another US$100 million gone?

Just last week, US$126 million flowed away from the "bridging platform" Multichain. Now reports are surfacing of even more losses. Are we dealing with an inside job here?

According to blockchain security firm Beosin, another $103 million in cryptocurrencies flowed from Multichain to an unknown wallet on July 10. "Based on previous analyses, we speculate that this may be an internal operation," Beosin said on Twitter.

On July 7, an unknown person managed to withdraw cryptocurrencies worth more than US$126 million from various wallets on Multichain. Chainalysis also considers an inside job and indicates that Multichain recently had problems "that had nothing to do with the protocol design, raising public suspicion that this latest exploit may have been carried out by insiders". The fact that there has been no trace of Multichain CEO Zhaojun for weeks only reinforces the suspicion.

The platform allows crypto assets to be transferred between different blockchains - known as bridging. Multichain's services have been suspended indefinitely. The loss of another $100 million has not yet been confirmed by Multichain. The company has not yet commented.