Wemix Refutes Cover-up Allegations Following Delay in Disclosing $6.2M Bridge Hack

Over the four days leading up to the breach announcement, the Wemix token dropped sharply by about 40%.

Wemix has refuted claims that it was covering up a $6.2 million bridge hack and a backlash from the community.

The Wemix token dropped sharply by about 40% over the four days leading up to the breach announcement.

Kim Seok-hwan, who leads the Wemix Foundation, said they had no intention of keeping the bridge hack, which saw hackers steal over $6 million in WEMIX, a secret.

However, while addressing the media, Kim stated that they did not cover up the incident, but attendees pointed out that they made the announcement later than expected.

On February 28, hackers exploited the Play Bridge Vault, a mechanism for moving WEMIX between blockchains, and stole over 8.6 million tokens. The company did not make an official statement about the attack until four days later.

When asked about the delay, Kim explained that they were considering potential follow-up attacks and the need to prevent market panic over the theft.

The breach, as Wemix disclosed, arose from the hacker stealing an authentication key used to supervise Nile, their non-fungible token (NFT) platform.

Two months after the theft, the hacker, having meticulously planned in advance, began generating abnormal transactions at random.

Out of 15 withdrawal attempts, the hackers completed 13, managing to seize 8.6 million WEMIX tokens, which they swiftly cashed out on several overseas exchanges.

Kim stated that they immediately deactivated their servers and initiated an analysis as soon as they became aware of the incident.

The executive also mentioned that they had officially reported the unknown hacker to the Cyber Investigation Team under the Seoul National Police Agency.

The Wemix CEO explained that the authorities had already begun investigating the matter.

He explained that an early announcement could have led to unintended consequences.

Without fully understanding how the system was compromised, they could still face future attacks, the CEO noted.

He further stressed that the market had already absorbed some effects from the stolen assets, and a premature announcement could have triggered panic-driven sales.

While addressing the press, the executive took responsibility for delaying the disclosure, apologized to Wemix investors, and stated that any fallout from the decision would fall on him.

From the day of the security breach to March 4, WEMIX dropped nearly 40% in value, despite the company’s attempt to delay the announcement to prevent market panic.

The asset’s price plummeted from $0.70 on February 27 to as low as $0.52 on February 28.

The price dropped to $0.42 on March 4, and although it is currently at $0.58, this still represents a 17% decrease from its pre-hack value.

The company announced on X that, to swiftly recover from the WEMIX PLAY Bridge incident and bring stability to the service and ecosystem, it will begin the buyback execution.

It will disclose the buyback method, the exchanges where it took place, the final amount, and the wallet address for the purchased tokens after completing the process.