On November 3rd, hackers breached Mercado Bitcoin and stole $38 million; the Brazilian exchange is officially back online. During the initial attack, the company managed to freeze $11 million of the stolen funds by working directly with digital dollar creators like Tether and Circle. To protect the remaining assets and investigate the breach, the exchange completely shut down its website, leaving users entirely in the dark.
Today, November 10th, management launched Phase 1 of their recovery plan. Users can finally log into their accounts to check their personal balances and verify their assets are safe. However, the platform remains in a strict lockdown mode. All actual money movement, including trading and instant Pix cash withdrawals, remains completely paused. Alongside the reopening, the company issued a severe warning, telling users to manually type the website address into their browsers. They specifically warned customers to ignore any direct messages asking for passwords or demanding a transfer to “release” or “protect” their assets.
Users online immediately shared their mixed experiences with the newly reopened platform. XRP investor on X, @SeidlerJean, expressed relief, thanking the exchange after successfully viewing their protected balance and getting answers directly from the official website. However, other customers expressed frustration with technical glitches.
Another commenter on X, @SILVIOLEITAO demanded to know why the displayed asset balances were frozen at the exact prices from November 2, completely ignoring the current real-time market value of the coins.
Meanwhile, @Politimetus reported technical struggles on the website, noting that while they successfully logged in using an email security code, their balance refused to load on a computer screen and was only visible through the mobile app.
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Mercado Bitcoin is keeping Pix withdrawals paused
Allowing users to log in while keeping the Pix network disconnected is a business survival strategy. If Mercado Bitcoin turned everything back on at the exact same time, the company would face a huge cash exit.
Even though the exchange publicly promised to use its own corporate money to replace the stolen millions, trust has been broken. If withdrawals gets reopened, panicked users would sell their digital coins for Brazilian Reals. They would then use the Pix system to pull all their money out to a traditional bank account.
If everyone tries to withdraw their money on the exact same day, the exchange runs out of physical cash to pay them, causing the entire business to collapse. Keeping trading and Pix paused buys the company some time. It allows them to slowly move physical cash from their traditional bank reserves into the payout system, ensuring they have enough money ready to handle the inevitable flood of withdrawals when the doors finally open.
How scammers target users after a crypto exchange hack
Whenever a massive crypto exchange suffers a breach, a second wave of independent scammers instantly attacks the panicked customer base. These scammers know that thousands of people are terrified about losing their life savings. They exploit this fear by sending thousands of fake emails and text messages pretending to be official Mercado Bitcoin support agents.
These messages usually contain a link promising instant access to a special recovery portal. The scammers tell the victim that their account is temporarily frozen, and they must send a small deposit of crypto to “verify” their identity and unlock their funds.
Because the users are desperate and anxious, they click the link without thinking and type in their passwords, or they send the demanded fee.
By turning the website back on and letting users see their correct balances, the company proves the internal database survived the attack completely unharmed. It separates internal record-keeping from the actual movement of money, allowing the company to rebuild user confidence before turning the financial engines back on.
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