EU Firm Loses $106M; Attacker Converts USDC, USDT to Monero

• Centralized exchange accounts drained, stablecoins funneled into Ethereum and Monero
• Stolen assets become untraceable after moving to Monero via instant swaps, cross-chain bridges

On November 3, 2026 (UTC), Decrypt reported that an anonymous European Union-based firm lost more than $106 million when an attacker compromised several centralized exchange accounts, converting stolen USDC and USDT stablecoins into Ethereum and then Monero. The intruder rapidly used instant swap services and cross-chain bridges to evade detection, highlighting critical vulnerabilities across major crypto platforms.

The attacker’s method relied on converting the pilfered funds into Ethereum and then seamlessly bridging them into Monero, a privacy-focused cryptocurrency. This route immediately obscured the transaction trail—the use of Monero’s privacy architecture made further forensic analysis impossible, effectively terminating any hope of tracking the assets once they were on-chain in Monero.

Investigators cannot pursue the trail beyond Monero, and no recovery efforts have been disclosed. Neither the affected firm nor the specific exchanges have been identified, as no official statements have emerged regarding the incident.

Security experts and authorities are probing the methods behind the compromise and the identity of the victim. The scale and sophistication of the theft have intensified industry concerns about the adequacy and speed of security responses within the cryptocurrency sector.

As of November 3, 2026, 10:09 UTC, USDC traded at $1, Monero (XMR) at $623.197, Ethereum (ETH) at $2,262.227, and Tether USDt (USDT) at $0.998, based on market data.