Duelbits takes site offline after about $7 million drained from hot wallets
Duelbits goes offline after about $7 million leaves its hot wallets
Crypto gambling platform Duelbits has taken its website offline after attackers drained roughly $7 million from its hot wallets on Thursday. A hot wallet is a crypto wallet that stays connected to the internet so it can send and receive funds quickly, which also makes it a target for attackers.
Duelbits co-founder Joe said on X that the platform was "Confirming a ~$7M hack" and was "Still investigating exactly what happened and how." He added that "user funds are safe" and said the site would stay offline until the investigation is finished and the hot wallets are refilled.
Key details at a glance
- About $7 million was taken from Duelbits hot wallets, according to the company.
- Duelbits says user funds are safe and the site will stay offline until its hot wallets are refilled.
- Security firm Scam Sniffer says wallets on Ethereum, BNB Chain, Tron and Bitcoin were affected.
- About $6 million of the stolen assets now sits in one Ethereum address holding roughly 2,234 ETH, and had not moved as of publication.
What Duelbits has said
Duelbits said in a statement that it is investigating a "security incident" and took the site offline as a precaution. The platform has not stated a cause for the loss.
The co-founder's public post put the loss at roughly $7 million and said the team is still working out what happened.
What blockchain security firm Scam Sniffer reported
Scam Sniffer was first to flag the incident. It reported that Duelbits hot wallets on Ethereum, BNB Chain and Tron sent funds to newly created addresses, in what it described as a suspected private key compromise. A private key is the secret code that controls a wallet, so anyone who gets it can move the funds.
Scam Sniffer later said the platform's bitcoin hot wallet also lost 8.1 BTC.
How the funds moved on Ethereum
Etherscan data shows the Ethereum wallet labeled as a Duelbits hot wallet sent 836 ETH, about 593,000 USDT, 97,000 USDC, 31,500 DAI and 12.4 billion SHIB to the attacker within minutes. That wallet now holds less than $25 in ether.
Most of the stolen assets were later swapped into ether and combined into a single new address holding about 2,234 ETH, worth roughly $6 million. The funds had not moved onward as of publication.
Where Duelbits stood among crypto casinos
Before the incident, DappRadar ranked Duelbits 17th out of 43 tracked crypto casinos by on-chain deposits, with about $5.7 million across its monitored wallets. It is not clear whether those figures reflect balances recorded before or after the outflows.
What is confirmed
- Duelbits confirmed a loss of roughly $7 million and said user funds are safe.
- The platform took its site offline and said it will stay offline until the investigation ends and the hot wallets are refilled.
- Duelbits described the event as a "security incident" and called the shutdown a precaution.
- Etherscan data shows outflows from a wallet labeled as a Duelbits hot wallet, and most of the stolen assets were later combined into one address holding about 2,234 ETH.
What is still unclear
The exact cause of the loss has not been confirmed by Duelbits. Scam Sniffer's description of a suspected private key compromise is the security firm's assessment, not a confirmed finding from the platform.
Duelbits has not said whether any user money was lost, beyond its statement that user funds are safe. It is also unclear whether DappRadar's deposit figures for Duelbits were measured before or after the outflows.
Why this case is being compared with an earlier casino attack
The type of attack described by Scam Sniffer was also reported in the 2023 breach of Stake, the largest crypto casino by volume, when hackers took $40 million. The link between the two cases comes from the described method, which in the Duelbits incident remains suspected rather than confirmed.
Sources
Newisty Editorial Team covers technology, cryptocurrency, digital products, online platforms, developer tools and the wider digital economy. Our content is researched from official sources, company announcements, public documentation, market data and other primary or reputable sources. Articles are reviewed and edited before publication for clarity, accuracy and useful context.