Duelbits, a crypto casino and sportsbook, took its site offline after attackers drained roughly $7 million from its hot wallets, the platform’s co-founder confirmed on Thursday. The breach spread across BNB Chain, Ethereum, Tron and Bitcoin, according to Ambcrypto, which reported that the company is investigating and that funds held in user accounts were unaffected.
The co-founder, who posts as Joe, confirmed the loss in a public post. Ambcrypto reported that he said Duelbits would stay offline until the investigation was complete and its hot wallets had been topped up. The company has not said how attackers gained access or when the casino will reopen.
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Key facts
- Attackers moved approximately $7 million out of Duelbits wallets across BNB Chain, Ethereum, Tron and Bitcoin.
- Blockchain security researcher Scam Sniffer first flagged unusual transfers, later followed by a loss of 8.1 BTC from the company’s Bitcoin wallet.
- The attacker received 836 ETH, about 593,000 USDT, 97,000 USDC, 31,500 DAI and 12.4 billion SHIB.
- Most of the stolen tokens were swapped into Ether and gathered in a single address holding roughly 2,234 ETH, then valued near $6 million.
- News.bitcoin reported that Duelbits lost $4.6 million in an earlier security incident in February 2024.
What the blockchain records show
The affected wallets were hot wallets, the online accounts a platform keeps funded so customer deposits and withdrawals settle quickly. That convenience makes them a target if login credentials fall into the wrong hands.
Scam Sniffer suspects a private key was compromised, which would mean the attacker obtained the master credential controlling a wallet and did not need to exploit blockchain software to move funds. Duelbits has not confirmed that account.
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Consolidating the proceeds into Ether complicates any recovery. The companies behind USDT and USDC can freeze their tokens, but ether has no issuer that could halt or reverse a transfer, making the conversion a likely obstacle for anyone trying to reclaim the assets.
Earlier incident and a rising hack tally
This is not Duelbits’ first loss. News.bitcoin reported that the platform was drained of $4.6 million in February 2024, an incident security firm Halborn attributed to an exploited vulnerability in the project’s hot wallet.
The two outlets differ on the early accounting of this week’s breach. News.bitcoin, citing Scam Sniffer and PeckShield, reported roughly $4.9 million leaving Duelbits hot wallets overnight, with $2.23 million in ether, $680,000 in bitcoin, $1.62 million in USDT, $160,000 in BNB and smaller amounts of TRX and SHIB. Ambcrypto’s larger figure includes the 8.1 BTC loss detected later. News.bitcoin also reported a separate X post from a user identified as Duelbits’ CEO, writing that the firm would be back soon.
Industry losses have climbed this year. Security firm TRM Labs counted 207 individual crypto hacks in the first half of 2026, the most in any six-month period it has recorded, totalling about $972 million, according to News.bitcoin. Most of those attacks exploited smart contracts behind decentralized finance platforms.
Why it matters
For customers, the practical effect is a frozen platform: deposits and withdrawals stall while the investigation runs, and the company’s assurance about account funds has not been independently verified.
For the wider industry, the case is a reminder of how much weight hot wallets carry. The conversion into ether — an asset with no issuer able to freeze it — removes the safety net that stablecoin issuers offer during a theft, a gap that shapes how quickly, if ever, victims recover funds.
What to watch
The next signals are whether Duelbits states how its wallet credentials were breached, whether the roughly 2,234 ETH at the traced address moves, and when the platform restores service. Customers should also treat refund or recovery links circulating during the outage with suspicion, since those pages frequently harvest wallet details and recovery phrases.
Reported by ambcrypto.com.
Sources: AMBCrypto, News.bitcoin
