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Upbit Puts Zilliqa on Delist Watch After Ledger Bug

The Korean exchange has frozen deposits and withdrawals while Zilliqa works on a recovery plan for affected Ledger users. The Ledger bug has already led to stolen ZIL and added pressure on the price.

By Mike Hesp
• 2 min read
Upbit Puts Zilliqa on Delist Watch After Ledger Bug

Key Takeaways

  • Upbit put Zilliqa on delist watch after a critical Ledger bug exposed users' private keys.
  • Zilliqa said native ZIL transactions have been suspended and affected keys need to be replaced.
  • Upbit froze ZIL deposits and withdrawals and is reviewing the trading pairs through the week of August 17.

Upbit has placed Zilliqa (ZIL) on delist watch after a serious bug in the Ledger wallet app exposed users' private keys. The announcement came soon after Zilliqa flagged the issue itself, and ZIL's price came under more pressure, sliding about 10% as traders moved on the news.

Ledger Bug Hits Zilliqa

Zilliqa said on Wednesday that every version of the Ledger wallet app since launch had carried the same flaw. The problem was a basic copy mistake: part of the random number meant to protect each signature was set to zero. In practice, that lets an attacker rebuild a private key in seconds on a standard computer after about five native transactions.

According to Zilliqa, the exploit began on July 19. The next day, an exchange partner said ZIL had been stolen from a cold wallet, and KuCoin later helped trace the bug. By July 21, the issue had been confirmed. Zilliqa warned that any account that has signed roughly five or more native transactions through the Zilliqa Ledger app should be treated as compromised.

Trading and Wallets Under Pressure

Native ZIL transactions are now paused. Because the leaked signatures are still recorded on-chain, affected keys have to be replaced. Zilliqa said Ethereum Virtual Machine transactions and software wallets were not impacted.

The timing makes the problem especially sensitive for European and Korean crypto watchers. Ledger hardware wallets have faced security criticism before, including earlier vulnerabilities and ongoing debates about key recovery. For hardware wallet users, this is another reminder that even a small mistake in signing software can have serious consequences, especially when a token like ZIL is tied to the network itself. The wider industry has seen similar cases too: in a recent wallet vulnerability, a flaw in random number generation was enough to affect hundreds of wallets.

Upbit Keeps Trading Support Under Review

Upbit is operating under Korea's Virtual Asset User Protection Act, a 2024 law designed to protect investors. The exchange has put the ZIL/KRW and ZIL/BTC pairs under review and froze deposits and withdrawals on July 20. That review will run through the week of August 17.

ZIL was trading around $0,0025 (€0,0022) and touched a record low of $0,00235 (€0,0021) on Wednesday. The token is down about 17% on the week and nearly 99% below its May 2021 peak. Zilliqa says it has a recovery plan for affected balances, but that process may ultimately determine whether Upbit removes the warning or ends trading support altogether.

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