Breaking News: Bithumb hacked and $31 million were stolen.
South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb suspended deposits and withdrawals after losing $31 million worth of cryptocurrencies as the result of hack. Although this incident may not seem so significant against the backdrop of the January hack of the Coincheck exchange, when more than $ 500 million was stolen, the fact that Bithumb is included in the top-6 crypto exchanges in terms of trading volumes makes this news remarkable and worrying.
Bithumb Hacked
Representatives of the trading platform reported that the hacker attack occurred between the evening of Tuesday and the early morning of Wednesday in Korean time. Despite the fact that Bithumb has not yet specified which cryptocurrency has been stolen, the management promised that exchange will repay all users losses.
The remaining assets of the platform were moved to a cold wallet. Also, the management of the exchange asked users to immediately stop making deposits in the cryptocurrency until a new message is published.
Against the backdrop of this news, the cryptocurrency market demonstrated a slight drop in capitalization. So, over the past day, Bitcoin price has decreased by 1.5%. Before the appearance of information that Bithumb hacked, the first cryptocurrency showed moderate growth.
Although Bithumb has not yet provided information about the stolen cryptocurrencies, according to CoinDesk and the Yonhap reports, the target of the intruders could become the Ripple wallet.
According to CoinMarketCap, Bithumb accounted for about 10% of the world’s XRP trade in the last 24 hours, or $ 32 million.
Previous Bithumb Hack
Almost a year ago on June 29, 2017 Bithumb was also hacked. Attackers stole personal data of 31 thousand users, including their names, mobile phone numbers and email addresses. This accounted for about 3% of all the users of the exchange at that time. Also hackers got access to one-time passwords of users. That was enough to steal cryptocurrency from accounts.
Coinrail Hacked
Earlier this month another South Korean crypto exchange Coinrail was hacked. Criminals withdrew $ 37 million from the exchange. Coinrail ranks only as the 99th biggest trading venue in the world, but many associated this robbery with the Bitcoin collapse.
