The bitcoin world is in an uproar this week after hackers made off with $65 million worth of the crypto-currency. The unprecedented heist sparked a massive plunge in bitcoin prices as bitcoin enthusiasts scrambled to understand what had happened.
According to a report on Bloomberg.com, the hack took place sometime Tuesday at Bitfinix, a Hong Kong-based bitcoin exchange. Once word of the hack leaked, bitcoin prices fell as much as 16% on worldwide exchanges.
Cooler heads prevailed on Wednesday and bitcoin investors had recouped much of their losses by the end of the day. Regardless, bitcoin prices slumped down to as low as $533.58. As of this writing, bitcoin is trading at $596.62.
The overall impact of the hack was not lost on the bitcoin world at large. After all, 119,756 bitcoin is a tremendous amount of the digital currency.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase, a well-known bitcoin exchange that was not hacked, described the hack’s short and long-term impact saying:
Yes — it is a large breach. Bitfinex is a large exchange, so it is a significant short-term event, although Bitcoin has shown its resiliency to these sorts of events in the past.
Despite the scope of the theft, representatives of Bitfinex were also optimistic about both their own and bitcoin’s future. A statement on their website said:
We are currently in an ongoing process of restoring limited functionality in a secure environment, with full functionality coming afterwards in progressive stages. The first step is bringing the site online and allowing users to login and view the state of their accounts. We are currently in an ongoing process of restoring limited functionality in a secure environment, with full functionality coming afterwards in progressive stages. The first step is bringing the site online and allowing users to login and view the state of their accounts.
The company did not, however, release a time frame as to when they thought that first step might occur.
(Image Courtesty of Flaticon)