The value of Bitcoin has continued to soar at an unimaginable level, this, in turn, makes holders of large volumes of the currency be prime targets for thieves. It’s without a doubt that’s what appears to have happened in NiceHash, a Slovenia-based Bitcoin exchange that claims its cryptocurrency wallet has been cleared out of $64 million worth of BTC.
That’s about 4,700 BTC, each worth about $13,617 at the time of the breach. The coins were not from NiceHash itself, instead, they were from a wallet address circulated by NiceHash users.
A statement released by the company indicates that it’s still investigating the nature of the incident, and doesn’t yet know the full scope of the attack it suffered at the hands of hackers.
Following the attack, the company has temporarily suspended operations on its site and is encouraging users on its platform to change their passwords as soon as possible.
Reports indicate that the security breach took place around the time Bitcoin’s value began to surge greatly. Reports from CoinDesk indicate that between 18:00 and 24:00 UTC on December 7, the currency rose 10 percent, or about $2,000, to cross $14,000 for the first time.
NiceHash’s breach marks the second major cryptocurrency theft in recent times: sometime last month, crypto startup Tether claimed it was robbed of $31 million in dollar-pegged tokens.
Lets see … A vaporware untraceable Currency disappears. But the handlers / exchangers suffer no losses?