Hong Kong's virtual currency management firm Bitfinex, one of the world's largest companies in the sector, acknowledged that a security breach in its platforms has led to the theft of 119,756 bitcoin coins valued at 65.8 million dollars.
EFE
In a statement on its website, Bitfinex announced the discovery of a crack in its security systems that forced to stop its virtual currency trading on Tuesday and freeze the deposits of its customers.
"We are investigating the ruling to determine what happened, but we know that some of our customers stole their bitcoins," said the firm, one of the four biggest traders of this digital currency in the world with offices in Europe and the United States .
The theft has been reported to authorities, with whom the firm is cooperating, the company added in its statement, noting that other virtual currencies outside bitcoin have not been affected and that various options are being considered to deal with Losses of users.
The theft has now caused falls of more than 5 percent in the value of bitcoin on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The virtual currency, developed in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto (alias whose real identity has not yet been revealed), has lost since July 29 a 21% of its value against the dollar, although it is unknown if that collapse is related to The current robbery.
The attack is similar to that perpetrated in early 2014 against Mt Gox, a Japanese firm dedicated to the trade of bitcoins that declared bankruptcy after denouncing a theft of these digital coins valued at 650 million dollars, the biggest suffered by this controversial currency.
The Hong Kong daily South China Morning Post reported today that the hackers responsible for theft could have taken advantage of the closure of Hong Kong's financial markets on Tuesday (due to typhoon Nida) to find a loophole from which to access virtual deposits.
Thank you!!
Follow me: @Morinjesus