Breaking News About Bitcoin
Today was a bad day for holders of Bitcoin all around the world, but most especially those who had holdings with the Chinese exchange known as Bitfinex.
Yesterday's price of Bitcoin was trending between $600 USD to $620 USD per BTC before the hack and dropped sharply to a low of around $520 just after the hack. This sharp drop can be seen below in the price data provided by both Poloniex and Coindesk.
The currency has somewhat recovered since the hack and is holding roughly steady in the $560 USD to $570 USD range. Only time will tell how much damage was actually done and what the total estimates of loss due to the hack are in total.
At the time of this post Coindesk is reporting that Bitfinex has suspended trading and issued the following statements to the press regarding the hack and their current situation.
Bitfinex said:
"We are investigating the breach to determine what happened, but we know that some of our users have had their bitcoins stolen. We are undertaking a review to determine which users have been affected by the breach. While we conduct this initial investigation and secure our environment, Bitfinex.com will be taken down and the maintenance page will be left up."
"As we account for individualized customer losses, we may need to settle open margin positions, associated financing, and/or collateral affected by the breach," the statement read. "Any settlements will be at the current market prices as of 18:00 UTC."
More on this breaking news can be found here at Coindesk :
http://www.coindesk.com/bitfinex-shuts-down-customer-bitcoin-stolen/