Bitcoin Breaking News Brief

Bitfinex Hacked, Bitcoin Confirmed Stolen

Trevor Hill | Aug 02, 2016 | 17:06

---

On August 2, 2016, it has been reported that the major cryptocurrency exchange, Bitfinex, was hacked with some customers losing Bitcoin as a result. Additionally, BitGo has commented on the event.

Also read: Indacoin: Buying Bitcoin, Litecoin with a Credit Card

The Breach of Bitfinex

Bitfinex itself confirmed the hack in a press release earlier today, saying they have halted all trading on the platform. Additionally, all deposits to and withdrawals from Bitfinex have been temporarily stopped.

The exchange does not have much information about the hack, but the press release confirmed that customers of the exchange have lost Bitcoin following the breach.

Now, Bitfinex has launched an investigation into the matter and will “secure the environment,” as the bitfinex.com domain will be taken down with the maintenance page left up. They will also be conducting a review to determine who has actually been affected by the hack.

Furthermore, Bitfinex has also reported the theft to law enforcement and is now working with them to presumably help with the investigation.

According to the press release, Bitfnex says they will have to settle open margin positions in the wake of the hack as they attempt to account for individualized customer losses. Also, it has also been stated that all settlements will be at market prices as of 18:00 UTC. This action has been taken with the intention of normalizing account balances and resuming operations.

The blockchain security company, BitGo, recently released a statement regarding the hack at Bitfinex, saying:

Dear BitGo customer:

You may have read that Bitfinex announced a security breach today. We are working with Bitfinex to determine what happened.

To date, our investigation has found no evidence of any compromise of BitGo servers or services.  We believe the compromise is isolated to Bitfinex.

The security of your transactions is our highest priority.  We will keep you up to date as the situation evolves.

BitGo Team