One of the most popular Bitcoin exchanges in the world, Bitfinex, was reportedly breached by hackers who made off with $65 million worth of bitcoins.
The Hong Kong company replaced its homepage with a statement about the hack, but did not provide details about how the site was breached, and product development manager Zane Tackett said simply that 119,756 bitcoins were stolen.
“We are investigating the breach to determine what happened, but we are aware that some of our users had bitcoins stolen,” the company says
“We are investigating to determine which users have been affected by the breach.”
“While we conduct the initial investigation and secure our environment, bitfinex.com will remain offline.”
So Bitfinex stopped all trading, deposits and withdrawals.
The news of the hack dropped the value of Bitcoin by about 20 percent, and it is currently worth $540.
Tackett revealed the number of stolen bitcoins to Bitfinex customers via Reddit, where the results of the investigations are also listed.
Meanwhile, Bitfinex's security firm, Bitgo, says it has found no evidence of a breach of its servers during its initial investigation.
It should be noted that news of the hack came alongside news of Typhoon Naida, and emergency management plans that emptied the streets and closed most businesses. Some suggest that the publication of the hack somehow did not coincidentally happen at the same time, but no one can say for sure as there is no official information on when exactly the breach occurred.
