As the value of Bitcoin soars, it also turns holders of large volumes of the currency into prime targets for thieves. That’s what appears to have done in NiceHash, a Slovenia-based Bitcoin exchange that claims its cryptocurrency wallet has been cleared out of $64 million worth of BTC.
For those keeping score, that’s about 4,700 BTC, each worth about $13,617 at the time of the breach. That isn’t from NiceHash itself, but rather from a wallet address circulated by NiceHash users.
The company says 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. As such, it’s temporarily suspended operations on its site, and is encouraging users on its platform to change their passwords immediately.
The security breach took place around the time Bitcoin’s value began to surge greatly: CoinDesk reports 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.
This marks the second major cryptocurrency theft in recent times: last month, crypto startup Tether claimed it was robbed of $31 million in dollar-pegged tokens.
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We’ve contacted NiceHash to learn more and will update this post if there’s a response.
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