Cryptocurrency Exchange Bithumb Suspends Trading Amid $31 Million Hack

News | June 20, 2018 By:

Bithumb, South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has temporarily suspended all deposits and payments after hackers stole 35 billion won ($31M USD) from the platform.

In an online post, Bithumb said the hack happened between late Tuesday night until early Wednesday morning Korean time. The company didn’t provide details of the attack, but it did say that the loss will be covered by the platform.

“We have noticed that between the last night and today morning, about 35,000,000,000 KRW worth cryptocurrencies have been stolen,” Bithumb said. “However, this loss will be compensated by Bithumb’s own reservoir, and all of our assets are securely saved in Bithumb’s cold wallet.”

According to CoinMarketCap, Bithumb’s 24-hour trade volume at press time is over $300 million, the world’s sixth largest. in an audit report released in April, Bithumb reported that it holds cryptocurrencies worth 6.36 trillion won ($5.7B USD), including coins worth 416 billion won ($376M USD) of its own, as of the end of 2017.

The hack happened 10 days after South Korean crypto exchange Coinrail lost around $40 million to hackers. According to reports, Coinrail hacker may have stolen 1,927 ether, 2.6 billion NPXS, 93 million ATX and 831 million DENT coins, as well as significant amounts of six other tokens. Coinrail said Monday it would resume trading on July 15.