It is unfortunate that even the sixth biggest Crypto exchange in the world is not safe from a criminal with a computer. On Wednesday, 35 billion Korean won, around $31 million, was stolen from the exchange (Original announcement HERE). Bithumb has also released info that states that Ripple (XRP) was specifically targeted in the hack.
It is currently unknown who was behind the attack, but we do know that there were some early warning signs to the attack. On June 16th, Bithumb released a security update saying, “Recently, the number of unauthorized access attempts has increased. As such, an urgent server checkup was conducted to strengthen the security of all system.” This apparently wasn’t enough, and Bithumb will undoubtedly be re-evaluating is security going forward.
In the meantime, Bithumb has announced that it will be fully repaying its users with currency from its reserves, which it was unable to do the last time that they were hacked last year.
What can we learn from this hack? Charlie lee offers some advice for crypto holders by saying, “keep on exchange coins that you are actively trading. It’s best to withdraw right after trading.” We also see that the overall markets are still very much attached to the events affecting individual exchanges, which will need to change in the future. Bitcoin went down $200 right after the announcement, but quickly rebounded.
While it is unfortunate that this hack happened, it goes to show how far we have come since the apocalyptic hacks of Mt Gox and others. The Bitcoin price was only down shortly and none of the actual users of the exchange were hurt financially. Charlie Lee echoes this sentiment, saying that crypto will make a comeback. I certainly think he is correct.