The security of Japanese crypto exchange BitPoint has been compromised, the firm announced earlier Friday.
According to the statement, “the Company has identified an unauthorized outflow of virtual currency at a virtual currency exchange.”
Bloomberg confirmed that 3.5 billion yen (around $32 million) in five Cryptocurrencies - Bitcoin , Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple - were stolen from the hot wallet of the exchange, out of which 2.5 billion yen (over $23 million) belonged to customers, while BitPoint owned the remaining sum.
Another day, another crypto exchange
Before announcing the unexpected withdrawal, the exchange terminated its withdrawal and deposit services at 10:30 am (JST).
“Today, we have stopped the remittance (sending) and receiving (depositing) services from 6:30, but we will stop all services including transactions and sending and receiving from around 10:30,” BitPoint noted. “We apologize for the great inconvenience to our customers, but we appreciate your understanding and cooperation.”
The exchange also terminated services including “WEB trading site, BitPoint MT4 transactions, API and Smart API services, Store settlement services, BitPoint wallet app, and BitPoint LITE application.”
The exchange did not provide any timeline when it will resume all the stopped services for day-to-day trading.
“The official service resumption date will be announced separately on our website. We will post information on our website from time to time on the website, so it is hoped that customers will carefully check the announcement from us,” the exchange added.
It also assured that the team is “working hard to find out the cause, identify the outflow, and minimize damage.”
With the rebound in the prices of cryptocurrencies, the major exchanges are again becoming the target of the cybercriminals. Earlier this year, Binance was hacked, resulting in the theft of 7,000 Bitcoins then worth around $40 million.
Finance Magnates yesterday reported that a hack in 2017 which cost BitMarket 600 Bitcoins, forcing the exchange to shut down its services on July 10.
