Bithumb Recovers Half of Stolen Funds From $31 Million Hack 🚨 This article is 6 years old...
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Bithumb Recovers Half of Stolen Funds From $31 Million Hack
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Updated: Nov. 7, 2019 at 2:55 am UTC
Photo by Christophe Laurenceau on Unsplash
Last week, Bithumb–one of South Korea’s largest digital currency exchanges–was hacked for $31 million in various cryptocurrencies. Announced on June 28, 2018, Bithumb confirmed the recovery of nearly half the stolen funds.
Last Week’s $31 Million Hack
Reported on June 19, Bithumb temporarily suspended withdrawal and deposit services following a 35 billion KRW (~$31 million USD) hack on its exchange.
Announcing progress since the hacking, Bithumb confirmed in a blog post that nearly 16 billion KRW (~$14 million USD) has been recovered, reducing damages by almost half the original amount.
In the update, Bithumb revealed that 11 cryptocurrencies were stolen during the large-scale hack – Bitcoin making up nearly three-fourths of the total amount lost.
In collaboration with the Cryptographic Fund and Worldwide Cryptographic Exchange, Bithumb was able to seize custody of lost hot wallets and begin recovering some of its funds.
“The main reason for the reduction is the ongoing participation, support and cooperation of cryptocurrency exchanges and cryptocurrencies foundations across the world… At this moment we will continue our recovery process as well as a preventative measure until this incident is fully concluded.”
Although deposits are now allowed, Bithumb is still halting withdrawal activity and warning users to refrain from deposit attempts until security systems are reformed in order to prevent further password leakage.
Full Compensation to Users
Bithumb reassured hack victims they will be fully compensated for their stolen funds. First issuing free commission fee coupons, Bithumb outlined in its blog post that users will be compensated in the form of a cryptocurrency airdrop.
Users can register for the airdrop event through a “compensation for withdrawal halt” application. These details are as follows:
“The amount of holding cryptocurrencies will be calculated from 8:00 PM ~ 9:00 PM (UTC+9) each day starting from the date of applying the event until the end of the event. And then annual interest rate of 10% will be prorated to the combined number of days at the end of the event. Then the equivalent value of cryptocurrencies will be given away in a form of airdrop.”
Bithumb has not yet confirmed which type of cryptocurrency will be used in the airdrop.
Despite the current conditions and status of hack recovery, trading on Korea’s second largest exchange is still online and available to users. Bithumb continues to rank in the top ten largest cryptocurrency exchanges by 24-hour trading volume, according to market cap data.
