On Tuesday, Hong Kong-based Bitfinex was the victim of a hack that led to the theft of about 200,000 bitcoins worth $65 million from its digital vaults.
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Bitfinex continues to discuss strategic options with numerous potential investors to seek ways to fully compensate clients, such discussions can and will take some time to develop.
Bitfinex said it decided “after much thought, analysis and consultations” to generalize the losses across all users. A representative of the exchange wrote on Reddit that the 36 per cent loss “applies to all assets across the site, so everyone”.
The company said it would also give all affected clients a “BFX” token crediting their losses that could be redeemed by the exchange or for shares in iFinex, the exchange’s parent company.
The price drop was reminiscent to the market reaction after Tokyo-based Mt. Gox – then the largest bitcoin exchange in the world – disclosed it was hacked in February 2014 and filed for bankruptcy weeks later.
Hackers stole 119,756 bitcoin from Bitfinex last Tuesday in the second-biggest breach of a crypto-currency exchange ever, in U.S. dollar terms.
Bitfinex was the largest exchange for United States dollar-denominated transactions over the past month, according to bitcoincharts.com, and the attack at one point sent bitcoin’s price plunging more than 20 per cent.
Tuesday’s hack is one of the largest thefts in the history of bitcoin.
The price of a single bitcoin fell around 20 per cent to $483.10 after it emerged on 2 August that hackers had stolen more than $60m (£46m), or around 120,000 coins, from Bitfinex’s digital wallets. The official statement posted to their website home page announced intent to impose a 36.067% haircut on their customer accounts in order to bring about renewed and solvent operations.
Bitfinex said last week it expected to “socialize” its losses across bitcoin balances and active loans to bitcoin/US dollar positions.
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On Sunday Bitfinex said customers should be able to log on to its platform within 48 hours.
