The theft of tens of millions of euros in bitcoins to users of a popular purchase and sale service of digital currency has returned to undermine confidence in the currency and led to a sharp devaluation against the dollar.
The Bitfinex, a company based in Hong Kong, announced an intrusion into their systems and recognized that some users have lost money. All transactions managed by Bitfinex were suspended, including services that were not related to the bitcoins.
“We are investigating the intrusion to determine what happened, but we know that bitcoins stolen some of our users, “reads a message on the company website, which is one of the great bitcoins exchanges worldwide. A director of the company later reported in the popular online forum Reddit, the number of bitcoins stolen amounts to 119,756. The company also said that already filed a complaint and is working with the authorities.
In exchange Tuesday (according to data from the New York Stock Exchange, which publishes the value daily), that amount is worth about 72 million (EUR 64 million), at a price of approximately $ 604 per bitcoin. The Coindesk site, which also publishes exchange values of bitcoin, said the motto came to depreciate 20% after the news of Bitfinex. The trend of recent days was already falling.
The theft is emerging again the security problem in bitcoins and brings to mind the users in case of MtGox, a Japanese bitcoins bag which were stolen 850,000 bitcoins, leading the company to a settlement process and leaving many users without the money they had spent to buy the currency.
the bitcoin is a digital currency whose value soared in recent years, despite still having large oscillations. It is accepted by various online services and even in some physical stores, and is also known to be used in illegal transactions. But despite having a large community of enthusiasts, not massified as payment.
Contrary to what happens to the money issued by central banks, bitcoins are finite and emissions are made periodically automatically. The bitcoins are assigned to computers that were faster to solve a kind of mathematical problem – the idea is to reward the application of resources (computing power, electricity) in tasks that contribute to the maintenance of the system itself. The system is based on computer networks that anyone can connect and the owners of the funds and the transaction history are kept by the network.
Last year, it was reported in the press that the creator of bictoins – the author of an article in which the operation of the system is described and which was published under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto – is an Australian businessman named Craig Wright. Wright would confirm the news, but there are doubts about the veracity of the story.
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