While the Cryptocurrency market is thriving, most governments across the continents have clarified that they are not responsible for its legalities. Strict warnings have been issued that if anyone indulges in trade of Bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies, the government would not be approving it and may even declare the transactions illegal.
Bithumb Cryptocurrency exchange hacked
Bithumb, South Korea’s largest Bitcoin and Etherium exchange, was hacked by hackers causing losses of billions of Won. While this amount isn’t as super huge as it sounds, considering $1=1155 Wons, it surely caused a panic in the Bitcoin exchange market.
Bithumb was the forth largest Bitcoin exchange globally and the largest in South Korea. It had a share of 75.7% in the South Korean bitcoin market and 10% of the global market. The trading volume of bitcoins was approximately 13,000 bitcoins per day.
Other than Bitcoins, it traded Ether as well, and it was the largest market for it. 44% of South Korea’s ether trading was done through Bithumb.
Interestingly, South Korean currency Won is the 4th largest currency market for Bitcoin. The largest is the US dollar, followed by the Chinese Yuan and Japanese Yen.
The hack affected a lot of traders. As per a local newspaper, an unfortunate person lost 10 million Wons worth of Bitcoins due to the hack. They disappeared from his account straight away. Another member said that 1.2 billion Wons were stolen from his account.
Other than monetary loss, the hack also resulted in a loss of personal information. The hackers retrieved personal information including phone number and email ID’s of 31,800 Bithumb website users. Worse is the fact that Bithumb has no access to the funds stored on the market. This means if a person claims that a certain amount of his cryptocurrency was stolen, this fact cannot be verified due to lack of data. Thus, compensating users might not be feasible.
Over 100 Bithumb users have registered complaints with the National Police, but it might be of less help considering that no data of the losses is available.
