From the Bitfinex.com homepage:
Investigating - Today we discovered a security breach that requires us to halt all trading on Bitfinex, as well as halt all digital token deposits to and withdrawals from Bitfinex.
We are investigating the breach to determine what happened, but we know that some of our users have had their bitcoins stolen. We are undertaking a review to determine which users have been affected by the breach. While we conduct this initial investigation and secure our environment, bitfinex.com will be taken down and the maintenance page will be left up.
The theft is being reported to—and we are co-operating with—law enforcement.
As we account for individualized customer losses, we may need to settle open margin positions, associated financing, and/or collateral affected by the breach. Any settlements will be at the current market prices as of 18:00 UTC. We are taking this necessary accounting step to normalize account balances with the objective of resuming operations. We will look at various options to address customer losses later in the investigation. While we are halting all operations at this time, we can confirm that the breach was limited to bitcoin wallets; the other digital tokens traded on Bitfinex are unaffected.
The amount was posted in a reddit thread here: I can confirm that the loss from the hack stands at 119,756btc.
According to coindesk.com:
The price of bitcoin fell sharply today exacerbating an already ongoing decline as global market participants reacted to news that one of the largest digital currency exchanges had been hacked.
Earlier this afternoon, Hong Kong-based exchange Bitfinex halted trading after discovering a security breach, which included taking its website offline and pausing all withdrawals and deposits. Representatives from the exchange told CoinDesk engineers were seeking to uncover issues at press time, though the company had confirmed roughly 120,000 BTC (more than $60m) was lost or stolenvia social media.
In response, bitcoin prices fell to $560.16 by 19:30 UTC, $530 by 23:30 and $480 at press time, CoinDesk USD Bitcoin Price Index (BPI) data reveals.
This price was roughly 20% lower than the day's opening of $607.37 and 27% below the high of $658.28 reached on Saturday, 30th July, when the digital currency began pushing lower.
Related Stories
Motherboard reports on a strange Bitcoin "lottery" that is now claimed to be a marriage proposal.
Strange event #1: someone claiming to be the anonymous hacker who stole 119,000 Bitcoins from the Bitfinex Bitcoin exchange announced a "lottery" to win 1000 Bitcoins on Reddit, garnering over 7000 responses on the thread from people posting their Bitcoin addresses on the chance that this was somehow legit.
Strange event #2: the Reddit poster actually sent 1000 Bitcoins to the address of one of the users in the thread. Almost immediately the money was sent from that destination to yet another address, one with a public note attached that says "Please send me some money. I'm very poor."
Strange event #3: the poster on Reddit who received the money emerged, admitted to knowing the original poster (not surprising), and revealed that somehow this entire event is some sort of wedding proposal to her (very surprising).
I'm not sure what to think of this. If it's a scam I'm not quite sure who got ripped off.
Previous Coverage: Bitcoin Exchange Bitfinex has been hacked. 119,756 BTC Stolen
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @03:56AM
miner miner forty-niner. brother can you spare a dime. get rich quick. ponzi. suckers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @08:09AM
Not quite ponzi, but a scam nonetheless.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday August 03 2016, @04:21AM
If I used bitcoin I sure wouldn't keep it in an online wallet. I'd only put some there if I was about to make a trade.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @04:44AM
I've wondered the same myself. My guess would be that it is for the same reason people keep money in the bank and files in the cloud: they think it is safer and more convenient there. A legitimate exchange like that probably has insurance to pay back any losses incurred, you don't have to add the money to an account if it is already there and you don't have to worry about losing everything if your drive dies. But take that with a grain of salt as I've never actually used Bitcoin myself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @06:48AM
money in the bank IS safer. With inflation and stuff, it may be worse than keeping gold coins in your basement, but that's a different issue.
if you had 10 gold coins, and you had a choice between storing them in your house or in a bank, the bank would be much harder for thieves to get into.
also, with banks today you can generally play with your accounts on the internet, and move money from a checking/prepaid credit card account to a savings account which is orders of magnitude safer (since it does not have a card attached to it), so it's very convenient.
and with banks there are definitely laws about a certain amount of money being insured, so if the bank is broken into (like this exchange, I guess stealing of online credentials would fall under "broken into" as well), then you are sure that you will get your money back (I think anything under 10^5 you get back, or something like that, and most people have less).
(Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday August 03 2016, @07:46AM
Most bitcoin exchanges that went under never had enough to cover all their deposits. Certainly not enough to then continue in business.
They are not necessarily classed as banks because Bitcoin isn't necessarily classed as currency. To the eyes of most country's laws, it's no different to a supplier that was going to send you goods who then gets robbed. If they are uninsured they can even go bankrupt, and you will see nothing of your goods, even through the courts.
Agreed on the safety / security thing, though. Most people's PC's holding Bitcoin are no more secure than the cash wedged in the suitcase under the bed in the spare room. So they decide to give it to an exchange/bank to hold onto it for them. It's probably "safer" for most people. But if you're, say, a security freak that's the equivalent of holding the cash in your own nuclear bunker anyway - at that point giving it to an exchange would be idiotic (they aren't going to be more secure than you and it's not like you'll earn more interest!).
Most people who do Bitcoin seriously have offline wallets, and encrypted passphrases on their wallet to authorise transactions (so even stealing the actual wallet files themselves isn't enough). But you can still get compromised.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday August 03 2016, @05:23AM
I use an off-line wallet. I find it very hard to move Bitcoin. I have been putting off selling my Bitcion for like 6 months now.
I have been putting off repairing my "main" computer for about 9 months now, so that may be related.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ledow on Wednesday August 03 2016, @07:58AM
I have to say, I've only done a little bit on Bitcoin, but the easiest way I've found is to use direct trades with a high-rated seller via a website offering escrow. There are personal users out there selling Bitcoin for instant trades (complete the trade in ten minutes or it gets cancelled). Thus your money is only at risk of compromise for a few minutes. Though you can still get "scammed", it would likely cost them more in the long run as their original wallets of Bitcoin would be tainted with their reputation and you can see ALL Bitcoin movement out of those tainted wallets. With proper escrow sites, they take the majority of the risk for a small percentage as the wallet the coins are delivered to is theirs, and they don't forward them on until you confirm you've received payment.
If you have Bitcoin that you want to sell, it seems to me to be even safer because the cash needs to land in your bank account BEFORE your Bitcoin gets sent anywhere, and you can get it back a few minutes later if the transaction didn't go through. A lot of the mobile and bank payment options are supported for things like that. And you don't have to do it all to one buyer, you can break it up and thus never risk more than 0.1 BTC or similar.
But, to be honest, I mostly buy Bitcoin as a toy to see how it works, as a way of putting "disposable" cash to one side, and as one of many ways of doing that. Literally, rather than "I'll put £20 into a jar" or "I'll buy this thing I like that will be worth more in the future", "This is my £30 for entertainment this month, that I can blow on cinema or games or even just a big box of those foods I like" or even "I'll stick that £100 from my birthday money into my savings", I put it into things like Bitcoin.
Generally, the only time it comes out is as game purchases on Steam, or things like that. It's my slush fund.
But the easiest way to get it to and from "normal" cash is brief and small personal sales on trusted escrow sites at the moment. It's not actually that difficult to do, either. And if you use have mobile payment service (like PAYM or similar), it takes seconds.
(Score: 2) by rob_on_earth on Wednesday August 03 2016, @08:26AM
would love to hear why it is difficult to cash-out/trade your local bitcoins.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday August 03 2016, @04:18PM
My computer does not have the required software, and I do not have my money service business registered yet, so I am restricted to about 1 sale very 6 months.
I don't want to handle sensitive information on a "testing" computer which downloads from many 3rd-party repos. I also plan to install a Bitcoin wallet on my cell-phone, but want to compile it myself (and I block the Google store).
The abundance of caution limits losses, but also prevents me from profiting on the volatility.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 03 2016, @07:30AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @09:58AM
How's the lawn doing this year? Any neighborhood children or dandelion issues?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @11:46AM
Not since I bought me a shotgun and flame thrower.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @07:34AM
Money often used for nefarious activities has its exchange value reduced by nefarious activities.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday August 03 2016, @01:16PM
Spot on! Anybody who's not using a bank card that logs, timestamps, and geotags their every purchase is up to no good. I don't get why they haven't made cash illegal already! Only drug dealers and marihuhajuwanna junkies use cash!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @07:51AM
...the serial numbers?
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday August 03 2016, @04:23PM
All Bitcoin is traceable. That is why I find Monero (based on the cryptonote scam [bitcointalk.org]) compelling.
They actually innovated with blinded transactions in order to hide a pre-mining scam.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pendorbound on Wednesday August 03 2016, @02:13PM
Um, no. That's not how this works. You have had some BTC stolen. They're *your* BTC because your users loaned them to you, but you're still on the hook to return to your users the valuable fungible goods which they lent you.
Of course, the user agreement may say otherwise. Always read the fine print... Either way, the company's going out of business & everybody's screwed. Just the choice of language there is almost like assigning blame to the victim. If it's the users' BTC that got stolen, it implies it's somehow the users' fault. Really weasley choice of words.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @10:17PM
If you owe the exchange 10 bitcoins, that's your problem. If the exchange owes 120k bitcoins, that's your problem.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Wednesday August 03 2016, @04:08PM
With news like this the value of bitcoin will tank for a little while. I would like to buy a little bit of bitcoin for speculation (less than 100USD worth). Does anyone recommend a safe mechanism to buy/sell bitcoin?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @05:09PM
Was this an external hack or was it done internally?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 04 2016, @05:26PM
And I speak as someone with Libertarian leanings.
Just remember, absolutely no money was stolen. That's what the cryptonerds and drug lords wanted bitcoin to be, that's what the dreamers and schemers now have.