With 2019 being heralded in as the year of the cryptocurrency market, news of the first hack of the year is coming in. A cryptocurrency exchange called Cryptopia announced that they were victims of a ‘security breach’ in which they booked ‘significant losses’.
Cryptopia Hacked
On 14th January, the cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia released a statement to all of its users about having been hacked. Cryptopia released a statement in which they announced they had been hacked and had booked significant loss. The exchange, however, did not reveal specifics.
The announcement was made on Twitter and this is what it said. As is obvious, the actual specifics and numbers have still not been revealed. But Cryptopia happens to be a medium subscription level exchange.
The cryptocurrency exchange operates out of New Zealand predominantly. And at one point was rather popular in the cryptocurrency market and community. But in recent times the exchange has fallen behind because of the large number of alternatives that have come.
Cryptopia on Maintenance
After the team at Cryptopia found traces of a security breach, the exchange was immediately put under maintenance. And is likely to stay that way until further investigation is done into the hack and its origin.
The team, after putting the exchange on maintenance, did a fair deal of digging and analysis to find out what happened and how much the damage done is. This is the current home screen of Cryptopia. Which has been put on maintenance indefinitely.
Once the specifics of the hack got clear to them, they alerted the respective authorities. The exchange has also contacted the ‘high tech crimes’ division of the New Zealand police force for the same. The investigation has already kicked off.
New Zealand has favourable regulation and legal frameworks in place for the cryptocurrency market and hence this issue will be seriously pursued by authorities. However, only so much can be done in the event of a hack because it is almost impossible to bring hackers to face charges.
Community Iffed With Vagueness
The Cryptopia hack is the first hack of 2019. With these year supposed to be the year of the cryptocurrencies, it has put a sully on the celebrations across the community. The cryptocurrencies and the market have been performing a lot better over the last couple of weeks and had everyone excited about the same.
However, hacks are still a big part of the cryptocurrency market. The cryptocurrency market in this particular hack is rather irritated with the exchange for not divulging specifics. Because in the statements that they have released, they’re very vague about the actual situation and have not released any numbers.
Many people in the cryptocurrency community and the beloved Twitterati are sure that the damage done is more than the exchange is letting on. But for now, all we can do is wait for Cryptopia to release numbers and figures. And when they do, the actual damage can be assessed accordingly.
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