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Bithumb, the fourth largest Bitcoin exchange in the world was recently hacked resulting in Billions of Won being stolen.

Read more: https://blog.coinspectator.com/2017/07/04/billions-stolen-from-south-korean-bitcoin-exchange/ (https://blog.coinspectator.com/2017/07/04/billions-stolen-from-south-korean-bitcoin-exchange/)

1,000,000,000 Won = $875,853.23 = ~330BTC

this is not even in the top 20 exchange hacks in the history of bitcoin ;D
this is more like the amount that some whales lose if they have a bad trading day...

 With the bitcoin market cap as high as it is now, the market will easily absorb it.

Billions won only counts around $1 million so actual loss is less than a million which might not cause any panic or dump in market.

This is quite confusing, they have promised to give only $870 for loss of personal information but haven't mentioned anything about how they gonna refund their users for loss of their bitcoins.  ::)

Big or small amount theft is a theft and it's sad that it happened and add salts to the wound they are now going to be regulated. I feel people should be careful with their coins as they could be on a risk with their coins lying on a exchange and I again wonder if it will be insider hand involved cause this always happens during a price hike, this once again put the role of exchanges under the scanner.

This is why storing or putting some of our bitcoins that we cannot afford to lose in some bitcoin exchange is a very risky move for a bitcoin user because it will not help you to secure your bitcoin but to risk it because big amounts of money worth of bitcoin in an exchange is such an attractive for hackers or those people who will do illegal things just for money.

That's a big amount. Though it's not in the top lists of stolen bitcoins from exchanges, 330btc is big. These kind of activities should never take place. These are the major things that make people stay away without investing into bitcoin. Though the Profiting is high it has got high security issues. A solution needs to be created.

Hey that's actually not that bad. I'm sure bithumb can compensate for that. When I read that it was the fourth largest bitcoin exchange in the world I expected like Bitfinex levels of loss, not even close. I feel sorry with those who lost some of their bitcoins though.

With that said, with all those recent hacks on exchange sites, I don't know why people still leave their bitcoins and or crypto in exchanges. It makes no sense!

According to Coinmarketcap, Bithumb is at 4th place in terms of BTC trade volumes. But it may be a temporary spike due to the news of hacking. Also, in Bithumb, ETH and LTC volumes are much bigger than that of BTC. This news came at the worst possible time. There was speculation that South Korea was going to legalize Bitcoin.

I just don't know but I don't trust these exchangers when they claim that they have been hacked and bitcoins stolen from them, they just stole it from their customers and will go on to use it for their own profits.

The point worth noting is the weakness or lack of security in bitcoin exchanges, not keeping their coins offline in safe cold storage as well as being hosted on almost personal plans, and with some effort can gain access to it,
From MTGOX to today, no one should keep a balance at an exchange for more than the regularly used amount for day trading IMO, anything more should be withdrawn.

330BTC is not a huge amount of money, at least not at the scale the exchanges work with.
I think that if cold storage would have been affected, the number would have been maybe 10x bigger.

You're right. We regularly see news about hacked exchanges. This time stolen amount of bitcoins isn't extremely big, but still, it shows that exchanges aren't safest place to keep bitcoins, because risk that exchange can be hacked is big. But many people didn't learn from these stories and using exchanges as their wallet.

People, why to prefer exchanges to keep their coins, means, for them, it is easy to do trade when the prices increase, and it is easy to sell whenever they want that is why people prefer this exchange sites. Even I also like to be like that before, but a few days back my exchange site suddenly stops working for 2 weeks saying that maintenance problem. I was scared, and I thought my all coins would go. But they came back after 2 weeks I transferred to my main wallet.

Too bad something bad happened when SK is now going to declare the legalization of bitcoin. Maybe there is some inside job about this matter? Well who knows but I can't feel the effect of this hack. The price is even getting higher and higher.


if this what's likely going to happen this will hurt me.

Sad to say this but exchanges are still a very weak point in this space.
All the big exchanges already had problems with hacks and stolen coins.
This is why you never shold have any serious amount of coins on any exchange!
But I doubt this incident will have any effect in terms of price to the market.

If this would cause the damage as being proclaimed here then everyone would have felt it because massive stealing will go along way in affecting the price of bitcoin in the market.


Thank you for this analysis because using Won to judge would mean a lot of money but converting it shows that its a bucket from a pool of water and this actually give credence to the neutral effect it has on price. This amount is close to what failed ICO would raise in a case of crowd funding. But at the same time there is need for sites to be more security conscious of whatever is going around.

So I reckon they are going to change their name to Bitdumb now, since they were dumb enough to get hacked. People still store large amounts of

bitcoins on exchanges and they do not learn from past mistakes. How many more MtGox's do we need, before people get it in their heads, that

exchanges are not secure. Trade and move coins to hardware wallets.... do not store them on the exchange.  ::)

The market cap plays no role of importance here. It all depends on how much buy support there is available on-exchange. Judging purely on that fact, these coins will result in a $50-$60 decrease if dumped at once on Bitstamp. In other words, it's peanuts. Bitcoin is booming, and thus you'll see a lot exchanges pop up trying to take their cut. In most cases these exchanges are pushed online as soon as possible, which mostly isn't a good thing in terms of security. Result is that we are likely going to experience more of these thefts in the coming year(s).

300BTC can easily get eaten up on market but it is true that many of their traders have lost their saving and I don't think they gonna get those back anytime soon. This is one of the reason why you shouldn't use exchange platform as your bitcoin wallet.

This. Anyone can dump 330 BTC at any time, this is a non issue. Back in the day this could have been a problem causing a dump. As far as the hack goes, im sure is yet another inside job where a guy working  takes the bitcoin from people and runs with the money. We really need decentralized exchanges to replace all this bullshit asap.

Bitcoin is really something that attracts thieves considering its present value and its future value as well. That being said a safety wallet to all our bitcoins is of tantamount importance.

A huge amount of bitcoin should not be left in unsafe wallets and in trading platforms if not used for trading. Offline wallet is a great choice.

The amount is not BTC330. It is much more than that, and most probably in four digits. The article says several billion. Then how can you assume a figure of 1 billion Won (i.e. BTC330)?

BitHumb definitely isn't the 4th largest exchange in the world. Maybe in South Korea, but there are plenty of other, much larger exchanges than that one.

This has happened for some time, as some trading floors are attacked when bitcoin's value is normal, but I am disappointed that it is the largest trading platform in Korea.

The article says that they will be compensation the users for the loss and they will be giving $870 as a compensation for the loss of personal information, it is a good step from the exchange and not like the exchanges in the past where the users were searching in the dark because of their incapability .I hate hearing these hacking news as most of the time it will have an impact on the price of bitcoin.

No man you got this wrong even i have heard about this news but there is a very few number of bitcoins stolen. What happened was one of the employee's computer was hacked and not the official computer. Plus only the emails and personal information was leaked if this was a hack by now the price would have crashed super hard.

That's not what I heard. If I am not wrong, the funds were stolen along with personal information of thousands of users. But still, it is the second part (theft of personal data) which is the most worrying aspect of this hacking.

I wouldn't be surprised if North Korea could be involved. They may not have internet for the Masses there but I am sure the Elite get a good look in and could easily be behind this. I am sure it is a North Korean Cyber attack. but that's just my view.

No, their government does not allow that to happen, they strictly forbid their people to use bitcoin, even the internet. Everything is monitored very closely.

How old and well established is this exchange?

This is what I wonder about with all this legalisation talk. Are the legalised exchanges up to the task or are they in a hurry? There's no coming back from a successful hack.

It's all very well being backed by big companies but I don't know if that makes you any less vulnerable.

I expected such great hack will drop the price for bitcoin and other crypto at the same time, but i don't see the price has changed. In the past such hackings affected exactly like that. What's the difference now?

You didn't properly read/understand his statement. If you're part of the extreme elite minority (which are closely affiliated with the government) you'll enjoy a wider bit of freedom and luxury.

I personally don't think it's North Korea at all, but just one or more hackers that took advantage of how poor their overall security was. It's pure greed coming from a bunch of thieves with zero moral standards.

How about the North Korean dictator supervising this cyber attack and stealing millions of dollars worth of bitcoin,it is possible,the cyber war between these countries are ongoing for a very long time and it is possible that they could perpetuate these sort of attacks.

Yesterday i saw an article that bitcoin will be legalized in Korea and it was a pleasant news but now we have a hacking news coming out which is real bad, i thought the market would go down on hearing these kind of news ,usually in the past we would see a good correction when these kind of news hit the market,what is worrying is that the hackers got the personal information of all the users which is really bad,compensation wont solve the issue because your privacy is being compromised .

lol, I literally just came back home from a vacation in south Korea, and when I read "billions of won", I though that aint much. It's too bad it was hacked, and is one of the downsides of using an online wallet.

I remember reading about a Korean exchange being hacked not long ago. They were keeping money on multiple hot wallets and got a number of them (like 5 or 7) emptied at the same time. I also remember being amazed that exchanges decide to sacrifice security to offer instant withdrawals. Looks like they didn't learn anything from that event.

Its small exchange, and the number of Bitcoin lost is not so big.

Not that bad if there was someone willing to purchase that much. If not then that would be pretty bad for the project.

Maybe this is a some sort of a scamming people when tehy already invest in bitcoin also meaning that it is just a story of the government i guess to stop the people of the north korea to become it looks like a some sort of hacking but it is just a scam.

Did you mean about billion worth of won?  ::) The title of that news seems like a click bait to encourage the more people and their curiosity. I don't take it for seriously but it's bad to see another exchange gets broken again. But remember I can't Lambo with below than 1 million dollars.
I just careful with their security, that makes them must upgrade the security.

Main point of importance is that while these coins aren't anything significant in quantity here in the western world, it is quite a bitter pill to swallow for that exchange. Don't forget that South Korea is an upcoming country -- if more hacks follow, and that is a very likely scenario, the coin quantities that these exchanges are losing due to hacks will only increase. It's just a matter of time....

With this being happened the investor or korean people that is investing and trading with Bitcoin will halt I think because they will lose confidence with this hacking incident even though the company will refund the losses.

Could have been another inside job here. But the lesson should be that tighter cyber securities should be in place to avoid such a thing from happening again. And for the users to not put a huge amount of money on these exchanges when you know the risk that any site is hackable nowadays. Should be anotherc lesson learned for a lot of people.

It's funny how every single exchange claim that they are the number one most secure bitcoin exchange but really every single time there is a hack happening that the users have to take money out of their own pockets to compensate for.

This is a major loss indeed and it would be interesting what the hacker does to this money. I think it is unlikely that he will sell off the bitcoins at all because that means potentially having the coins confiscated by law enforcement, so i don't think that we need to panick this much about the prospect of the hacker dumping the coins, driving the price of bitcoin down.

Exchanges should make a clear in an event of a hack, who will be responsible and how will users be compensated. A lot of exchanges don't even have that in their terms and conditions leaving them to do whatever they want.

Every single incidence of hacking is a major setback to the widespread adoption and user-expansion of Bitcoin. The same happened after Mt Gox crashed and Mark Karpeles ran away with the money from all the users.

not really!
any hack happens only to exchanges and possibly some small third parties, and first of all it is their own mistake and it could have happened to anything other than bitcoin. secondly it only affects traders and that has nothing to do with bitcoin's adoption.

Traders play a very important role in Bitcoin. They pump a lot of money in to the crypto-currencies, and a lot of ventures (especially the exchanges and investment sites) survive thanks to them. If the traders lose their money, it is not going to be good for Bitcoin. If they lose their investment in trading it is still OK. But robbery is never going to be good for anyone.

Savings in exchange are very practical for trading but also very risky.
Sleeping soundly offline is the right step to maintain balance and give a little flake to the exchange is the best solution.

Company will refund the losses? Where you got that information, I have read that they will only pay small amount to compensate loss of personal information which could be way lower than what actually they have lost.

Korean people will learn to not have all their bitcoins in exchange platform with this incident, rather than losing confidence in bitcoin trading.  ;)

Wow, this is probably bigger news than a lot of peop would expect in my opinion because Bithumb basically rules over the entire Korean market and now that the Korean government is pledging to regulate the bitcoin industry in that country its volume is only going to climb on the charts.

What strikes me the most is that such a big exchange can still have security issues. I mean, most of us here just use a trezor and everything is fine, never gotten hacked or anything. It's either very stupid mistakes made by the security team(not putting coins into cold storage etc.) or it's an insider job(more likely).

Anyone else noticed this?


So are they saying that actual losses weren't compensated, only $870 however big an amount you had on deposit? Or is this $870 extra for every verified user?

My initial reaction in seeing the word billions in the title was "wtf!?". Upon clicking the topic, it is not even 1/2 of the largest hacks in Bitcoin or all of crypto for the matter. The hacker can dump all coins in the market anytime, no problem. :D

It is a clickbait title. Moving on.

Personally I wouldn't put it past the North Korean regime either. The normal people have very limited internet. But the regime has got full internet and have groups of hackers. The North Koreans where main suspect for the ransomware attacks. They need the money as they are sanctioned. They will try anything to raise money for there missiles.

Leaving a large amount of Bitcoin or any altcoins for that matter in an exchange can indeed be risky because these exchanges are always identified by hackers and so they are always easy target. Now, it is always the responsibility of the exchange to make sure that their security is not easily penetrable by perpetrators.

Just put right amount of Bitcoin in an exchange for your trading activities and withdraw excess coins to your other wallets. I am sure that this incident will not be the last...and with hackers always at the top of the game we can see similar stories in the coming months. Fortification is at the top priority for an exchange inorder to survive in a harsh world we are in.

I don't understand why people keep their coins in exchanges. If it is for trading purposes, then they should immediately withdraw the coins once the trading session is finished. But many people keep their coins in exchanges for long duration, as evident from the Bithumb hack.

As you know, trading is unpredictable, the price could change every time, how the traders could make a profit if they always withdraw their coins? Just use your logic, the only most efficient way is to keep it on the exchange.
Just hoping that there'll be a really good decentralised exchange but let's come back to the reality.
Even if so many people have recommended to not keep your money in an exchange, it's still a hard thing to do because of many factors.
By the way, there's no such thing as "trading session is finished", trading is always taking advantage of the circumstance.

Globally bad news, but locally in RoK, this is sure to hit them hard. They were already paying premium prices for Bitcoin for months since the bull run so reputation-wise, not great.

First I've heard about compensation for loss of data, at 1,000 users, they'll have to pay out about as much as they lost already in Bitcoin. I wonder if users with 0 balance would still qualify.

not at all it's not small it's the first exchange in the world by voluem go check coinmarketcap, 24 hours volume, it's ranked 1, but still the 300 btc amount is negligeable, and not worth mentioning

every day there are whales, that dump 1000 btc and they are worried for a tiny 300 btc, i think they are joking, the value is evne increased yesterday...

Its really bad to hear about such a huge bct stolen that too from a well secured exchange. i hope somehow they will be able to identify the culprit and get back those stolen btc. Hope it does not create a panic among its users and start withdrawing funds from their exchanges.

I'm really surprised at the fact that they are one of the leading exchanges in terms of volume not only in UKorea but rather in the entire world and they still can't afford apparently to get a cold storage going on to prevent these sorts of hacks. I mean storing in hot wallet is convenient, but how is it wise to store so much bitcoin in hot storage? IT just seems to be very bad management to me.

The price doesn't seem to be negatively affected by this, nor the Bithumb exchange. I wonder if they decide to release the wallet address to the public because then we can see if he transfers the coins to an exchange to cash it out(if he isn't smart enough to use a mixer, that is).

On a side note: Bithumb prices are still consistently +100 USD from the rest of the exchanges.

The Korean exchange has already said that they are paying back their customers after the thefts. The OP, by making that title thought he can start something. ;)

I doubt that also that the company will be able to refund the loses, well if they be able to refund that's good for their customers but expect the decrease in their customers.
Storing your coin in an exchange is a big risk in hacking why don't they just store their coins in their offline wallets? Less conflict like they can sleep soundly at night without worrying about their coins.

How much was actually stolen, is there an exact figure for this? And apparently it wasn't an insider job and their central servers were not infiltrated. But still, a lot of users were hacked. That's something strange right there that needs explaining imo.


No. They are only refunding $870 per user affected, it seems. So it is nowhere near the magnitude of damages that have been actually done to the individual user accounts, because they're only paying back the loss in personal info, not the financial losses.

That's good a good decision from the exchange authority. This is how situations can be handled in a better way and the reputation of the exchange can be gained. Maybe Op is not aware of the news clearly and it's better to make things more secure than just lossing and paying them back.

No its not true. Yet. They are only compensating for the loss of user's personal sensitive information and not for the account balance. It became a trend these days to hack an exchange which is poorly built with low-security features. If we want BTC or other cryptocurrencies to grow then we should have maximum security for wallets and exchanges.