Poloniex got hacked a months ago and decided to do what vircurex is doing. I don't know why it would be dying, right now panic it has created they must have made some coins from the trading fees. If the trading continue like that they'll have covered their loss in no time.
That's what I'm hoping... (sitting tight hoping I can get my recent BTC deposit out of Vircurex intact).
A large majority of my mining revenue is now locked up there. I googled Vircurex before ever using them, but didn't pick up on any issues. I liked the "interest rate" you earned on deposits (they shared out 15% of their transaction fee earnings to depositors, which worked out to something like 3% annually when I checked it. This seemed reasonable to me, not a sign of trouble or desperation. So I took the bait.
Lesson learned: Stick to wallets, don't trust exchanges any further than I absolutely have to. This is ridiculous though. It's not a problem with cryptocurrency itself, but with incompetent security. It seems like the problem is 100X worse than with fiat banks - why? Why do cryptocurrency exchanges seem to be hit dramatically more often than the average bank? Is there some inherent reason why cryptocurrency exchanges will be more vulnerable than fiat banks, or is it just a matter of not enough time and funding for them to have gotten up to speed with their security?
Or is it because hackers are just more focused on crypto than hacking fiat banks?
Sigh.