Bitfinex Bitcoin Traders to Pay the Price, Loss Spread to All Users
The Hong Kong-based exchange announced today that it is considering making all of its bitcoin traders pay the price after the theft of $65 million worth of bitcoin, earlier this week.
In a Bitfinex blog post it said that the company was expecting to ‘socialize’ the loss among its bitcoin users even those who weren’t originally affected.
The blog said:
We are still working out the details so nothing is set in stone, however we are leaning towards a socialized loss scenario among bitcoin balances and active loans to BTCUSD positions.
The theft of the 119,756 bitcoins means that this is the second-largest security breach on a cryptocurrency exchange, since Mt. Gox, accounting for around 0.75 percent of all bitcoins in circulation.
The hack, which took place earlier this week, saw bitcoin prices plummeting over 20 percent before making a recovery during the week.
This news, however, is unlikely to go down well with Bitfinex traders particularly those who accounts weren’t affected. Not only that but in the aftermath of the news, Bitfinex stated that it would settle accounts at the exchange rate at market prices at 18:00 UTC on August 2, which was around the $604 mark.
That now seems unlikely.
At the time of publishing, bitcoin was trading at $572.95.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
