Thieves steal potentially millions of dollars in bitcoin in a hacking attack on a cryptocurrency company
NiceHash didn’t say how much was stolen, but customers speculate that it could total around US$63 million in bitcoin
By Becky Peterson
The contents of a digital wallet belonging to cryptocurrency company NiceHash, which included potentially millions of dollars worth of customers’ bitcoin, was stolen in a major security breach.
The hack affected NiceHash’s payment system, and the entire contents of the company’s bitcoin wallet was stolen, the company said in a Facebook post Wednesday afternoon.
“Clearly, this is a matter of deep concern, and we are working hard to rectify the matter in the coming days,” NiceHash said in the Facebook post. “In addition to undertaking our own investigation, the incident has been reported to the relevant authorities and law enforcement, and we are cooperating with them as a matter of urgency.”
The company did not respond to requests for comment.
NiceHash didn’t say how much bitcoin was stolen from its wallet or how much of what was stolen belonged to its customers. But some of the company’s customers speculated that around 4,736 bitcoin total were stolen — worth over US$63 million as of Wednesday afternoon.
They came up with that estimate by looking at the total amount sitting in a recently-created bitcoin wallet, which some company users have suggested belongs to the hacker. Although bitcoin owners are usually anonymous, the amounts stored in their wallets are publicly searchable online.