New Zealand-based cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia has been hacked. The team confirmed the attack while revealing that the losses are ‘significant’.
Cryptopia Hacked
A few days ago, on January 13th, the cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia went into unscheduled maintenance. At the time, the platform’s team tweeted:
“We are currently experiencing unscheduled maintenance, we are working to resume services as soon as possible. We will keep you updated.”
Today, however, the exchange has come up with an official announcement that its security has been breached, resulting in ‘significant losses’.
“Yesterday 14th January 2019, the Cryptopia Exchange suffered a security breach which resulted in significant losses. Once identified by staff, the exchange was put into maintenance while we assessed damages.”
— Cryptopia Exchange (@Cryptopia_NZ) January 15, 2019
The exchange gave no further information regarding the loss of funds.
However, it also said that all the appropriate authorities, including the NZ Police and High Tech Crimes Unit have already been informed and are working on a joint investigation.
Immediate Community Reaction
The reaction of the crypto community was also timely. Popular twitter personality WhalePanda (@WhalePanda), was quick to note that the timing of the event was interesting.
Interesting that this happens in a bear season where small exchanges are struggling to make ends meet and are aggressively messaging anyone involved with crypto projects to get them to pay listing fees to get listed on their platforms. pic.twitter.com/Vg44R4Dh5s
— WhalePanda (@WhalePanda) January 15, 2019
It’s also worth noting that a certain outgoing ETH transaction took place 45 hours ago where 19,390 ETH have been transferred from Cryptopia’s tagged wallet to an unknown address. The ETH is worth almost $2,5 million.
What do you think of Cryptopia being hacked? Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below!
Images courtesy of Pixabay