The South Korean Bithumb cryptocurrency exchange platform, one of the most important in the world for its volume of transactions, announced yesterday, June 28th, that it had recovered about 50% of the amount stolen by hackers just over a week ago. Through a publication on its website, Bithumb announced that they had managed to reduce the cost of the damage caused by the cyber attack on June 19th, when a group of hackers stole the equivalent of 35 billion South Korean Won, approximately $31 million.
Thanks to the collaboration of other cryptocurrency exchange platforms from all over the world, approximately $15 million were recovered in cryptocurrencies, leaving the additional $16 million unrecovered, which could be compensated, however, to the victims of the cyber attack.
The Bithumb announcement reveals that, of the 11 different cryptocurrencies that were hacked, the ones that generated the most significant deficit were bitcoin (BTC), Ripple (XRP) and Ethereum (ETH).
Deposits and withdrawals are still halted on Bithumb cryptocurrency platform
The exchange platform has so far suspended both deposits and withdrawals and has not yet given an approximate date for when these operations can be carried out again.
Bithumb platform’s strategy of establishing alliances with other cryptocurrency exchange platforms to recover the stolen funds had already been announced earlier, shortly after the attack. On that occasion, they also mentioned that Bithumb cryptocurrency exchange platform possesses a fund of $500 million, which is destined to cover losses of a potential cyber attack that might affect the platform, as it happened last week.
One of the consequences of the cyber attack on Bithumb was momentary congestion of the Bitcoin (BTC) network, a few hours after the attack occurred. The delay in confirming transactions is attributed to this event, since, as a security measure, the remaining funds from the platform’s BTC wallets were transferred to a cold wallet where they would be held in a procedure known as consolidation.
