First published: 03rd August 2016
Bitfinex, a Hong Kong based Bitcoin exchange, halted all trading and digital token deposits and withdrawals at about 2am on 3 August 2016 HKT saying that they discovered a security breach. In a statement on their webpage, they stated they were investigating and that they had reported the theft to law enforcement.
A report in the South China Morning Post estimated that about 119,756 bitcoins valued at nearly US$100 million may have been stolen and speculated that the theft exploited the closure of Hong Kong’s financial markets on Tuesday 2 August because of Typhoon Nida.
Updated: 05th August 2016
How Much Was Stolen?
The initial report in the South China Morning Post stated that "almost US$100m" was taken, the report was later amended to read "about US$65.8 million", but the number of bitcoins, 119,756, remained the same. Bitcoin is a volatile currency but US$100m for 119,756 bitcoins would be an exchange rate of 835, Bitcoin has not been that high since January 2014. The most recent peak was 16 June 2016, when the rate was 768.24, which would put the value of the stolen bitcoins at US$92m, which can reasonably be described as almost US$100m. However, Bitcoin has been falling since 16 June and there was a rapid fall of over 14% in the four hours following the announcement of the theft. The price has since recovered somewhat.
Bitfinex has announced that, to compute losses for relevant parties, it will use prices representing the midpoint of the bid and ask on August 2, 2016 at 18:00:00 UTC, which was 604.06. On this basis, the thieves took US$72 million.