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BitStamp in Trouble

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Jan 05: Bitstamp Reports Hot Wallet Issue, Tells Customers to Not Deposit Bitcoin

Bitstamp announced today it was suspending services after it “detected problems” with its hot wallet, initially stopping withdrawals and warning customers not to attempt bitcoin deposits.

Once again, confusion reigned on bitcoin discussion forums as interested parties speculated on what and how large the problems might be at the world’s second-busiest USD exchange.

–> Read the full article on CoinDesk.

Jan 05: Bitstamp Warns Users to Stop Depositing, Cites Problem With Hot Wallet

Bitstamp sent out an email Sunday, telling users to stop depositing bitcoins at the exchange.

The exact details are still fuzzy and it is unclear what has prompted the technical issue. Users however have complained of strange activity and Bitstamp noted that it has detected issues with its hot wallet. The email warns users to stop depositing bitcoins because “private keys of your deposit address may be lost.”

Money that is already deposited at the exchange is safe. The cold wallet is not suffering from the same issue, according to the email.

The Slovenia-based exchange is currently one of the largest Bitcoin exchanges, alongside BTC-e, Coinbase, and others. Last year the exchange went offline temporarily because of DDoS attacks that affected the network. Exchanges help users swap USD and other currencies for Bitcoin.

–> Read the full article on CoinTelegraph.

05 Jan: Bitstamp Claims $5 Million Lost in Hot Wallet Hack

Bitstamp has released a new statement regarding the security of its website, admitting that it has lost “less than 19,000 BTC”, about $5.1m at press time.

The revelation follows the disclosure that Bitstamp’s wallet system was compromised, prompting it to halt deposits and later shut down its platform entirely.

–> Read the full article on CoinDesk.

06 Jan: Bitstamp’s Ongoing Outage Echoes Through Bitcoin Economy

Following news that Bitstamp has suffered what now appears to be a massive security breach, the effects of the surprise outage at one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges have spread quickly through the wider bitcoin economy.

From payment processors serving billion-dollar merchants to bitcoin ATMs and advanced trading platforms, Bitstamp’s stoppage caused quoted prices in bitcoin to become inaccurate, some products to be suspended and select services to be retailored in light of the interruption.

–> Read the full article on CoinDesk.

One Comment

  • admin says:

    Service Restored:

    We are happy to announce that we are back open for business with a newly redeployed website and backend systems that are safer and more secure than ever. Thank you for your patience during our temporary disruption of services this week. We’d like to share with our customers and community an update on the events of this week.

    What happened?
    On January 4th, some of Bitstamp’s operational wallets were compromised, resulting in a loss of less than 19,000 BTC. This breach represents a small fraction of Bitstamp’s total bitcoin reserves, the overwhelming majority of which are held in secure offline cold storage systems. We can assure customers that any bitcoins held with us are completely safe and have been fully honored.

    Upon learning of the breach, we immediately notified all customers that they should no longer make deposits to previously issued bitcoin deposit addresses. As an additional security measure, we suspended our systems to fully investigate the incident and actively engage with law enforcement officials.

    Why did Bitstamp go offline for a few days?
    We took the decision to rebuild our systems from the ground up from a secure backup for a few reasons. By redeploying our system from a secure backup onto entirely new hardware, we were able to preserve the evidence for a full forensic investigation of the crime. We also took this time to implement a number of new security measures and protocols so that customers can resume using Bitstamp with full confidence and trust. While this decision meant we were not been able to provide you with services for a number of days, we feel this extra measure of precaution was in the best interest of our customers.

    What’s new?Our team worked day and night to rebuild and restore security to the Bitstamp site. On Friday, January 9th we relaunched our site and services in full. Customers have resumed transacting with us quickly, safely, and confidently. Bitstamp is now fully operational with a number of key improvement

    Multi-sig – With the implementation of BitGo’s multisig technology, Bitstamp is now the first and only major bitcoin exchange to incorporate the industry’s best security practices available today.
    Completely new hardware infrastructure – The Bitstamp systems are running on 100% new hardware deployed from a completely secure backup of our code and data.
    Amazon Web Services – Bitstamp is now running on Amazon’s world-class AWS cloud infrastructure, architected to be one of the most secure and reliable cloud computing environments available.
    Commission-free trading – As a note of thanks to our loyal customers, all transactions conducted on Bitstamp through the end of the North American Bitcoin Conference on January 17th (at 11:59pm UTC) will be commission-free.
    We appreciate your patience and understanding during this week’s disruption of services. Since 2011, we’ve worked long and hard to become one of the largest and most trusted bitcoin exchanges in the world. While this has been a time of challenge for our company, we expect to emerge from this experience having set an even higher bar than before for trust and confidence in our services.

    For further information regarding our redeployment, please visit our website at http://www.bitstamp.net.

    We appreciate your patience and understanding over the past few days and look forward to continuing to serve you.

    Nejc Kodrič
    CEO
    Bistamp

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