Bitstamp Bitcoin Exchange Suspended Due To "Compromised Wallet"

Posted by samzenpus on Monday January 5, 2015 @04:00AM from the that-old-familiar-story dept.

twitnutttt writes Customers of Bistamp, the successor (until recently) to MtGox as the highest-volume dollar-denominated Bitcoin exchange, and still the preferred source of trading data for many technical analysts, sent an email at about 4:00 UTC today warning that, "Today our transaction processing server detected problems with our hot wallet and stopped processing withdrawals." They also instructed users to stop sending any deposits immediately or they may be lost. The Bitstamp website has now also suspended all exchange/trading services, and the homepage contains only a maintenance message warning users of a "compromised" wallet. Numerous references to security imply that this is a hacking attack, but Bitstamp reassures that they maintain "more than enough offline reserves to cover the compromised bitcoins."

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Re:Utterly predictable by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-05 06:57 · Score: 0, Interesting

You're operating on the common - and utterly wrong - assumption that every purchase and transaction automatically creates a "debt".
You can, in fact, run a business that does not accept cash.