The decentralized crypto exchange Bancor has been hacked. A statement on Twitter reveals that nearly 25,000 ether, equivalent to $12 million, have been stolen. However, Bancor assures that none of the users’ wallets were compromised. The crypto exchange is now investigating what has happened.
Last week, ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin spoke negatively about centralized crypto exchanges and said that he hopes that they “burn in hell”. He mainly aimed his critic at large exchanges that charge very high fees for listing cryptocurrencies.
The alternative to centralized crypto exchanges is decentralized ones. The hacker attack and theft against Bancor, however, show that decentralized exchanges are far from immune to hacker attacks.
“No government can allow that”
The torrent index site The Pirate Bay has once again started to use the website’s visitors computers to mine monero (XMR), CCN reports.
Recently, the site added a text at the bottom of the page:
“By entering TPB you agree to XMR being mined using your CPU. If you don’t agree please leave now or install an adblocker.”
Another well-known name from the world of economy has spoken out about bitcoin. This time, it is the Nobel Prize-winning economist and professor at Columbia University Joseph Stiglitz who is negative about the future of the cryptocurrency.
Stiglitz thinks that although the bitcoin blockchain is open and transparent, its anonymity opens the door to criminals.
“You cannot have a means of payment that is based on secrecy when you’re trying to create a transparent banking system. If you open up a hole like bitcoin, then all the nefarious activity will go through that hole, and no government can allow that”, 75-year-old Stiglitz told the Financial News Monday, according to CNBC.
Red numbers
Looking at the crypto markets, most currencies show red numbers today.
The total market value has fallen by around $11 billion from yesterday’s high levels, according to Coinmarketcap.
Among the largest cryptocurrencies, eos (-11,19%) has fallen the most. But also ethereum (-4,65%), xrp (-3,17%) and bitcoin cash (-3,42%) have decreased in value.
The ones who performed best on top 100 were tezos (+5,49%) and decentraland (+3,00%), and the ones who performed the worst were cortex (-16,30%) and bancor (-16,18%), the latter probably as a reaction to the hacker attack.
| Asset: | Price: | % (24h) |
| Bitcoin | $6 678,81 | -1,41% |
| Ethereum | $462,66 | -4,65% |
| Xrp | $0,463206 | -3,17% |
| Bitcoin cash | $724,25 | -3,42% |
| Eos | $7,63 | -11,19% |
