Investing.com – Cryptocurrencies prices slipped on Wednesday as South Korea-based exchange Bithumb announced it has been hacked and 35 billion won (US$31.5 million) worth of virtual coins were stolen.
Bitcoin was trading at $6,616.3 by 12:02AM ET (04:02GMT) on the Bitfinex exchange, down 1.2% over the previous 24 hours.
Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, gained 0.9% at $520.1 on the Bitfinex exchange.
XRP/USD’s XRP token slipped 0.8% to $0.53271 on the Poloniex exchange.
Meanwhile, Litecoin fell 1.2% to $96.22.
Bithumb said in a notice on its website that it has halted all trading service following the hacking incident.
The crypto exchange said it would cover all losses so its clients would not be affected, although they would not be able to move their assets at the moment as all deposits and withdrawals are now suspended.
We checked that some of cryptocurrencies valued about $30,000,000 was stolen,” Bithumb said on Twitter. “Those stolen cryptocurrencies will be covered from Bithumb and all of assets are being transferring to cold wallet.”
The incident marked the second time a South Korean exchange had been hacked this month. Less than two weeks ago, Coinrail lost approximately $37.2 million worth of coins following a hacking attack. Meanwhile, Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck lost more than $500 million to hackers in January.
Bithumb currently ranks as the world’s sixth-largest and South Korea’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, with a daily trading volume of just over $330 million, according to CoinMarketCap.
Bitcoin fell from to as low as $6,561.79 following the tweets from Bithumb on Wednesday morning in Asia, but started recovering soon after.