Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange Gatecoin, based in Hong Kong has been under the attack of hackers ending in loss of digital currencies from wallets.
CEO Aurélien Menant admitted on the Slack channel that the exchange lost its funds of bitcoins and ethers, the native token of the Ethereum network, after the hackers’ attack.
Nevertheless, Menant informed that tokens tied to the DigixDAO project and the Augur with TheDAO projects remained unaffected.
The CEO is still not sure how much of the funds was lost during the attack, stating that that numbers are “big” and they are assessing the best way how to refund clients for the loss. According to some non-verified sources, the losses could reach even $2 million.
Gatecoin informed in a statement for Coindesk:
“Last night Asia time, we suspected a potential leak on our hot wallets. Therefore, we decided to shut down the exchange and ports in order to minimise further potential losses, and we are conducting a full forensic investigation to identify the root of the issue. This is why Gatecoin’s user interface and API are currently offline.”
On Friday, the exchange informed on Twitter that it had decided to take its website offline “due to a high risk” that bitcoin and ethers funds would “leak” from some of the connected wallets. Here is the official warning of Gatecoin:
“Alert: our website is down due to a high risk of leak in some of our hotwallets.
— Gatecoin (@Gatecoin) May 13, 2016 ”
Furthermore, Gatecoin later stated on Twitter that it is investigating the issue, and according to the other posts it can be expected that the exchange had been taken offline prior to the announcement, while officially is the move attributed on the main Gatecoin page to “maintenance”.
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