Bitcoin slipped from a record after the USD31 million theft of a cryptocurrency peer renewed concern about the security of digital coins.
The company behind tether, a cryptocurrency used by bitcoin exchanges to facilitate trades with fiat currencies, announced the theft yesterday. It said in a statement that a “malicious” attacker removed tokens from the Tether Treasury wallet on November 19 and sent them to an unauthorized bitcoin address. The company said it’s trying to prevent the stolen coins from being used.
Bitcoin dropped as much as 5.4 percent to $7,798.73, before paring the decline to 0.7 percent at 11:32 a.m. in London.
The incident is the latest in a long list of hacks that have dented confidence in the safety of cryptocurrencies. It’s likely to fuel the debate on Wall Street over whether digital coins are secure enough to enter the mainstream of finance.
The effect seems short-lived on bitcoin, which after exceeding the $133 billion value of McDonald’s Corp. over the weekend erased most of its loss yesterday and was little changed at $8,190.15. MDT/Bloomberg
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