Nearly $64m in bitcoin has been stolen by hackers who broke into Slovenian-based bitcoin mining marketplace NiceHash. The hack was “a highly professional attack with sophisticated social engineering” that resulted in approximately 4,700 bitcoin being stolen, worth about $63.92m at current prices, said NiceHash head of marketing Andrej P Škraba. NiceHash is a digital currency marketplace that matches people looking to sell processing time on their computers for so called miners to verify bitcoin users’ transactions in exchange for the bitcoin. In Japan, following the failure of bitcoin exchange Mt Gox, new laws were enacted to regulate bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. Mark Karpelès, head of Mt Gox, went on trial in Japan in July, facing up to five years in jail under charges of embezzlement and the lost of $28m of user funds.

Source: The Guardian December 07, 2017 10:30 UTC