NiceHash Confirms Hack, Suspends Mining Service

As much as $62 million in BTC potentially lost in the hack

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After prolonged downtime caused a flurry of speculation earlier today, popular cryptocurrency mining service NiceHash confirmed the worst: it got hacked. In a press release that has replaced the company’s normal website, it announced:

“Unfortunately, there has been a security breach involving NiceHash website. We are currently investigating the nature of the incident and, as a result, we are stopping all operations for the next 24 hours. Importantly, our payment system was compromised and the contents of the NiceHash Bitcoin wallet have been stolen. We are working to verify the precise number of BTC taken.”

That number, if earlier reports are accurate, could be as much as 4,736 BTC, worth over $62 million at Bitcoin’s current price.

NiceHash is (or perhaps was) a popular cryptocurrency mining client that allowed users to easily joining mining pools and mine profit-optimized currencies with the click of a button and regular payouts in Bitcoin. Due to its relative ease-of-use, it was popular – its subreddit, for example, has nearly 10,000 subscribers – and its users included major mining players who could cash in on tens or hundreds of Bitcoins at a time.

Needless to say, users are upset. NiceHash, for its part, is still claiming some degree of ignorance. Its press release states that “the full scope of what happened is not yet known,” but notes that the company is working with the authorities as well as investigating internally. It advises users to “change your online passwords.”