ambcrypto.com
Bithumb, the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange which was hacked on March 29, is set to resume withdrawals and deposits for three of the top six cryptocurrencies. In a May 15 announcement, the exchange stated that XRP, Bitcoin Cash [BCH] and EOS [EOS] would be the first few virtual currencies to resume trading.
The exchange stated that the reason for resuming trading of these three cryptocurrencies was to “minimize the inconvenience to members until the resumption of deposits and withdrawals.”
Bithumb added,
“At the moment when the security enhancement that we anticipate will be completed, deposit and withdrawal will resume in about a month. We will proceed with the resuming sequentially considering the price difference and service stability.”
On 17 May, 2019 at 1200 Korean Standard Time, Bithumb will allow withdrawal and deposit services for the three cryptocurrencies.
It should be noted that trading for other cryptocurrencies is estimated to resume at a later date. Despite Bithumb not confirming a specific timeline for the same, the post stated that deposits and withdrawals will likely resume “after June.”
Additionally, the post stated that the virtual currencies which “have already resumed” trading, will be subject to changes and hence, customers are advised to “issue new deposit addresses.”
Bithumb was subjected to a hack that cost the exchange 3 million EOS, which at the time, was worth a whopping $13 million. Dovey Wan of Primitive Ventures had revealed that the South Korean exchange’s hot wallet holding EOS had been breached by the hacker.
The hacker siphoned the EOS and sent them to other exchanges like EXMO, Huobi, Changelly, KuCoin, and CoinSwitch. Binance’s Changpeng Zhao had later revealed that none of the stolen coins were sent to Binance.
Another wallet holding XRP was also hacked by the same culprit. Wan stated that over 20 million XRP were stolen, valued at $6 million at the time.
Interestingly, the exchange responded to the hack by stating that the cyber attack involved “insiders because the external intrusion path had not been revealed.” Bithumb added that they were working with the KISA, Cyber Police Agency and other security companies, along with other cryptocurrency exchanges, to recover the stolen cryptocurrencies.