Bitcoin Price Recovers as Hacked Exchange Remains Offline

Bitcoin’s price has stabilized following this week’s massive hack and theft of $65 million in bitcoin from a Hong Kong exchange, as some traders seized on the lower price to strategically buy the dip.
Myriad questions about the hack itself remain unanswered, however.
On Tuesday, a trading site called Bitfinex was attacked by a hacker, who exploited the site’s security protocols and stole just under 200,000 bitcoins, at the time worth about $65 million, before being discovered. The site shut down all operations, and remains shut down two days later. In a message on its website today it said it was looking to restore ‘limited functionality’ that would allow customers check their balances.
The price of bitcoin plunged more than 20% from Tuesday’s high to as low as $480 as word of the theft spread. On Thursday afternoon, bitcoin was trading around $563, up 18% from Tuesday’s low. So far this year bitcoin is up about 32%.

This post was published at Wall Street Journal on Aug 4, 2016.