Bancor Exchange Hacked, $12M in Ether Stolen

Despite cryptocurrency markets maturing, the pandemic of exchange hacks has yet to be resolved.

The seventh major cryptocurrency theft in 2018 was a hack on Bancor for $23.5 million that halted trading on July 9, 2018.Another One: Bancor Loses 25k Ethereum.

In a statement revealed July 9, Bancor experienced a security breach to the hot wallet used to update smart contracts on its exchange, resulting in a loss of approximately $23.5 million worth of cryptocurrency.

The tweet reveals that Bancor halted trading on the exchange while it investigates the security issues.

In the event, Bancor ensured that no users' wallets have been directly compromised.

In a more detailed statement released hours later, Bancor outlined the extent of the theft - indicating that 24,984 ETH, 229M NPXS and 3.2M BNT were stolen in total.

Stating that egregious listing fees and lack of transparency make centralized cryptocurrency exchanges susceptible to abuse of powers, Vitalik stood by his support for decentralized exchanges, such as Bancor.

In 2018 alone, the global cryptocurrency sector has experienced seven, considerable thefts on exchanges and network protocols - yielding three times the total amount stolen in 2017.

On June 19, Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb was hacked for 350 billion KRW and was forced to suspend new user account registrations until the security breach was resolved.

Bancor has yet to reveal further updates on its exchange hack.