The price of Bitcoin plummeted substantially on Monday morning, after the market reacted to the news of the hacking of South Korean cryptocurrency exchange, Coinrail.
A tweet from Coinrail confirming the hack sent the price of Bitcoin down 10 percent on Sunday, loosing $500 (£372) an hour.
Some sources have speculated that Coinrail lost cryptocurrencies totaling as much as $40 million in the cyber attack.
According to its website, the exchange has already suspended services after the “cyber intrusion,” which led to a number of ERC-20 based tokens being stolen.
In a statement, Coinrail said: “70% of total coin and token reserves have been confirmed to be safely stored and moved to a cold wallet [not connected to the internet]. Two-thirds of stolen cryptocurrencies were withdrawn or frozen in partnership with related exchanges and coin companies. For the rest, we are looking into it with an investigative agency, related exchanges and coin developers.”
Bitcoin is currently trading at $6783.31, down from its Christmas peak of nearly $20,000.
The cyber attack adds to concerns over the vulnerability of said unregulated currencies, in light of weak regulation.
Cryptocurrencies remain controversial, with many governments across the globe calling for greater regulation across the market.
Back in March, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney spoke out against Bitcoin, calling for a crackdown on deregulated currencies.
“The time has come to hold the crypto-asset ecosystem to the same standards as the rest of the financial system,” said Carney at the Scottish Economics Conference in Edinburgh.
“Being part of the financial system brings enormous privileges, but with them great responsibilities. In this spirit, the EU and the US are requiring crypto exchanges to meet the same anti-money laundering and counter the financing of terrorism standards as other financial institutions.
“In my view, holding crypto-asset exchanges to the same rigorous standards as those that trade securities would address a major underlap in the regulatory approach.”
