NiceHash, the marketplace for cloud-based mining of cryptocurrencies, said hackers breached its systems and stole an unknown amount of bitcoin from its virtual wallet.
“We are working to verify the precise number of BTC taken,” the company said on Wednesday in a statement on its Facebook page. It’s halting operations for 24 hours, it said. The venture’s main webpage showed a “maintenance” error message, linking to its social media accounts.
NiceHash helps match people who can spare computing capacity with miners looking to solve complex maths problems to obtain a variety of new coins. It later facilitates periodic payments to the service providers with bitcoin.
A wallet address circulated by NiceHash users shows that more than US$60m of bitcoins might be affected, according to CoinDesk, the cryptocurrency research and news website.
NiceHash CEO Marko Kobal didn’t immediately respond to a LinkedIn message seeking comment. — Reported by Olga Kharif, (c) 2017 Bloomberg LP