Bter, an altcoin exchange located in China, has been hacked.
The hackers’ target was Bter’s cache of NXT. They managed to make off with 51 million NXT, worth nearly $2 million USD.
The company confirmed the hack on their official Twitter account:
Someone hacked Bter’s NXT central account and stole 50m NXT. We are working with the dev for a plan. We will keep you updated.
— Bter.com Exchange (@btercom) August 15, 2014
The identity of the hacker has not been confirmed, though they have since transferred all their NXT out of the original wallet.
What’s Next?
The last time a major exchange was hacked was the MintPal fiasco last July.
In that incident, a hacker stole a large amount of VeriCoin (30% of the total supply), and the devs decided to fork the coin in order to return the stolen coins.
This decision was met with massive controversy, since the devs’ decision to manually reverse a hack was a centralized authority’s decision to fix an organization which proved itself to be incompetent, much like the financial crisis of 2007, the repercussions of which the world is still suffering.
Will NXT take a similar action? That’s the discussion being held currently across the web. Several Twitter users have chimed in on the subject with varying angles:
@btercom Working with the Dev? Another rollback would be bad for #crypto. Please tell me it is NOT being considered! #nxt #bitcoin #litecoin
— Mr Coins (@CryptoDabbler) August 15, 2014
@kunachii @CryptoSaw @btercom Rollbacks undermine the premise of the permanence of blockchain transactions in my opinion. I’m against them.
— coine_smithe (@Check__it__Out) August 15, 2014
@CryptoSaw @Check__it__Out @btercom wow. I’m not in that but ya a rollback would be good dont let those thieves get that btc!Gotta move fast
— CryptoWolf (@kunachii) August 15, 2014
Meanwhile, a discussion on the NXT forum from community members is equally as divided, with many members expressing opinions in favour of and against implementing a VeriCoin strategy.
One user described this situation as a “marketing disaster. No matter what happens now”, and they’re certainly correct. This event will be disastrous to the NXT brand. The coin, which showed a large amount of promise and was often touted as a competitor to Ethereum, has now suffered a major setback.
What do you think? Should NXT roll back their blockchain to reverse the hacker’s transaction? And will NXT’s brand ever recover from this? Tell us in the comments below
Bter Hacked, NXT Stolen. Will They Pull A VeriCoin?
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