bitcoin-central-2013-04-25

Apr. 25 2013 15:30 CEST UPDATE

Dear all, we'd like to give everyone an update as to what exactly is happening, has happened, and will happen in relation to the recent events at Bitcoin-Central.net.

Here are a few questions that require an immediate answer.

Have funds been lost?

A few hundred Bitcoins have been stolen from our hot wallet.

Will users lose funds?

No. We will cover 100% of the theft.

How did it happen?

Someone managed to reset the password from our hosting provider web interface, this enabled the attacker to lock us out of the interface and request a reboot of the machine in 'rescue' mode. Using this, the attacker copied our hot wallet and sent away what was present.

This very hosting provider (OVH) had been compromised a couple of days ago, in the exact same way, leading to loss of funds on mining.bitcoin.cz.

What is the plan?

We have taken the decision to suspend the service for the time being. Coming up with a different security approach will take some time. We owe it to our users to be on the safe side.

As a consequence we will refund everyone who so wishes up to the last cent and satoshi and take the needed time, without rush, to come up with a platform, an infrastructure and procedures to meet the new challenges that are faced by the Bitcoin exchange ecosystem at large.

Doing the right thing is not always easy. It's ok, riding the Bitcoin is not for the faint of heart, we'll take the time to prepare and we'll be back.

How exactly will this happen?

We will reopen the platform tomorrow, but won't be accepting any new Bitcoin or Euro deposits. Users will be expected to clear their accounts in order for us to settle all balances.

People who have very small EUR balances that aren't practical to wire will be offered a settlement in Bitcoin at generally available market rate at the time of the settlement.

Users will be able to place wire transfer orders, they will be processed as usual. The Bitcoin transfers will be processed directly from our cold-storage and will be sent as daily batches.

Can we refund everyone?

Yes, because Bitcoin-Central has, is, and will always will be full-reserve. We can refund everyone at the same time.

Unclaimed balances will be held until they are claimed, if they are still not claimed when the platform reopens they will be made available to the relevant imported user accounts. All Bitcoin balances left with us will be held in cold storage.

When will I be able to get my BTC/EUR back?

As soon as we re-open you will be able to request your account settlement which will be processed as fast as possible.

We aim at reopening the web interface on April 26th at 14:00 CEST. In case of delays we will post additional updates.

We thank all our users for their trust and business. 
We thank everyone that supported us when everything was starting to get hard.