Bancor hack: On Monday, the cryptocurrency world saw another hack. Crypto exchange Bancor — an Israel-Switzerland company — had $23.5 million worth of three different cryptocurrencies stolen.
Its services include a wallet with a built-in exchange service and according to Bancor, no wallets were compromised but “a wallet used to upgrade some smart contracts was.”
The breakdown of the Bancor hack looks like this: $12.5 million in ETHer, $1 million in Pundi X’s NPXS token, and $10 million in Bancor’s BNT, were stolen.
The exchange has managed to mitiGate the damages by freezing the stolen BNT but is unable to do the same for the other tokens. This has caused some controversy though; this response to the hack highlights Bancor’s ability to manipulate its smart contract’s in a move that likens more to a centralized system and not a decentralized system. Critics voiced their concerns on Twitter:
Bancor’s reasoning for its ability to freeze the stolen BNT was that it was one of the safety measures meant to protect its community and is a feature of a three-year pilot period; “We firmly believe that this ability is a preventative measure essential to most tokens and necessary to protect the network and token holders in a state of emergency.”
The exchange is currently offline as Bancor conducts an investigation. It is currently working with a number of other exchanges to try and “make it more difficult for the thief to liquidate” the stolen tokens but whETHer that will be successful remains to be seen.
Security has been a constant issue surrounding exchanges, especially decentralized ones. Recently, popular service MyETHerwallet was also hit by an attack.
Bancor believes that the hack, at least, has started a debate about the importance of balance between security and decentralization within the cryptocurrency realm.
Featured Image: Deposit Photos/EdZbarzhyvetsky
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