Bitcoin bank Flexcoin said on Tuesday it was closing down after it lost bitcoins worth about $600,000 to a hacker attack.<\/p>\n
Flexcoin said in a message posted on its website that all 896 bitcoins stored online were stolen on Sunday.<\/p>\n
“As Flexcoin does not have the resources, assets, or otherwise to come back from this loss, we are closing our doors immediately,” the company said. (http:\/\/r.reuters.com\/web47v)<\/p>\n
Alberta, Canada-based Flexcoin, which is working with law enforcement agencies to trace the source of the hack, said it would return bitcoins stored offline, or in “cold storage”, to users.<\/p>\n
Cold storage coins are held in computers not connected to the Internet and therefore cannot be hacked.<\/p>\n
Mt. Gox, once the world’s biggest bitcoin exchange, filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan on Friday, saying it may have lost some 850,000 bitcoins due to hacking into its faulty computer system.<\/p>\n
Flexcoin said on February 25 it was not affected by Mt. Gox’s closure. “While the Mt. Gox closure is unfortunate, we at Flexcoin have not lost anything,” it had tweeted.<\/p>\n
Bitcoin is a digital currency that, unlike conventional money, is bought and sold on a peer-to-peer network independent of central control. Its value soared last year, and the total worth of bitcoins minted is now about $7 billion.<\/p>\n
According to Tuesday’s price on Bitstamp, one of the largest exchanges for trading bitcoins, the crypto-currency was valued at about $668.57.<\/p>\n
The world\u2019s most popular digital currencies<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Cyber currency here to stay<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n