This week, Hong Kong-based Bitcoin exchange Bitfinex suffered a major security breach that led to the theft of over 119,000 BTC. The hack also coincides with a sudden drop in the USD-BTC market value of almost 20 percent. The company has released a few updates into the investigation about the hack.

Blockstream, the company behind the initial foray into Bitcoin blockchain sidechains (a technology that allows for alternative payment chains), recently acquired GreenAddress, a company that provides Bitcoin wallet services with enhanced security.

See below for the usual examination of the Bitcoin market over the past week in light of what happened at Bitfinex.

photo credit: I Wouldn’t Have It Any Other Way via photopin (license)

Bitfinex suffers staggering hack, 119,756 BTC stolen

Yesterday, Bitcoin exchange Bitfinex (BTXNA, Inc.) suspended trading after a security breach that led to a massive theft of bitcoins. The amount taken was confirmed by company representative Zane Tackett to be approximately 119,756 BTC (approx. $65.6 million USD) although the attack had a dramatic effect on BTC’s market value dropping prices steeply.

Past week of BTC-USD market value to highlight market changes after Bitfinex hack via CryptoCompare.com

Today, Bitfinex updated its status page with more news on the investigation into the security breach and the loss:

 As it stands, we are continuing to investigate the hack and cooperating with authorities and the top blockchain analytic companies in the space to track the stolen bitcoins. In the meantime, we have been working on getting the platform up and running on a secure instance so that users can log in and see if their accounts have been affected as well as the state of their positions and orders. We hope to have an update with more substance later today UTC time.

Bitfinex is a major exchange, sometimes representing around 50 percent of the total volume of BTC traded for USD. The exchange is also no stranger to faults and hacks. Just last month, on June 21, Bitfinex spent four hours offline after network instability struck the platform’s data center and needed repair. On May 22, 2015 the exchange’s hot wallet was hacked, which led to the theft of an estimated 1,474 BTC.

The majority position of Bitfinex’s exchange means that a long-term offline period could have a significant effect on the market. According to analysis from CryptoCompare.com (see chart above) BTC-USD market value has been falling slowly over the past week, but after the hack hit Bitfinex the market value crashed to $513 USD from $600. However, in the day since the price has rallied somewhat to $566, which is still lower than the pre-crash value.

Blockstream acquires European wallet service GreenAddress

Blockchain technology firm Blockstream, Inc. has acquired European Bitcoin wallet provider GreenAddress (GreenAdressit Ltd.) The amount of the acquisition was not disclosed.

Blockstream is a company famed for its focus on Bitcoin sidechain technology and co-founded by co-founded and led by Adam Back and Gregory Maxwell in 2014. GreenAddress, also founded in 2014, offers per-transaction two-factor authentication and multi-signature deterministic wallets—the focus of GreenAddress’s wallet service is security.

“GreenAddress’s excellent reputation is the product of a three-person team with a deep commitment to Bitcoin,” Blockstream President Adam Back said in a blog post announcing the deal. “Their users are passionate, technically minded early adopters who have sought the highest levels of privacy and security for their bitcoin wallets.”

After the acquisition is complete, GreenAddress will continue to exist as a stand-alone wallet service and operate as before. The company offers apps for web (Chrome), Android and iOS mobile. For the open source savvy, the source code for GreenAddress is also published on GitHub.

According to the acquisition deal, the GreenAddress development team will be joining Blockstream’s engineering teams. GreenAddress founder Lawrence Nahum will be assuming the role of Senior Architect and continue to oversee GreenAddress as well as contribute to other products.

Screenshot via Brave.com

Brave browser raises $4.5 million in funds for privacy, security and Bitcoin microtransactions

Brave Software Inc., startup and developer of the Brave ad-blocking browser, this week raised $4.5 million USD in a seed round bringing the total raised for the project to $7 million. While the focus of the browser product is to provide greater security and privacy to users, it also works to block advertisements and unwanted scripts to speed up browsing and reduce obnoxious marketing.

Where Bitcoin comes in with this browser is that while it will block advertisements on websites, it can also deliver its own in their place (which would pay users small amounts of bitcoin as well as site owners) and allow users to pay tiny amounts of bitcoin to view pages on websites.

The browser is currently available in its 0.11 developer version for Windows 7 (and above), macOS 10.9 (and later) and Linux (Debian/Ubuntu and Fedura/openSUSE).

The finalized 1.0 version is expected to launch September 2016.

Featured image credit: Bitcoin Logo, https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelastminute/12350379324.