Israeli crypto-company Bancor loses $23.5 million tokens in a hack

An Isreali crypto company, Bancor, has lost around $23.5 million tokens in a hack. The cryptocurrency tokens majorly belonged to its users.

The hack occurred when a wallet was compromised during the upgrade of some smart contracts, allowing the hackers to acquire $12.5 million in Ether, $10 million in Bancor’s BNT and $1 million in Pundi X’s NPXS token. However, Bancor has assured users that no user wallets were compromised.

Bancor has now frozen its own currency BNT, but it is unable to shut down other tokens. The crypto-company has also reached out to various fellow exchanges to make sure the hackers are unable to liquidate the stolen tokens. Bancor’s exchange went offline as the company launched investigations to identify the cause of the breach and removed the vulnerability. Users can expect Bancor to be back online in the next 24 hours.

The previous year, Bancor raised over $150 million in an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) in just a few hours, making it the largest ICO ever. The exchange gained popularity for its wallets that incorporated a built-in exchange service. With the hack coming to light, Bancor token has suffered drastically with BNT value experiencing a downfall from $3.15 to $2.72.

As more digital currency exchange are emerging, they are becoming an easy prey for hacks and scams. It is evident from the fact that currently, FBI is investigating over 130 crypto-related cases. The Branco hack just adds to the ever-growing bleak news for the crypto world.