The cryptocurrency world suffered a huge setback recently when news broke of a $30 million hack at Bithumb, one of South Korea's largest cryptocurrency exchanges.
The hack impacted the reputation of the global cryptocurrency industry and was even responsible for a slight dip in the value of Bitcoin.
There have always been concerns about the safety and security of the cryptocurrency industry.
South Korea’s Coinrail cryptocurrency industry was hacked earlier this month and the Bithumb hacking is another blow to the safety and credibility that cryptocurrencies bring to the global market.
Hacking has been the boogeyman of the bitcoin world ever since the Mt. Gox hack that sank the then-largest bitcoin exchange back in 2013. That hack has also been blamed for the price collapse that took bitcoin years to recover from. Despite the best efforts of many experts, hacking is still a large concern for the bitcoin world. Financial analysts point to hacking as one of the factors that is responsible for consistently pulling the price of bitcoin down. The cryptocurrency hit a low of $6,700 this month, a far cry from its $20,000 heyday in December 2017.
UK Crypto Websites Not Concerned Over Hacking
Earlier this year, UK's Parliament started an investigation into cryptocurrencies to ensure that their constituents are adequately protected from the risks in the marker. Government interest is not limited to them as the country's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is also taking steps to look into the UK crypto market.
British bitcoin websites have reassured UK's Members of Parliament through their governing body, CryptoUK, that these latest hacking incidents are nothing to be worried about. They have promised that their customers' cryptocurrencies are secure thanks to their policy of storing 90 percent of their assets offline so that they cannot be reached by hackers.
The chairman of CryptoUK, Iqbal Gandham backed the safety and security of crypto websites in the UK by saying that security is constantly improving and the current policy of using “cold storage” which isolates bitcoin stores from the Internet ensures that if a hack does happen, the amount stolen will be very small.
When asked about price volatility in the crypto market, Gandham pointed out that prices were less volatile these days. He insists that over time the market will become more stable and volatility will be the equal of stocks and shares on the international market.
