The altcoin exchange Bter.com today announced the alleged theft of 7170BTC from what the exchange claims was a cold wallet. The first signs of problems appeared earlier today when a now removed messaged greeted Bter.com visitors:
We have to suspend all our services waiting for the security check. More information will be released as soon as possible. Sorry for the interruption.
我们将暂停服务，进行系统安全检查，给您造成不便请谅解…
BTER.com Email:support@mail.bter.com Phone:400-0070-955 QQ: 4000070955
Having completed a "security check", the website now displays the following announcement:
7170 BTC got stolen from our cold wallet in this transaction:
https://blockchain.info/tx/f5b0363f03e1ed8bb812c135361ea93590c831ce9f13a3750be1b93575baccc6
720 BTC bounty for chasing it back.
All wallets have been shut down and withdrawals of the unaffected coins will be arranged later.
BTER.com
Email:support@mail.bter.com
Phone:400-0070-955
QQ: 4000070955
The Bter.com exchange was launched in early 2013 amid an explosion of altcoins lead predominantly by Litecoin. At the time, it was one of few exchanges where people could trade coins such as Freicoin, Chinacoin, Worldcoin and Yacoin.
Bter.com was originally "maintained and operated" by the MYIP Team but this was later changed to a company registered in the British Virgin Islands by the name of MaxCloud Inc.1 To date, Bter.com has been administered by Lin Han aka freeworm who was regularly active on the BitcoinTalk forums up until ten days ago.
Good luck finding information on that company! "A company is not required to file its register of directors, register of members, register of charges or an annual return with the BVI Registrar of Corporate Affairs." ↩