More problems in the Bitcoin universe: the new protagonists, after the crack at MtGox, are the exchange platforms Poloniex and the Flexcoin bank. The first one revealed a robbery of 12.4% of its reserves. The second declared it is shutting down after have lost 896 bitcoins – the equivalent of 450,000 euros – in a hacker attack on March 2nd.
The official communication reads: “As Flexcoin does not have the resources, assets, or otherwise to come back from this loss, we are closing our doors immediately.” The bank still has bitcoin reserves in “cold storage”, or rather, on devices that are not connected to the internet. But they can only be returned to those clients who explicitly requested custody of their cryptocurrency in this way.
Just a week earlier the bank had distanced itself from the problems that had occurred at the MtGox exchange.
We hold zero coins in other companies, exchanges etc. While the MtGox closure is unfortunate, we at Flexcoin have not lost anything.
— flexcoin (@flexcoin) 25 Febbraio 2014
Poloniex, on the other hand, will remain open and will try to replenish losses itself by operating with a fractional reserve. In a statement, Poloniex’s owner wrote, “I will be donating some of my own money, and I will not be taking profit until the debt is paid”.
In Singapore, in the meantime, the startup community is interrogating the death of Autumn Radtke, the 28-year-old CEO of the exchange platform First Meta. The hypothesis is suicide – at least according to social media sources – but investigators have not confirmed this. They are awaiting the results of the toxicology exam and until then there is no official explanation of her death.
