The bitcoin plummets 15% after a great virtual robbery of the cryptocurrency

The price of bitcoin has plummeted this morning in Asian markets to 15% after the South Korean cryptocurrency platform (Youbit) announced its bankruptcy after suffering a virtual theft of approximately 17% of its digital currency portfolio. The bitcoin was previously scaled to a ceiling of 2.26 million yen (about 16,918 euros) in Coincheck, one of the Japanese markets with chairman turnover, but this Wednesday it has fallen to 1.885 billion yen (14.102 euros) )

The South Korean Youbit market, known as Yapizon, was forced to declare bankruptcy after allowing its customers to withdraw 75% of the balance of their digital wallets and lose the rest of their assets in the cyber attack on Tuesday. The programmers made the attack at 4.35 am nearby (19.35 GMT Monday), according to the company’s website, without revealing the value of the cryptocurrencies that were stolen.

“To minimize the damages of our clients, we will allow them to withdraw approximately 75% of the balance,” said a member of the company, in statements collected by the Korean agency Yonhap. The rest of virtual currencies did not run any danger, since they were stored in a “cold wallet”, a term that refers to keeping a reserve of cryptocurrencies in a place without connection to the network, as in a USB stick or other elements physical

Youbit suffered another attack last April, in which hackers stole cryptocurrencies worth 5,500 billion won (4.3 million euros), according to media regions.

Virtual currencies have become a well-known medium of payment and a booming investment asset Japan and South Korea. This last country has become one of its markets with more capitalization worldwide, despite having been affected on several occasions by cyber attacks.

The theft of currency on Youbit was created days after the South Korean spy agency said that North Korea was behind the attacks on this year’s cryptocurrency exchange houses in the country.

The cryptocurrency has accumulated problems in the last dates, since this Tuesday the US authorities suspended the negotiation of the shares of the Crypto Company, whose activities are related to the bitcoin, alleging concern about a possible manipulation in the market after the value of your titles will skyrocket.

Financial analysts believe that the decline has been driven by the theft and regulation of the US, but also the adjustment of its price derived from its upward streak. The bitcoin’s price has shot up almost twenty times since January and reached a new high this month after two US futures markets, CBOE and CME Chicago, began bidding for contracts.