Cryptocurrency mining marketplace NiceHash claims $62 million in Bitcoin theft

On Wednesday, the official team of the cryptocurrency mining market NiceHash announced that it had been hacked.

NiceHash said on social media that "a security breach occurred on the NiceHash website," resulting in a large amount of funds being stolen. Founded in 2014, NiceHash provides a rental market where cryptocurrency miners can rent out their computing power to others.

The announcement comes after NiceHash experienced an hours-long outage and a large number of users reported that their NiceHash-related wallets were emptied. NiceHash had previously announced that they were “under maintenance” and a message posted on their website also stated so.

The company said in a statement:

“Our payment system was hacked and NiceHash Bitcoin wallets were stolen. We are working to verify the amount of Bitcoin that was stolen. Obviously, this is a matter of deep concern and we are working to correct it in the coming days. In addition to our own investigation, the incident has been reported to the relevant authorities and law enforcement. We are working with them as a matter of urgency.”

Although the team did not reveal the exact amount, a wallet address distributed by NiceHash users showed that as much as 4,736.42 BTC — worth about $62 million at current prices — had been stolen.

Following the breach and theft, the NiceHash team urged users to change their non-NiceHash network passwords.

They wrote in their announcement:

"While we do not yet know the full extent of this theft, as a precaution we recommend that you change your network passwords."