Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
Gatecoin, one of world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges in terms of market capitalization, announced it has raised USD 500 000 from a listed Japanese investment company. The large part of the sum will be used to beef up the security of Gatecoin’s systems and hire additional staff, following the May hacker attack.
We remind you that in May Gatecoin experienced a security breach and lost 250 Bitcoins and 185 000 Ethers that were stolen by the hackers. At the then prices, the sum amounted to $ 2 million and was 15% of of the total crypto-asset deposits held by the exchange. The attack forced Gatecoin to suspend trading while the investigation was ongoing. Since then the re-launch date has been postponed several times and, according to the latest blog post of Gatecoin, it will go back in business in early August, after the security updates are completed.
According to Aurélien Menant, founder and CEO of Gatecoin, the rest of the USD 500 000 will be used to keep the company afloat, while its management team continues to raise funds and seek other solutions to repay the stolen cryptocurrencies. So far Gatecoin has recovered 5000 of the stolen Ethers, with the help of the US cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex.
Meanwhile, Menant informs, the criminal investigation of the theft by the Cyber Security and Technology Crime Bureau of the Hong Kong police is still ongoing and no details on the security breach can be divulged.
According to the website coinmarketcap.com, right before suspending its activities Gatecoin had a market capitalization of $5 077 950. It was established as a bitcoin exchange and trading platform in 2013 by the former investment banker Menant. The exchange is licensed as Money Service Operator in Hong Kong and, besides trading in Bitcoin, Ether, Augur Tokens, USD, EUR and HKD, offers cross-border money transfer solutions.
Gatecoin was the first cryptocurrency exchange to offer segregated client bank accounts in Europe – a practice common for the reputable “ordinary” forex brokers.
