SantaHacker Shares Gift: Bitcoin Price Exceeds $320K on Exchange After Hack

By: Dickson Arinze

December 25, 2020 7:14 PM

Russian unpopular crypto exchange Livecoin claims that it has suffered a “carefully planned attack,” a few community members thinks it's planned for Exit.

The aftermath of an alleged hacker attack on Christmas day. According to Livecoin’s main page, the exchange has suffered a “carefully planned attack” causing the platform to lose control of all of its servers, backend and nodes which has caused it to halt operations.

The exchange has urged its users to stop using its services which includes trading, deposit and API “We were not able to stop our service in time. Our news channels were compromised as well. At the moment, we partially control frontend, and so we’re able to place this announcement," According to Livecoin main page

Livecoin said that it’s working hard to retrieve control of its servers, promising to provide a security update “in the next few days.” The exchange also claimed that it is cooperating with “local police authorities.”

According to some reports, the incident took place on the night between Dec. 23 and Dec. 24. Hackers have apparently managed to take over Livecoin’s infrastructure and modify the prices on the exchange to abnormally high values.

A co-founder of YellowBlock, a crypto educational website, known as "Cryptorangutang" said that Bitcoin (BTC) exceeded $320,000 per coin on the platform on Dec. 24. “Whatever is going on, I don’t recommend trying to make $ on this, very likely you will get your funds stuck,” he wrote on Twitter.

According to comments of exchange users on Livecoin’s unofficial Telegram group, the exchange is not operating at the time of publishing despite the exchange having briefly opened a login page. Some Reddit users also suggested that Livecoin's "hack" could be a classic exit scam.

At the time of publishing, Livecoin’s trading volumes are not available on major crypto tracking websites like CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap. As of Dec. 24, Livecoin was reportedly ranked 173 among crypto exchanges, with a daily trading volume of around $16 million.