NiceHash, a favorite among the cryptocurrency mining community, announced Wednesday that hackers stole around $78 million from their bitcoin wallet.

On Dec. 6, NiceHash’s website and mining platform went down for a prolonged, unscheduled maintenance. After over 12 hours of no real information, NiceHash tweeted that their bitcoin wallet was compromised, resulting in potential losses of $64 million (around 4,800 BTC).

Dear NiceHash user, our service is currently under maintenance.

We are sorry for the inconvenience and please stay tuned for updates.

Thank you for your understanding. — NiceHash (@NiceHashMining) December 6, 2017

Here is our official PRESS RELEASE about the security breach!https://t.co/yhfdjXkJwc — NiceHash (@NiceHashMining) December 6, 2017

Here is the official statement:

Unfortunately, there has been a security breach involving NiceHash website. We are currently investigating the nature of the incident and, as a result, we are stopping all operations for the next 24 hours. Importantly, our payment system was compromised and the contents of the NiceHash Bitcoin wallet have been stolen. We are working to verify the precise number of BTC taken. Clearly, this is a matter of deep concern and we are working hard to rectify the matter in the coming days. In addition to undertaking our own investigation, the incident has been reported to the relevant authorities and law enforcement and we are co-operating with them as a matter of urgency. We are fully committed to restoring the NiceHash service with the highest security measures at the earliest opportunity. We would not exist without our devoted buyers and miners all around the globe. We understand that you will have a lot of questions, and we ask for patience and understanding while we investigate the causes and find the appropriate solutions for the future of the service. We will endeavour to update you at regular intervals. While the full scope of what happened is not yet known, we recommend, as a precaution, that you change your online passwords. We are truly sorry for any inconvenience that this may have caused and are committing every resource towards solving this issue as soon as possible.

It is not yet clear whether or not NiceHash will be able to continue operations, or if users will feel comfortable enough to continue using their platform. NiceHash’s easy installer, simple interface, and consistent bitcoin payouts allowed novice cryptocurrency miners to sell their hashing power. With NiceHash down, profitability has popped on mining individual coins, which has resulted in significant difficulty spikes that have made it almost impossible for the average miner to gain rewards for their hashing power.

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