When Nitrogen Sports went down several times during the past days, a flurry of frustrated bettors took their disappointment over the platform to Bitcointalk. Some even believed the series of server maintenance was simply a cover-up for a possible scam scheme, concluding that the Bitcoin sports betting site will soon be running away with their bitcoins.

However, the plot thickened when Nitrogen Sports announced publicly via their official thread on the Bitcoin forum that a certain user, who has been blackmailing the sportsbook, was responsible for the repeated DDoS attacks that had caused the website to frequently go offline.

The alleged extortionist was named DD4BC as some of the attacker’s correspondences to Nitrogen Sports were revealed in the post.

Jenny, a representative of Nitrogen Sports, told BitcoinGamblingGuide:

“This particular hacker has been attacking us since July. We actually did pay him for a while to buy ourselves some time to put additional protections in place. When we decided to stop paying him, we managed to mitigate several attacks this week. He has escalated his attacks and his demand for money, and we felt that it was time to take a stand.”

In one of the attacker’s private messages, he mentioned that the other sportsbooks in the Bitcoin gambling business do not experience downtime because they meet his demands in exchange for their security. This, however, has not been verified yet.

Meanwhile, when asked about the next steps Nitrogen Sports will be taking for damage control, Jenny shared that protecting the system from the large-scale DDoS attacks they have received recently is difficult and taxing, but still assured that all the necessary actions for the site and the players are being done:

“Our tech team has been working around the clock to both mitigate any attacks that are currently happening, and to set up protection against future attacks. Unfortunately for security reasons, I’m unable to provide specific details on the measures they’re taking. But, our users have always been our first priority.”

As for the primary suspect behind the attacks and blackmails, who also tarnished the brand’s image by posting several complaints in the forum thread, his identity is still unknown.

Nevertheless, Nitrogen Sports maintains its transparency and all-out support for the Bitcoin community, and it acknowledges the huge outpour of support from its users who continue to back the Bitcoin sportsbook in this fight.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin extortion continues, with some cases registering a record of 500 BTC ransom.