The Decentralized network which allows users to hold and convert tokens, Bancor Network (BNT) has been hacked at approximately 00:00 UTC yesterday.

Bancor Network is a Swiss-based company which proved to have a successful run in the ICO sales last year when it raised $153 million. It also had the support of famous crypto billionaire Tim Draper.

What seemed to be a good run, turned out to become troublesome when hackers took control and stole one of Bancor’s online wallets. The theft was equal to a whopping $23.5 million.

Bancor calmly tweeted the situation as it occurred-

This morning (CEST) Bancor experienced a security breach. No user wallets were compromised. To complete the investigation, we have moved to maintenance and will be releasing a more detailed report shortly. We look forward to being back online as soon as possible. — Bancor (@Bancor) July 9, 2018

However, the hack seemed to be quite serious leading to Bancor explaining the whole situation on Twitter.

Here is the latest update on the recent security breach: pic.twitter.com/JroypFvBri — Bancor (@Bancor) July 9, 2018

Out of the $23.5 million, $12.5 million were Ethereum tokens while $10 million was the BNT token which is Bancor’s native currency.

Ethereum tokens were stolen successfully, however, according to the tweet BNT tokens were protected because of the urgent freezing that took place.

The hack brought in several consequences for Bancor. Bancor’s token BNT fell rapidly according to Coinmarketcap from $3.15 at the beginning of the day to $2.62 at the time of writing which is more than a 15% fall.

According to Ernst and Young, about 10% of funds which is over $400 million raised through Initial Coin Offerings have been lost to hackers.

Further developments of Bancor’s latest hack will be updated on their social media such as Telegram and Twitter.

There have been instances of exit scams planned by the founders, however raising $153 million in its ICO in January 2017 the founders would not have waited for so long.

The hack of decentralized exchange, Bancor comes a few days after Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s harsh words on centralized exchanges. In the TechCrunch Blockchain conference in Zug, he wished and wanted centralized cryptocurrency exchanges to ‘burn in hell.’

What do you think is safer? Centralized or decentralized exchanges?

Image Source: “Flickr”