Dogevault.com, a site that claims to hold the cryptocurrency Dogecoin in conditions of optimal security, has gone down.

The site now consists of the following message:

Notice: We apologise for the downtime, a press release will be posted here within 24 hours. Please do not transfer any funds to Dogevault addresses while our investigation is under way. Email support@dogevault.com for any enquiries.

Speculation is rife in posts like this Reddit missive that the site was hacked, taking with it at least 950,000 Dogecoin. Another report suggests up to 111 million Dogecoin seem to have mysteriously appeared in a “mega wallet” linked to Dogevault.

With the Dogecoin to $USD exchange rate running at 1000:$0.46, that's about $51,000 hardly the millions suspected to have evaporated from Bitcoin exchange Mt Gox but still a nasty lot of cryptocash to lose.

If Dogevault has indeed been fatally compromised it will make it harder to sustain cryptocurrency enthusiasm: whatever the upsides of the concept, security of some participants clearly needs to be tightened. ®