Update: BTC-e is back online. The website is up and running and the exchange’s Twitter feed confirmed the news.
Following a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that targeted its server yesterday, European bitcoin exchange operator BTC-e continues to be offline.
Bitcoin and alt.coins exchange BTC-e was knocked offline for several erratic hours yesterday. Users took to social media to speculate the reasons for the cause of the attacks with some stating that BTC-e was hacked, rather than being the target of a DDoS attack.
In providing some clarity with the situation, the exchange’s Twitter account revealed:
Furthermore, concerns raised from whispers of a hack seem to be unfounded with no real evidence to confirm a hack. For its part, BTC-e has updated its Twitter feed to briefly touch on the goings-on and revealed a ‘hardware error’ as the reason for the website being offline.The above tweet was posted less than an hour of publishing. The current downtime comes at a time when Bitcoin price touched and scaled beyond $450 for the first time in 2016. The Bitstamp Price Index struck a new year-high of $463.41 at 01:32 AM UCT today.
The incident joins others in a recent surge in DDoS extortionists targeting bitcoin exchanges. Chinese exchange BTCC recently bore the brunt of a DDoS attack but refused to cave in to the extortionist’s ransom demands.
A representative for BTC-e wasn’t immediately available for a comment at the time of publishing.
CCN readers and BTC-e users, were you able to withdraw your BTC/LTC from BTC-e during or after the DDoS incident yesterday? Are you able to transact or withdraw today? Let us know in the comments below.
Image from Shutterstock.
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