Cryptocurrencies, and especially ICOs, have been under increased scrutiny as of late. The ICO business model allows for users to raise millions within hours, without needing to go through official channels. While this is great for startups, it has encouraged an environment of distrust and fraud. The distrust seems to be going both ways, as certain ICOs have recently gotten hacked and lost millions. The latest victim, Veritaseum, lost $4.5 million worth of tokens when they were hacked earlier this week.
When cryptocurrencies and ICOs are successfully hacked, it is a cause for concern as the theft undermines the reputation of the safe nature of the blockchain technology. This reputation is the basis for Blockchain. Most of the theft pertaining to ICOs happen in the form of hacking. The Veritaseum ICO suffered a damaging hack which lost them millions shortly after they concluded their ICO campaign. The hacker was able to infiltrate and steal a large amount of the ICOs VERI tokens. Since this attack, all the money has been transferred to two different addresses. The total amount of stolen tokens amounts to the equivalent of $4.5 million.
So far only limited details about the hack, including any details regarding the investigation, have been made publicly available. What is currently known is that the hacker likely planned a highly sophisticated attack in order to infiltrate the Veritaseum network. Since the attack, it has been announced that the attack vector has been sufficiently addressed in order to prevent similar attacks from taking place in the future.
However, it will be impossible to recover the stolen funds. It has been speculated that the majority of the tokens will be dumped on cryptocurrency exchange platforms across the globe in the next year. This, in turn, will greatly affect the market value of the VERI token.
This is not the first Ethereum-based ICO campaign which has been targeted, and it is likely that the latest attack will only cause more scrutiny among governmental and regulatory agencies. A few months ago, several Ethereum projects suffered great losses due to MyEtherWallet hacks. In addition, over $37 million worth of Ether was stolen from several projects last month.
Several users have posited that the technology used by ICO campaigns on centralized servers could make it vulnerable to hacking. However, very few details on the subject have been made available and the question is currently mostly being answered by speculation.
Luckily, the Veritaseum investors are likely to remain largely unaffected by the hack. Rumors have circulated that the majority of stolen funds belonged to the Veritaseum team, rather than investor. This is yet to be confirmed.
When cryptocurrencies and ICOs are successfully hacked, it is a cause for concern as the theft undermines the reputation of the safe nature of the blockchain technology. This reputation is the basis for Blockchain. Most of the theft pertaining to ICOs happen in the form of hacking. The Veritaseum ICO suffered a damaging hack which lost them millions shortly after they concluded their ICO campaign. The hacker was able to infiltrate and steal a large amount of the ICOs VERI tokens. Since this attack, all the money has been transferred to two different addresses. The total amount of stolen tokens amounts to the equivalent of $4.5 million.
So far only limited details about the hack, including any details regarding the investigation, have been made publicly available. What is currently known is that the hacker likely planned a highly sophisticated attack in order to infiltrate the Veritaseum network. Since the attack, it has been announced that the attack vector has been sufficiently addressed in order to prevent similar attacks from taking place in the future.
However, it will be impossible to recover the stolen funds. It has been speculated that the majority of the tokens will be dumped on cryptocurrency exchange platforms across the globe in the next year. This, in turn, will greatly affect the market value of the VERI token.
This is not the first Ethereum-based ICO campaign which has been targeted, and it is likely that the latest attack will only cause more scrutiny among governmental and regulatory agencies. A few months ago, several Ethereum projects suffered great losses due to MyEtherWallet hacks. In addition, over $37 million worth of Ether was stolen from several projects last month.
Several users have posited that the technology used by ICO campaigns on centralized servers could make it vulnerable to hacking. However, very few details on the subject have been made available and the question is currently mostly being answered by speculation.
Luckily, the Veritaseum investors are likely to remain largely unaffected by the hack. Rumors have circulated that the majority of stolen funds belonged to the Veritaseum team, rather than investor. This is yet to be confirmed.