Bitfinex Exchange to Resume Bitcoin Trading Today

Power
10 August 2016

Bitfinex has announced it will resume trading and withdrawals just over a week after it was robbed of more than $60m in bitcoin.

Trading functionality will be reinstated at 16:00 UTC, the exchange said in a new update. All listed currency pairs will be brought online and withdrawals will be enabled for bitcoin, ether, classic ether and USD. Deposits will also be reactivated.

Bitfinex revealed last week that it lost nearly 120,000 bitcoins, an announcement that sparked broad debate in the digital currency ecosystem and broader mainstream media criticism.

The exchange has said that it is imposing a roughly 36% loss on user balances as a result of the theft.

As part of its recovery, Bitfinex is issuing a token via the Omni protocol. Trading for the token will be activated alongside other trading pairs, with markets being created for USD and BTC. Users in the US will be able to sell their BFX tokens, but not buy additional tokens.

The exchange said it had taken “significant steps” toward improving the state of its security, explaining:

“We have added additional platform and infrastructure security checks; regenerated all encrypted services, including wallets, security tokens and passwords; moved funds to multisig cold storage; re-evaluated all third-party integrations; performed a comprehensive system audit in order to identify vulnerabilities; and, rebuilt our entire platform on new infrastructure.”

Bitfinex said that it will no longer support deposit addresses created prior to the exchange shutdown, and warned traders to avoid using old addresses when making deposits.

Image via Shutterstock