香港比特幣交易所遭黑客侵入

Bitcoin prices plunged after one of the digital currency’s largest exchanges said it was hacked and 119,756 bitcoins were stolen, reviving memories of the money lost after Mt Gox, the then-biggest exchange, collapsed two years ago.

比特幣價格大跌，此前這種數字貨幣的最大交易所之一表示它被黑客侵入，119756枚比特幣被盜，這令人聯想起兩年前最大的比特幣交易所Mt Gox崩潰後的財富蒸發。

Hong Kong-based Bitfinex announced the security breach and froze all customer accounts on Tuesday. Bitfinex is the largest dollar-based bitcoin exchange and third-largest globally behind OKCoin and BTC China, both of which quote in renminbi.

總部位於香港的Bitfinex週二宣佈了上述安全事件，並凍結了所有客戶賬戶。Bitfinex是最大的基於美元的比特幣交易所，也是全球第三大比特幣交易所，僅次於用人民幣報價的OKCoin和比特幣中國(BTC China)。

Following the disclosure, bitcoin prices slid 20 per cent from $604 to $482 in the US, marking a two-month low. By late afternoon in Hong Kong yesterday they had recovered to $544.71, according to itBit, another dollar-based exchange.

消息傳出後，比特幣價格在美國下滑20%，從604美元降至482美元，標誌着兩個月低點。據另一家基於美元的交易所itBit數據，昨日香港時間傍晚時分，比特幣價格已恢復到544.71美元。

Bitfinex said: “We are investigating the breach to determine what happened, but we know that some of our users have had their bitcoins stolen.”

Bitfinex表示：“我們正在調查這起入侵事件，以確定情況，但我們知道有些用戶的比特幣被盜。”

The theft comes weeks after US regulators warned that digital currencies such as bitcoin may pose risks to financial stability because of operators’ limited experience of working with distributed ledger systems, whose vulnerabilities might only become apparent as their use grows.

發生這起盜竊事件的幾周前，美國監管機構警告稱，比特幣之類的數字貨幣可能因經營者在分佈式記賬系統方面經驗有限而對金融穩定構成風險，而且這類系統的漏洞可能要在它們部署到一定規模後纔會顯露出來。

While exact details of the hack are unknown, it is considered within the bitcoin community as a test of much-vaunted multi-signatory systems, under which at least two keys, kept in separate locations, are needed to transact. In theory, a hacker would need to access more than one key to move the coins.

儘管無從得知此次黑客攻擊的具體細節，但在比特幣社區內部，它被視爲給大受吹捧的多重簽名機制帶來一個考驗；根據這種機制，至少需要有保存在不同地點的兩個私鑰才能完成交易。理論上，黑客需要獲得多於一個私鑰才能轉移這些比特幣。

Bitfinex uses BitGo, a pioneer of multi-signatory systems. Yesterday, BitGo said on Twitter that its investigation had found “no evidence of a breach to any BitGo servers”.

Bitfinex採用多重簽名機制的先驅BitGo。昨日BitGo在Twitter上表示，其調查“沒有發現證據顯示任何BitGo服務器被侵入”。

Zane Tackett, director of community at Bitfinex, said in a Reddit thread responding to user questions that “there were limits in place to restrict the amount of [bitcoin] that could be signed for a withdrawal; we’re still trying to investigate how these limits were bypassed”.

Bitfinex社區總監贊恩•塔克特(Zane Tackett)在Reddit上回應用戶問題時表示，“對於可以簽名提取的比特幣數量，是設有限制的；我們仍在調查這些限制是如何被繞開的”。

Bitcoin businesses said the hack was likely to damage confidence, but less so than the collapse in 2014 of Tokyo-based Mt Gox.

Bitcoin商家表示，此次黑客攻擊很可能會損害信心，但不會像總部位於東京的Mt Gox在2014年崩潰那次那樣嚴重。

“This will hurt confidence but people already using bitcoin are still trading,” said Arthur Hayes, founder of Hong Kong-based Bitmex, which offers bitcoin derivatives and which saw volumes jump fourfold yesterday in the wake of the attack on Bitfinex.

“這將損害信心，但已經使用比特幣的人們仍在交易，” Bitmex創始人阿瑟•海斯(Arthur Hayes)昨日表示。總部設在香港的Bitmex提供比特幣衍生產品，昨日Bitfinex被黑的消息傳出後，其交易量升至原來的四倍。

Bitfinex said it was “committing every resource” to resolving its problems and was focused on resuming trading.

Bitfinex表示，它已“投入一切資源”解決相關問題，並將專注於恢復交易。