Another Bitcoin exchange shutters after thefts and unrecoverable losses

By TIM WORSTALL at Pando Daily 

As I remember it in James Bond it’s twice that’s just coincidence and thrice that’s enemy action. If that’s true, we’re well outside the realms of happenstance now as Vircurex, one of the smaller alt-currency exchanges, closes its doors. And for the same reason as MtGox collapsed: someone got in, took a bunch of coins and the exchange doesn’t have enough to cover the losses.

As you may very well be aware, we had two incidents last year that lead to a loss of a significant number of BTC, LTC, FTC, TRC. We had communicated at that time that we will be covering those losses from our income, which we have done so far. We had enough coin balances in our cold wallet to upkeep our platform and the positive cashflow enabled us to gradually refill the wallets.

Unfortunately we had large fund withdrawals in the last weeks which have lead to a complete depletion of our cold wallet balance and we are now facing the option of either closing the site with significant unrecoverable losses for all or to work out a solution that allows the exchange to continue to operate and gradually pay back the losses.

It’s what Vircurex is proposing to do next which betrays a certain amount of optimism.