Bitcoinica Shutdown is Potentially Permanent

The latest from Zhou Tong in regards to yesterday's hack and the loss of over 18,000 Bitcoins:

- It's more serious than we thought. We need some additional time to come up with a compensation proposal.

- Likely we will either shut down the platform or re-develop entirely (which will take months instead of days).

- The preliminary decision: reimburse for the full amount, including margin balances and position P/L.

- The root cause of this problem is an email server compromise. The email server belongs to one of our team members.

- Reminder again: Please do not reuse your Bitcoinica passwords as the database server was compromised. Do not click any links in the email. All Bitcoinica announcements will be updated on Bitcoinica website when available.

Important Disclaimer: I'm not a partner of Bitcoinica LP after the corporate reorganisation. Therefore, I have no financial obligation in this matter as I'm only an employee of Bitcoinica LP responsible for daily operations (no shares, no voting). However, I'll do my best with the team to resolve this problem as quickly as possible and minimize the impact for the community. I appreciate your patience and understanding.

Sadly, these events are unfolding only 18 days after ownership of Bitcoinica was transferred to Intersango, who is now left holding the bag.

Posted in: bitcoinica,hacks