According to China-based exchange BTER, 7,170 bitcoin have been stolen from a wallet. What makes matters more interesting is that the stolen coins were in cold storage. The official website of BTER states:

“All wallets have been shut down and withdrawals of unaffected coins will be arranged later.”

BTER said they are working with law enforcement to resolve this matter, according to WeChat statements.

Here is an image of the actual coin on the blockchain:

BTER has offered a bounty of 720 BTC to anyone who recovers the stolen bitcoin. Below is the official response from BTER which was posted on reddit with links to the blockchain address:

"7170 BTC got stolen from our cold wallet in this transaction:

https://blockchain.info/tx/f5b0363f03e1ed8bb812c135361ea93590c831ce9f13a3750be1b93575baccc6

720 BTC bounty for chasing it back.

All wallets have been shut down and withdrawals of unaffected coins will be arranged later."

Sorry to all who may have been affected by this.. I know how shitty it is to have things stolen from you.. :'(

Note: 1,000BTC is currently here and another 1,000 here and here, here, here, here

This last tx is different than the rest, for whatever reason, i'm not sure: 170BTC.”

This is not the first time BTER has been hacked. The exchange lost approximately 50 million NXT (3,355.73 BTC or US$1.71 million at the time) back in August 2014, though most of the funds were recovered.

The Reddit community has asked if this was perhaps another inside job.  However, it is too early to speculate on what exactly happened as the company has only released the above statement thus far.

Cointelegraph will continue bringing you updates as the story develops. 

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