While the price of Bitcoin has increased by more than 1200% since the beginning of the year, cryptocurrency seems to enjoy an unprecedented craze.
But his journey was not easy.
Over the years, the Bitcoin ecosystem has been the target of attacks, scams and abusive practices. And some investors have left feathers, losing some or all of their digital heritage.
Note that the cases that will be presented in this article only concern services related to Bitcoin. The Bitcoin blockchain has never been "hacked" since its deployment in January 2009 - when it must have been the target of many attacks.
June 2011: a user is stolen most of his Bitcoins ($ 500,000)
At the beginning of 2011, the Bitcoin ecosystem is limited to a small community of enthusiasts, who are probably far from imagining that large audit firms would ever accept payments in digital currency, or that the BTC would sometimes be used as a store of value that is safer than some national currencies.
At that time, individuals could simply obtain digital currency through mining. Some have been able to harvest several thousand Bitcoins through a simple desktop.
That's what Allinvain, a user of the Bitcoin Talk forum, did. He managed to accumulate, over the months, a reserve of 25,000 BTC - but the price of Bitcoin was worth only a few cents.
Until the price of the BTC increases sharply from April 2011, from less than a dollar to almost $ 30 two months later:
Allinvain suddenly found himself at the head of a bonanza of nearly 750 000 dollars - the price of Bitcoin however significantly decreased in the days that followed.
But this rise seems to have attracted some envious. Less than a week later, it is a disaster that occurs for the user.
"I just saw, when I had just woken up, that a large part of my Bitcoin balance was gone," he wrote.
Allinvain explained that he thought that pirates had managed to break into his PC, to steal access to his Bitcoins on his hard drive.
If these corners had not been stolen - and Allinvain had kept them until today - the net surfer would be at the head of a fortune of more than 300 million dollars.
August 2011: sudden disappearance of MyBitcoin wallet provider ($ 900 million)
Companies offering digital wallet services offer users the ability to store Bitcoins on their behalf. If these platforms were successful at the time, it was primarily because they facilitated the management of a BTC account.
But many of them have proved to be insecure, while others seem to have been put in place for the sole purpose of stealing Bitcoins. It was often difficult to know which of these two categories to put away, since most scammers seem to tend to evoke piracy to justify a loss of digital currency.
MyBitcoin offered services of this type. But in August 2011, the company suddenly disappeared from the surface of the web, explaining that the platform had been the victim of piracy that had led to the loss of nearly 79,000 BTC, or 51% of the amounts it held. .
To this day, the mystery remains intact. It is still impossible to know if it was not a simple maneuver allowing the company to grab the digital assets of Internet users who had trusted it.
These unfortunate experiences have made Bitcoin community members very suspicious of these "cloud" portfolios.
Note that there are now services such as blockchain.info, launched in August 2011, that allow users to enjoy full control over their wallet, where they hold private keys. Even if their data is stored on the company's servers, they are encrypted. Users can also easily transfer their wallet to other compatible wallet software.
March 2012: the hacking of a web hosting platform leads to the theft of more than 64,000 Bitcoins ($ 350,000)
Logo of the BitcoinicaBitcoinica platform, a Bitcoin trading platform, was launched in September 2011.
In March 2012, hackers took advantage of a security breach detected in the shared hosting company Linode used by the company. They were able to access the wallet on which Bitcoinica stored its digital currency, and seize at least 46,703 Bitcoins - which were worth more than $ 200,000 - from various users of Linode.
Two months later, in May 2012, Bitcoinica was the victim of a second hacking, which cost 18,000 more Bitcoins. In August, the company was sued by many customers unhappy with the loss of their digital assets.
These hacks have shown how companies that offer Bitcoin-related services have become targets, and they have really realized that they needed to upgrade their security systems.
August 2012: A Ponzi scheme based on Bitcoin is closed ($ 7.5 million)
Bitcoin Savings and Trust Bitcoin Savings and Trust was a typical Ponzi scheme. Huge investment returns were promised to clients - 7% a week. Trendon Shavers, the man behind this pyramid scheme, used the deposits of new customers to pay those who asked to withdraw their money.
But the trick was discovered in August 2012. Trendon Shavers was then sentenced to 16 months in jail and $ 1.23 million restitution to his victims.
The US government had accused him of obtaining 764,000 Bitcoins by taking advantage of the credulity of its customers - the equivalent of $ 4.5 million.
September 2012: another platform closes after hacking ($ 250,000)
Bitfloor logo In September 2012, Bitfloor, a Bitcoin trading platform, was the victim of a major attack. Hackers managed to steal 24,000 bitcoins, worth about $ 250,000.
Bitfloor did not have enough money to pay its customers. The company resumed business a few weeks later, hoping to pocket enough transaction costs to compensate the injured customers. But these efforts were unsuccessful, and Bitfloor closed for good in April 2013, apparently without having achieved it.
February 2014: hackers bring down the largest cryptocurrency trading platform ($ 350 million)
Mt.Gox, which was then the main cryptocurrency trading platform, was involved in over 70% of Bitcoin trade.
Managed from Japan by the French Mark Karpelès, Mt. Gox was the reference site for those who wanted to buy and sell Bitcoins.
While the platform allowed when it was created, in 2009, to buy and sell cards Magic: The Gathering Online, it was converted the next year into a digital currency trading platform.
In February 2014, Mt. Gox announced that 744,408 Bitcoins had disappeared - they would have been, according to the company, stolen by pirates. At that time it was the equivalent of $ 350 million. Today, these Bitcoins are worth nearly $ 9 billion.
The platform had precipitated the fall of Bitcoin, since it had lost 36% of its value between February 1 and the end of March.
In July, US law enforcement officials announced that they had arrested a suspect who played a key role in the robbery. This is Alexander Vinnik, a man of Russian nationality, responsible for the platform BTC-e. Federal agents accuse him of having knowingly accepted the Bitcoins stolen from Mt. Gox in order to "whitewash" them with his own platform.
The collapse of Mt. Gox left behind many angry customers. And even if the platform will soon have to reimburse some, do not worry about Mark Karpelès: the man will have to settle debts in yen, according to the course of Bitcoin which prevailed during the flight (400 dollars against 11 000 dollars today). He should be able to leave with the equivalent of 859 million dollars, while having been able to repay the investors who had dragged him to court.
The platform's creditors, however, believe that the reparations should take into account the appreciation of Bitcoin - but Japanese courts do not seem to agree.
January 2015: The Bitstamp trading platform is a victim of piracy ($ 5 million)
Logo BitstampIn January 2015, Nejc Kodrič, CEO of the Bitstamp trading platform, explained that it had been stolen about 19,000 Bitcoins - then, at the time, the equivalent of $ 5 million.
But it was only a small part of the Bitcoins stored by the company. She was able to survive the attack she suffered, since it is still a relatively popular platform.
August 2016: Another trading platform gets stolen 120,000 Bitcoins ($ 77 million)
BitfinexThis is the latest major hacking in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
In August 2016, the Bitfinex trading platform announced that pirates had stolen nearly 120,000 Bitcoins. The digital currency was trading at around $ 650, bringing the total to $ 77 million.
The company then decided to distribute its losses equitably among all users, forcing all of them to suffer a 36% drop in the amount of their deposits.
Bitfinex still exists today, but some are asking questions about the credibility of this company. The New York Times has indicated that Bitfinex is an "opaque company that provides no information on its site about the individuals who run the activity, where the place in which it takes place."
The morality of these different flights? It is strongly recommended to favor media that allows you to have control over your private keys. It is advisable to leave only a small part of its digital possessions on third-party platforms such as Bittrex or Coinbase, and to favor "paper", software or "hardware" portfolios.
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