NiceHash returns 100% of stolen funds

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NiceHash has announced that on December 16, 2020, it will be repaying the remaining balances to NiceHash users affected by the 2017 NiceHash security breach. In other words, on December 16th NiceHash will have returned 100% of user-funds that were stolen during the December 6, 2017, NiceHash hack.

The NiceHash hack

On December 6th, 2017, NiceHash was hacked for 4,736 BTC. At the time, the stolen BTC was worth roughly $70 million. NiceHash believes the attacker was able to obtain a NiceHash employee’s credentials via a phishing email. Once the attacker had the employee’s credentials they subsequently emptied all of the BTC in the NiceHash wallet. Unfortunately, the attack affected NiceHash users directly, and if any user kept their funds in the NiceHash wallet, their wallet showed a balance of zero (0.00) after the hack took place. 

NiceHash was not able to recover any of the funds stolen, however, said they were committed to making their users whole again. The NiceHash repayment program began on February 2nd, 2018 and to date, 82% of the stolen funds have been repaid to Nicehash users.

NiceHash repayment program

On December 16th, NiceHash users will receive their very last payment as part of the repayment program. The upcoming payment will bring the NiceHash user’s account balances back to the amount they were at when the security breach took place in 2017.

“We have been repaying the old balance to our users through our fees and thus cutting our profits. We wanted to repay all affected users faster but the bear market that followed has slowed down the Repayment program significantly,” said the NiceHash team in its most recent announcement. 

It is rare to see a digital currency service provider that was a victim of a hack, security breach, or exploit, compensate its users in full. But hopefully, NiceHash will set a precedent for all of those affected by attackers and hackers.