Cryptocurrency-Backed Venture Capital Fund Hacked; Ether Plunges
- Ethereum ‘perfectly safe,’ co-founder Vitalik Buterin says
- Hack invokes jitters after Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange collapse
Hackers moved some digital money from the Decentralized Autonomous Organization, a cryptocurrency-backed venture capital fund, sending the price of ether -- the virtual currency underlying the project -- plunging.
Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, which supports ether, asked exchanges in a Reddit post to “please pause ETH and DAO trading, deposits and withdrawals until further notice,” as hackers were draining DAO’s funds. In a follow-up posting to Ethereum.org, Buterin proposed a software fix that he hopes will neutralize the hack and prevent the funds from being spent. He later said Ethereum was “perfectly safe” and said exchanges can resume trading ether. Many Ethereum supporters, such as the Gemini digital currency exchange, continued to trade the currency Friday.