Bitcoin prices plunged after one of the digital currency’s largest exchanges said it was hacked and 119,756 bitcoins were stolen, reviving memories of the money lost after Mt Gox, the then-biggest exchange, collapsed two years ago.

比特币价格大跌，此前这种数字货币的最大交易所之一表示它被黑客侵入，119756枚比特币被盗，这令人联想起两年前最大的比特币交易所Mt Gox崩溃后的财富蒸发。

Hong Kong-based Bitfinex announced the security breach and froze all customer accounts on Tuesday. Bitfinex is the largest dollar-based bitcoin exchange and third-largest globally behind OKCoin and BTC China, both of which quote in renminbi.

总部位于香港的Bitfinex周二宣布了上述安全事件，并冻结了所有客户账户。Bitfinex是最大的基于美元的比特币交易所，也是全球第三大比特币交易所，仅次于用人民币报价的OKCoin和比特币中国(BTC China)。

Following the disclosure, bitcoin prices slid 20 per cent from $604 to $482 in the US, marking a two-month low. By late afternoon in Hong Kong yesterday they had recovered to $544.71, according to itBit, another dollar-based exchange.

消息传出后，比特币价格在美国下滑20%，从604美元降至482美元，标志着两个月低点。据另一家基于美元的交易所itBit数据，昨日香港时间傍晚时分，比特币价格已恢复到544.71美元。

Bitfinex said: “We are investigating the breach to determine what happened, but we know that some of our users have had their bitcoins stolen.”

Bitfinex表示：“我们正在调查这起入侵事件，以确定情况，但我们知道有些用户的比特币被盗。”

The theft comes weeks after US regulators warned that digital currencies such as bitcoin may pose risks to financial stability because of operators’ limited experience of working with distributed ledger systems, whose vulnerabilities might only become apparent as their use grows.

发生这起盗窃事件的几周前，美国监管机构警告称，比特币之类的数字货币可能因经营者在分布式记账系统方面经验有限而对金融稳定构成风险，而且这类系统的漏洞可能要在它们部署到一定规模后才会显露出来。

While exact details of the hack are unknown, it is considered within the bitcoin community as a test of much-vaunted multi-signatory systems, under which at least two keys, kept in separate locations, are needed to transact. In theory, a hacker would need to access more than one key to move the coins.

尽管无从得知此次黑客攻击的具体细节，但在比特币社区内部，它被视为给大受吹捧的多重签名机制带来一个考验；根据这种机制，至少需要有保存在不同地点的两个私钥才能完成交易。理论上，黑客需要获得多于一个私钥才能转移这些比特币。

Bitfinex uses BitGo, a pioneer of multi-signatory systems. Yesterday, BitGo said on Twitter that its investigation had found “no evidence of a breach to any BitGo servers”.

Bitfinex采用多重签名机制的先驱BitGo。昨日BitGo在Twitter上表示，其调查“没有发现证据显示任何BitGo服务器被侵入”。

Zane Tackett, director of community at Bitfinex, said in a Reddit thread responding to user questions that “there were limits in place to restrict the amount of [bitcoin] that could be signed for a withdrawal; we’re still trying to investigate how these limits were bypassed”.

Bitfinex社区总监赞恩•塔克特(Zane Tackett)在Reddit上回应用户问题时表示，“对于可以签名提取的比特币数量，是设有限制的；我们仍在调查这些限制是如何被绕开的”。

Bitcoin businesses said the hack was likely to damage confidence, but less so than the collapse in 2014 of Tokyo-based Mt Gox.

Bitcoin商家表示，此次黑客攻击很可能会损害信心，但不会像总部位于东京的Mt Gox在2014年崩溃那次那样严重。

“This will hurt confidence but people already using bitcoin are still trading,” said Arthur Hayes, founder of Hong Kong-based Bitmex, which offers bitcoin derivatives and which saw volumes jump fourfold yesterday in the wake of the attack on Bitfinex.

“这将损害信心，但已经使用比特币的人们仍在交易，” Bitmex创始人阿瑟•海斯(Arthur Hayes)昨日表示。总部设在香港的Bitmex提供比特币衍生产品，昨日Bitfinex被黑的消息传出后，其交易量升至原来的四倍。

Bitfinex said it was “committing every resource” to resolving its problems and was focused on resuming trading.

Bitfinex表示，它已“投入一切资源”解决相关问题，并将专注于恢复交易。