Vicurex

In July 2016, Vircurex, a Beijing-based cryptocurrency exchange revered for its cloak of anonymity, crumbled under a devastating hack that exposed the fragility of even the most fortified digital vaults. Launched in 2013, Vircurex had carved a niche by offering privacy-focused features like proxy voting and masked order books, drawing a loyal cadre of users who prized discretion. Yet, this very opacity became its Achilles’ heel when attackers breached its cold wallet—a supposedly impregnable offline fortress—siphoning off 7,900 BTC, worth $46 million at Bitcoin’s price of roughly $582 per coin, per CoinGecko.

Theories swirl around the breach’s mechanics: perhaps a cunning social engineering ploy compromised an employee’s access, or a digital assault exploited unseen system flaws. The truth remains elusive, shrouded by Vircurex’s reticence. The fallout was swift and merciless—operations halted, trust shattered, and the exchange folded, leaving users with no recourse and no compensation, as detailed by CoinDesk. In the sparse regulatory haze of 2016, no legal hammer fell, and Vircurex’s silence only deepened the wound. The hack’s ripples stirred a reckoning, amplifying calls for multi-signature wallets, distributed storage, and transparent operations to anchor the crypto world’s fragile trust.