Bitcoin mining startup gets a new CEO - a month after Rs 500 crore plunder

Cryptocurrency mining firm, NiceHash, which dealt with a security breach last month resulting in a wipe-off of bitcoins worth Rs 500 crore, has got a new CEO. Reportedly, Zdravko Poljašević who headed a Solvenian company Kreativni najemi is set to replace Marko Kobal.

Kobal, who saw through the phase of rebuilding following the attack, announced his decision to step down in a LinkedIn post. “We at NiceHash have been working round the clock to rebuild our internal systems as well as management structure,” he said.

“I shall now stand aside and allow new management to lead the organization through its next, exciting period of growth – therefore I decided to resign as CEO of NiceHash.”

Kobal is one of the co-founders of the company.

NiceHash borrows and lends mining power and facilitates the mining of cryptocurrencies for its users. About 4,700 bitcoins were stolen from wallets on its server in a hacking attempt on December 6 and the services were stopped for over 24 hours. The top brass of the company had to apologise to the users in a Facebook live stream.

Also Read: What is bitcoin mining?

Later, the company announced that it will reimburse the users who were robbed in the attack. “We have now been able to reserve the funds required to restore balances from a group of international investors in our business,” the company said in an announcement. However, balances lower than 0.0001 bitcoin (Rs 95) will be written off, it added.

The investigation into the security breach is still going on. Kobal had said following the breach that prima facie the hackers were from outside Europe. The hackers had accessed the computers of the company and stole a NiceHash engineer’s credentials. These credentials were used by them to access the payment system.