Whose fault is it that Bitfinex got hacked? Was it BitGO? What about other exchanges that also use BitGo?

Another shocking theft of Bitcoin! Bitfinex was hacked, resulting in the theft of 119,756 BTC. The price of Bitcoin has plummeted by nearly 20%, which is about $64 million at the time of publication.

Bitfinex uses the BitGo security platform. Since the theft, BitGo has become the target of public criticism. However, BitGo’s official Twitter account denied that there was any vulnerability in their server:

Following direct notification from a customer earlier today, we have found no evidence that any BitGo servers were compromised.

BitGo is not only used by Bitfinex, but also by other large exchanges such as Bitstamp and Kraken.

Theymos posted on r/Bitcoin:

The settings of Bitfinex are really ridiculous. They actually store all Bitcoins through BitGo, but then BitGo handles these Bitcoins according to all the requirements of Bitfinex. This is no different from putting all the funds in a hot wallet.

Bitstamp and other large sites also use BitGo, and I think these sites should immediately re-examine their BitGo setup to ensure they are not as insecure as Bitfinex, and publish their findings.

At the same time, exchanges should run their own full nodes and manage their own coins, rather than relying on centralized third parties on a large scale. What if BitGo itself was hacked? They let customers use a very insecure setup, and I don't have much confidence in their overall security.

Bitstamp said only their hot wallets use BitGo.

User MindCyph said:

I totally agree with this.

How is it possible that the developers of these exchanges did not realize that this setup is essentially a hot wallet?

Even a non-technical person can understand that when a partnership with BitGo is established, someone will ask 'Can I withdraw 200,000 BTC at a time? ', and if the answer is yes, then you are being played.

At the same time, Bitstamp’s official Twitter account also stated that the settings they use are different from those of Bitfinex.

We would like to assure all our users that the multi-sig used by Bitstamp is fundamentally different from the one used by Bitfinex.