Bitcoin Cloud Mining Service Collapse Exposes Customer Data

A bitcoin mining service called Cloudminr.io has collapsed, resulting in the loss of bitcoins, the publishing of personal user information and accusations of fraud.

Over the weekend, the main Cloudminr page was altered with an offer to sell a list of passwords, email addresses and usernames for 79,267 individuals. One thousand entries from that list were published on the site at the time. The website is currently offline.

Cloudminr, which its owners previously said was hosted in Norway, had been offering mining contracts since November of last year. The service drew criticism for its operational opacity and accusations that Cloudminr was a mining-related Ponzi scheme soon followed.

On 6th July, the primary Bitcoin Talk account for the service claimed that a hack had taken place. Payouts hadn't happened, it was asserted, because of internal concern over the legitimacy of the payment addresses on file.

The message continued:

"Part of the bitcoins went to hackers addresses instead of our own payment addresses. Currently we are looking for any logs related to the hack and estimating the losses. We need to create a new website from scratch on new servers as hackers usually leave backdoors for later access. Stay tuned."

The representative, identified only as Adrian, claimed the service was the target of a smear campaign and that access to email and social media contacts had been lost. No further updates have been made by the Cloudminr account since 6th July.

Payout issues appear to have dogged customers of the service, soliciting complaints of underperforming in mid-June. The last payout to Cloudminr customers – which were delayed following a claimed platform shutdown – took place on 28th June.

Whether more information surfaces remains to be seen. For now, customers and observers commenting on the collapse have chalked up the situation as another mining scam to run its course.

Decline chart image via Shutterstock