Blockchain technology has been described by one major auditor as "secure, transparent, highly resistant to outages, auditable, and efficient". However, in the space of a week Bithumb and Coinrail, two South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges, both of which rely on blockchain technology, have been hacked.

This is Bithumb's second hack in the space of 12 months and collectively, across South Korea's cryptocurrency market, losses are estimated to be in the region of at least 75bn won ($68m) and this number will likely increase as further details emerge.