Bitfloor, the Bitcoin exchange that shut down earlier this month after hackers compromised its servers and stole around $250,000 in the virtual currency, has reopened for trading.
In a Google+ post, founder Roman Shtylman has confirmed that the exchange is now back up and running after nearly a month out of action and sought to reassure users that security has been improved and that he plans to refund those left out of pocket.
Thieves managed to steal around 24,000 coins early this month after they "gained accesses to an unencrypted backup of the wallet keys" and used them to transfer the money.
Although users can start trading again, balances from before the hack are still on hold, with Shtylman promising that they will "be released in parts as we begin to recover funds to pay back balances". The money to pay people back will come from fees.
In a bid to prevent a repeat, Bitfloor has now changed its fund storage policy to 100% offline and daily transactions through its hot wallet will be backed by its own funds, not clients'.
The platform is also now running on dedicated servers in a PCI compliant data centre based in the US. Bitfloor services are further isolated based on exposure. Testnet and development are not located in the same data centre. Backups are encrypted and write only on all of the servers. Hot wallet files are encrypted even further and unavailable even with physical access to the disk.
Says Shtylman: "I am committed to keeping Bitfloor alive, strong, and growing for the Bitcoin ecosystem. I would like to say thank you to all of the support I have received pressing for the return of Bitfloor and the service it provided."