BitQuick has resumed operations after temporarily shutting down due to a hack on March 17th. It has also announced that it has been purchased by Athena Bitcoin Inc. Athena Bitcoin is known for their line of Bitcoin ATMs.
The BitQuick brand and website will remain live and, for the time being, remain separate from Athena’s Bitcoin ATM website. The team behind BitQuick, Jad Mubaslat and Chad Davis will also remain on board. The sale to Athena Bitcoin is not a surprise. The March 17th blog post also expressed a desire to hand off management of the company to another entity due to “personal reasons.”
BitQuick stated that no funds were lost, though personal information for its users may have been accessed by the hackers. At the time of the announcement, the exchange said it expected to be back in a month. It missed that deadline and media outlets openly speculated that they would fail to relaunch.
The blog post announcing the hack has seemingly been removed from the company’s blog, though it is available through various media stories written at the time
BitQuick is one of the most popular “instant” bitcoin exchanges. It enables bitcoin trades between individuals through cash deposit and other funding methods not typically supported by traditional exchanges like Circle and Coinbase.
An email sent to users reads in part:
“BitQuick will return to the same state it was in right before our downtime, with improved security and platform availability. This comes after weeks of intense code audits and architecture overhauling that will lead to an ever faster browsing experience.
In addition, Athena Bitcoin Inc. has taken ownership of BitQuick.co. This will give BitQuick further access to the resources we need to continue growing, and improving the service you’ve grown to know and love.”
After missing its April deadline, May was a quiet month for BitQuick. On June 2nd, its Twitter profile came back to life, teasing the site’s return. Today, that return manifested itself, as did the change in management.
The email sent to users linked to a FAQ offering more details on the site’s return and the Athena deal. At press time, however, that page appears to be offline. We will update this story if we get more information.