On Tuesday (June 12), the Bitcoin price went to its lowest mark since the beginning of April. Individuals who have been holding onto cryptocurrencies as an asset class are once again feeling the pain of a drop in prices in their portfolio with Bitcoin (BTC) leading the way.

Coinrail exchange hacked

One of the biggest concerns in terms of online currencies has been safety and security of one's holdings. A South Korean exchange named Coinrail is the latest to get hacked. The company released a statement via their website to notify customers of the hack which involved the cryptocurrency coins NPXS, NPER, and ATX.

The Coinrail website didn't give any details about how much of these cryptocurrencies was stolen during the exchange hack. It said that about 70 percent of the cryptocurrencies that the exchange has are stored in a cold storage system. These aren't connected to the internet, making them tougher to hack or steal from.

According to a Bloomberg report, Coinrail is among the top 100 most active cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. They have a reported 24-hour trading volume of around $2.65 million. As of right now, the Korean National Police Agency is looking into the situation.

Along with the reports of this exchange hack, is also the news that China is still trying to clean things up with regard to cryptocurrency and initial coin offerings.

Bitcoin back below $6,500

The news of the recent hack hasn't been kind to the price, either. Bitcoin (BTC) slid to a 70-day low on Tuesday (June 12), when it hit $6,455.92 during afternoon trading.

Coindesk reported that its the lowest price Bitcoin has been at since the beginning of this April. Back in February, Bitcoin was even lower. Charts indicate that if a support price of $6,436 is breached, then the price could return to near $6,000. Litecoin was under $100 earlier on Tuesday, while Ethereum (a platform not a coin) was around $545.

The Bitcoin price saw staggering highs toward the end of 2017 when the price rose to the level of $20,000 per coin. It has since dropped to these current lows. Some analysts believe the days of $20,000 price will return at some point in the future due to the growing scarcity of the available Bitcoins. In addition, the price of Bitcoin is still more than 50 percent higher than it was one year ago today. A look at the Coinmarketcap.com historical prices for BTC shows it had a closing price of $2,659.63 on June 12, 2017.

Keeping cryptocurrency safe

The safety and security of cryptocurrency will continue to be a concern heading into the future.

With news of each exchange hack, it has the potential to scare away new prospective investors. However, that doesn't mean new buyers should be scared away as there are ways to keep cryptocurrencies safe off exchanges. When a cryptocurrency is initially purchased, it is done so on an exchange. In the United States, some customers tend to use Coinbase as their entry point to purchase Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash. Their cryptocurrencies are stored safely via the exchange's storage which may include cold storage like Coinrail has.

To keep crypto safe, customers can consider creating their own paper wallets for cold storage of their cryptocurrencies.

Many websites provide tutorials on how to create these free paper wallets and transfer assets to them. There are also hardware solutions available such as secure hardware wallets. These provide a secure way for customers to store their cryptocurrencies on their own, without having to worry about them being in an online exchange account. Among the leading hardware wallet options are the Nano Ledger and Trezor IO solutions, which have varying prices.
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