[Wingman4l7]

My pet theory for the spate of hacks as of late is that they're all happening now precisely because Bitcoin is trading so high.

If you can hack a Bitcoin "bank" and rob it, wouldn't it be smartest to wait until the money inside it is worth the most?

[gwern]

I agree. One of the smaller (but oldest) surviving black markets, Deepbay, apparently seized all bitcoins on deposit and stole them from its users a few days ago. Was it hacked? No, just the operator decided to cash out. Does this have something to do with Bitcoin tripling over the last month and additional competition from new black markets like Pandora and SR 2 and Tormarket? Probably...

[miguelrochefort]

That's not how it works.

Stealing 100 BTC today is not different from stealing 100 BTC tomorrow.

Their "value" only gets confirmed at the time of the exchange/transaction. Nothing stopped them from stealing that money 2 months ago, and hold it until it reached a high value.

That said, the motivation indeed rises when the value of Bitcoin rises (100 BTC worth $0.01 each is not worth the hack).