"The goal of the attack was to destroy NiceHash, the biggest completely free market for computing power. It has become a multi-billion business that continues to grow from month to month. Somebody probably wanted to nip us in the bud."

Škorjanc told the paper that the Wednesday attack was one of the most sophisticated hacks in history of cryptoworld and that all the main global organisations fighting cryptocrime are investigating.

Demand for bitcoins is very high and as it grew, security challenges also became more demanding. "We had good quality, modern protection but it was obviously still not enough."

"When setting up a new platform we will use military-level protection; meaning that the human factor will be taken out of the equation."

He also responded to speculations that the attack was "an inside job". He said he could not rule this out but the possibility of this was very low.

Škorjanc, who served jail time for programming software used for credit card fraud in his early 20s, believes the attack was carried out by a very well trained group. He believes there are no groups with such knowledge in Slovenia.