Cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck loses 58 billion in hacking attack

[OnlinePoker]

Echoing the Mt. Gox fiasco that happened nearly four years ago, Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck disclosed Friday that a hacker had stolen about ¥58 billion ($532 million) worth of its holdings, sending clients into a panic about the fate of their virtual assets.

If confirmed, the heist will surpass the ¥48 billion ($480 million at the time) lost in the collapse of bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox in February 2014.

Coincheck Inc., one of Japan’s major cryptocurrency exchanges, said it discovered a significant drop in the balance of its NEM virtual currency at around 11:25 a.m. Friday after about ¥58 billion of it was illegitimately transferred.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/01/27/national/cryptocurrency-exchange-coincheck-loses-58-billion-hacking-attack/#.WmzEG67tzDA

[Laf.La.Dem.]

1. This is one big "oops"

I never did understand "cryptocurrency"!

[NCjack]

2. Quick -- send the registration numbers to Interpol, so they ... nt

[Wellstone ruled]

3. There have been stories in

the financial press about the North Koreans running a hacker farm as a way to get world Currency because of Sanctions .

[nitpicker]

4. Japan cryptocurrency exchange to refund stolen $400m

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/28/japan-cryptocurrency-exchange-coincheck-refund-stolen-nem#img-1

Japan cryptocurrency exchange to refund stolen $400m

Guardian staff and agencies

Sun 28 Jan 2018 09.04 GMT

A Japan-based cryptocurrency exchange will refund about $400m to customers stolen by hackers two days ago in one of the biggest thefts of digital funds. Coincheck said it would use its own funds to reimburse about 46.3bn yen to all 260,000 customers who lost their holdings of NEM, the world’s 10th biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation.

On Friday, the company detected an “unauthorised access” of the exchange and later suspended trading for all cryptocurrencies apart from bitcoin. Coincheck said its NEM coins were stored in a “hot wallet” instead of the more secure “cold wallet” outside the internet because of technical difficulties and a shortage of staff capable of dealing with them. The resulting 58bn yen ($530m) loss exceeded the value of bitcoins that disappeared from MtGox in 2014.
(snip)

Nearly a third of global bitcoin transactions last month were denominated in yen, according to the specialist website jpbitcoin.com. As many as 10,000 businesses in Japan are thought to accept bitcoin and bitFlyer, the country’s main bitcoin exchange, saw its user base pass the 1 million mark in November.

Many Japanese, especially younger investors, have been seduced by the idea of strong profits as the economy has seen years of ultra-low interest rates offering little in the way of traditional returns.
(snip)