Your Email

Pasword

A sigh of relief for the investors at Coincheck as the Japan based cryptocurrency exchange said on Sunday that it would return about $500million of the virtual money it lost to hackers on 25th January in one of the biggest-ever thefts of digital money. 

On Thursday, 25th January 2018, the cryptocurrency market recorded the largest hack ever since Bitcoin came into market in 2009. Coincheck the leading in cryptocurrency exchange in Asia (Japan) reported on Thursday that up to $500 million in NEM coins were stolen from Coincheck’s wallet resulting in a suspension of all coins aside from Bitcoin. 

Coincheck reported in a conference that its NEM coins were stored in a "hot wallet" instead of the more secure "cold wallet," outside the internet. This was a major reason for the hack. 

The cryptocurrency exchanged promised to compensate around $500million to its clients, that amounts to nearly 90 percent of the roughly $533 million worth of NEM coins the company lost in an attack that forced it to suspend on withdrawals of all cryptocurrencies except Bitcoin.

 

In a Tokyo press conference, Coincheck Inc President Koichiro Wada said each Trader who was affected by the hack will be compensated at a rate of $0.8147 cents per coin. 

Coincheck estimates that 260,000 Traders were affected by the hack. The Tokyo-based company suspended trading after detecting "unauthorized access" of its digital exchange. After the breach the company froze deposits and withdrawals for all cryptocurrencies except Bitcoin as it assessed its losses in NEM. 

NEM is currently the 10th largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $7.6 Billion. The coin is used to help businesses handle data digitally. Coincheck’s co-founder Yusuke Otsuka said that his team is unsure how the hack happened. 

NEM fell 11% over a 24-hour period to 87 cents as reported by Bloomberg. Among the other cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin dropped 3.4% and Ripple retreated 9.9% on Friday.

The NEM foundation, which developed the technology behind the coin which has been stolen, said it had the ability to trace all of the missing money. The Singapore-based group said hackers had not transferred the funds to an exchange or personal accounts. 

 

In 2014, Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, which once handled 80 percent of the world's BITCOIN trades, filed for bankruptcy after losing around half a billion dollars worth of Bitcoins. More recently, South Korean Cryptocurrency exchange Youbit filed for bankruptcy after being hacked twice last year.     

© www.newsandstory.com