Hackers stole several hundred million dollars' worth of a lesser-known cryptocurrency from a major Japanese exchange Friday.

Coincheck said that around 523 million of the exchange's NEM coins were sent to another account around 3 a.m. local time (1 p.m. ET Thursday), according to a Google translation of a Japanese transcript of the Friday press conference from Logmi. The exchange has about 6 percent of yen-bitcoin trading, ranking fourth by market share on CryptoCompare.

The stolen NEM coins were worth about 58 billion yen at the time of detection, or roughly $534.8 million, according to the exchange. Coincheck subsequently restricted withdrawals of all currencies, including yen, and trading of cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin.

Bloomberg first reported the hack. A CNBC email sent to Coincheck's listed address bounced back.

Cryptocurrency NEM, which intends to help businesses handle data digitally, briefly fell more than 20 percent Friday before recovering to trade about 10 percent lower near 85 cents, according to CoinMarketCap. Most other major digital currencies, including bitcoin, traded little changed on the day.

Coincheck management said in the press conference that it held the NEM coins in a "hot" wallet, referring to a method of storage that is linked to the internet. In contrast, leading U.S. exchange Coinbase says on its website that 98 percent of its digital currency holdings are offline, or in "cold" storage.

The Japanese exchange said it did not appear that hackers had stolen other digital currencies.

The Coincheck hack follows news in December that a South Korean cryptocurrency exchange called Youbit lost 17 percent of its digital assets. Its parent Yapian filed for bankruptcy.

In another high-profile case, Tokyo-based Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy in 2014 and said it lost 750,000 of its users' bitcoins and 100,000 of the exchange's own. The company was the largest bitcoin exchange at the time.

Morgan Stanley analysts estimated in mid-December that more than $630 million in bitcoin has been lost to hackers.</s>TOKYO — A Japanese exchange has lost $530 million in cryptocurrency because of hacking, according to Japanese media reports.

The Coincheck exchange said on its website Friday that it had halted sales and withdrawals of the currency, which is called NEM. It later added that it had restricted dealings in most other cryptocurrencies too.

At a Friday night news conference, Coincheck President Koichiro Wada bowed and apologized. He said the company may seek financial assistance, according to Kyodo News service. Japanese TV footage showed a small group of customers standing outside the company’s Tokyo head office Friday night.

Coincheck, which calls itself the leading Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange in Asia, said it detected the unauthorized access to its system about 3 a.m. Friday.

The reported loss tops the $441.6 million that Mt. Gox, a Japan-based Bitcoin exchange, lost in 2014.</s>A Japanese exchange has lost 58 billion yen ($NZ722 million) in cryptocurrency because of hacking, according to Japanese media reports.

The Coincheck exchange said on its website today that it had halted sales and withdrawals of the currency, which is called NEM.

It later added that it had restricted dealings in most other cryptocurrencies too.

He said the company may seek financial assistance, according to Kyodo News service.

Japanese TV footage showed a small group of customers standing outside the company's Tokyo head office today.

Coincheck, which calls itself the leading Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange in Asia, said it detected the unauthorized access to its system about 3 am Friday.

The reported loss tops the 48 billion yen that Mt. Gox, a Japan-based Bitcoin exchange, lost in 2014.</s>One of Japan’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges has revealed that it’s lost nearly $400 million in a security breach.

Coincheck says that it has restricted deposits and withdrawals for a cryptocurrency called NEM, and Bloomberg reports that 500 million NEM tokens have been sent from the company “illicitly,” and that it’s not sure how.

The company has since suspended most trading and withdrawals, and is working to trace where the missing digital currency ended up. In a Tweet, the exchange said that it was considering compensating those who lost money.

NEM is a digital currently like Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Litecoin, and is presently the eight largest cryptocurrency by volume.

TechCrunch describes the currency as a “distributed ledger platform primarily aimed at enabling payments and other financial services.”

The hack appears to be roughly the same scale as the 2014 Mt Gox theft, in which thieves made off with $400 million in bitcoin, causing the Japanese coin exchange to file for bankruptcy.

However, while the dollar amount is comparable, the online economy for digital currencies has grown considerably in the last four years, and likely won’t have the same impact as the Mt Gox hack.</s>A leading Japanese cryptocurrency exchange, Coincheck, experienced one of the largest monetary heists ever when hackers stole $532 million worth of the NEM cryptocurrency.

Earlier today, Coincheck halted NEM transactions. Because the suspension was given no explanation and the money wasn’t transferred to any other exchange, this led many to believe that someone may have hacked Coincheck. It was also rumored that the hackers may have stolen an additional $123 million worth of Ripple digital currency, too, as the exchange also suspended all Ripple withdrawals today.





Depositing NEM on Coincheck is currently being restricted. Deposits made to your account will not be reflected in your balance, and we advise all users to refrain from making deposits until the restriction has been lifted. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused everyone. Please follow the official Coincheck blog and our official social media accounts for updates.

According to Nikkei, a large Japanese publication, Coincheck reported the heist to the local Financial Services Agency and the police. NEM Foundation president Lon Wong also confirmed the hack, calling it "the biggest theft in the history of the world."

Back in 2014, Mt.Gox, at the time by far the largest Bitcoin exchange also suffered one of the biggest heists ever, losing over $400 million worth of Bitcoins. However, the cryptocurrency market was much smaller back then, with only about $14 billion in market capitalization. The market is now valued at over $500 billion and Coincheck is also a smaller exchange, estimated to trade about 3% of the market volume. Therefore, this heist may not have anywhere as large of an impact on the market this time around.

Wong also said people shouldn’t panic yet, until we know more about this. As most cryptocurrencies, including NEM, are relatively trackable through the blockchain ledger, those who stole the NEM funds may have to either never use the coins again if they don’t want to risk getting caught or go through extreme lengths to hide how their money is moving.</s>One of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in Tokyo, Coincheck was hacked and over $500m (£352m) worth of digital currency was stolen by hackers in what is now considered to be the biggest cryptocurrency heist to date. Hackers reportedly stole NEM tokens, which is a recently launched digital currency that has already reportedly been ranked the 10th digital currency in the world.

Coincheck announced the hack in a press conference, adding that Japanese law enforcement as well as Japan's financial service agency have been alerted about the cryptocurrency heist, CoinTelegraph reported.

Hackers managed to get a hold of the private key of the hot wallet, which was being used to store the NEM tokens, which in turn allowed them to siphon off all the funds. Coincheck stored other cryptocurrencies in the more secure multisig wallets, however, the NEM tokens were stored in a hot wallet. CoinTelegraph reported that Coincheck insisted during the press conference that the security standards of hot wallets "were not low".

The cryptocurrency exchange also reportedly said that it used various types of wallets to store different cryptocurrencies. For instance, while Coincheck stores both Bitcoin and Ethereum in cold storage wallets, Bitcoin is stored in a multisig cold storage wallet. However, Ethereum, "given its nature" is not stored in a multisig wallet.

It is still unclear as to how many Coincheck users were impacted by the hack. However, Coincheck is reportedly considering a viable means by which to refund all the stolen money to its users. Bleeping Computer reported that the hackers may have stolen almost seven percent of all the NEM tokens currently in circulation.

Coincheck reportedly said that it is aware of the address where the stolen NEM tokens are currently being stored by hackers. This may help the cryptocurrency exchange in helping track the hackers and possibly help regain access to the stolen money. In a recent tweet, Coincheck said that the investigation into the hack is currently ongoing.

Meanwhile, news of the hack has led to a drop in the value of cryptocurrencies. The price of Bitcoin dropped by 6.41% and NEM's value dropped 18.74% in the past 24 hours, Ethereum World News reported. The value of other major cryptocurrencies also reportedly plunged into the red, trading lower than five to 13% than before.</s>A Japanese cryptocurrency exchange has claimed it lost more than $400 million in tokens following an alleged hack on its service.

Coincheck said Friday that some 500 million tokens of NEM, worth around $400 million at the time of writing, according to comments at a press event attended by Bloomberg. NEM, the tenth largest cryptocurrency based on total coin market cap, is a distributed ledger platform primarily aimed at enabling payments and other financial services.

The apparent heist is larger than the Mt. Gox hack in 2014 — in U.S. dollar value — but its impact is unlikely to be as significant given the sheer number of cryptocurrencies in the market today and the increased value of bitcoin.

Nonetheless, the incident is yet another reminder of the risk of leaving tokens inside an exchange rather than a more secure option such as a personal wallet or hardware-based option. It’s the latest in a string of recent incidents. Back in November, Tether said it lost $31 million due to an attack while EtherDelta suspended its exchange service for a period in December after it was compromised.

Coincheck said it isn’t aware of how its service was compromised. It is said to be considering compensating users who were affected. Japan is the first country to license crypto exchanges, with its first 11 licenses handed out in September. Coincheck had applied for a license but it is currently waiting for a decision. That makes the situation somewhat unclear, although Bloomberg reported that an official said its operations fall under the supervision of the agency.

NEM Foundation President Lon Wong said his organization is doing “everything we can to help.”

Speculation bubbled up on Friday when the exchange halted the sale, purchase and withdrawal of NEM tokens from its exchange. Coincheck later confirmed the losses and held a press conference to provide more details.

The price of NEM dipped from a high of $1.01 on Friday to reach $0.83 at the time of writing, according to Coinmarketcap.com.

Editor’s note: The author owns a small amount of cryptocurrency. Enough to gain an understanding, not enough to change a life.</s>Through means currently unknown, approximately 500 million NEM tokens were exfiltrated from leading Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck, valued at approximately $400 million. Bloomberg reports that, aside from Bitcoin, all trading on the platform has been suspended.



To give a sense of scale, all the money lost or stolen in initial coin offerings is estimated to be worth around $400 million. When the Mt. Gox exchange collapsed in early 2014, nearly cratering Bitcoin along with it, the value of the 750,000 stolen bitcoins was in excess of $424 million at the time Mt. Gox cratered. (Today, those same coins are worth more than $8.3 billion.) Although there’s considerably more money wrapped up the crypto space than four years ago, Coincheck’s disappearing NEM act still ranks among the worst breaches.

Japan’s Financial Services Agency is continuing to investigate the situation.</s>As bitcoin has emerged from the underground world of nerds and criminals to become a mainstream investment, the risk of hacks and scandals has also blossomed. What's a government to do? The WSJ's Steven Russolillo travels the world (sort of) to see how regulators are responding to the remarkable rise of cryptocurrencies. Video: Sharon Shi and Crystal Tai

TOKYO—The operator of one of Japan’s leading trading platforms for cryptocurrencies said it lost $530 million in customer assets, the largest known crypto theft and a development that could chill the craze for bitcoin-related assets.

Coincheck Inc., a Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange, said Friday that 523 million units of a virtual currency called NEM disappeared due to unauthorized access by someone outside the system. It said the missing cryptocurrency all belonged to the exchange’s customers and was valued at ¥58 billion,...</s>Share this article with Google Plus

Crooks have hacked a major cryptocurrency exchange and reportedly escaped with about £378 million.

Coincheck, a trading exchange in Tokyo, is said to have lost a massive 58 billion yen ($534 million) in the virtual heist, Japan’s national broadcaster NHK reported on Friday

On its website, Coincheck said had suspended withdrawals of almost all cryptocurrencies.

The exchange has already reported the incident to the police and to Japan’s Financial Services Agency, NHK said.

In 2014, Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, which once handled 80 percent of the world’s bitcoin trades, filed for bankruptcy after losing some 850,000 bitcoins – then worth around half a billion U.S. dollars – and $28 million in cash from its bank accounts.

It’s believed the collapse of the exchange prompted Bitcoin’s price to slide by about 10 percent early this morning.

The cryptocurrency’s value dropped from a high of about $11,600 to a low of just over $10,500, while the price of Ripple, Ethereum and hundreds of other cryptocurrencies also nosedived.

Yesterday, Britain’s Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer called for new laws and regulations to control cryptocurrency trading.

The cryptocurrency markets are famously volatile and tend to react very badly when governments propose new laws. In the past month, there have been two separate ‘bloodbaths’ in which the price of thousands of cryptocurrencies plummeted.

Both of these slumps were triggered by news that countries including France, Germany, South Korea were considering introducing new laws to control the trading of digital dosh.
Hackers steal $535 million worth of the NEM cryptocurrency from Japanese exchange Coincheck.