Japanese Cryptocurrency Exchange Loses Over $500 Million In Heist

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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.

The company announced:

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.

Lucian Armasu
Lucian Armasu
Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He covers software news and the issues surrounding privacy and security.
8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • dextermat
    Regardless of this is a joke or not I am LMAO!
    Reply
  • nitrium
    A fool and their money are easily parted.
    http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article61157.html
    Reply
  • knowom
    I thought one of the touting assets to cryptocurrency was suppose to be it's relative safety compared to traditional currencies...I find this rather amusing. It sucks for those involved, but you know so too does the impact mining has had on gaming. The latter of which has been around a lot longer and supported GPU makers a lot longer. This cryptocurrency fad that can't last with the same amount if vigor indefinitely it'll slow down or fizzle out eventually while gaming will prevail because it's a fundamental part of society and entertainment.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    20644311 said:
    This cryptocurrency fad that can't last with the same amount if vigor indefinitely it'll slow down or fizzle out eventually while gaming will prevail because it's a fundamental part of society and entertainment.
    Gaming won't prevail: datacenter compute accounts for ~25% of AMD and Nvidia's GPU business and 2-3 years from now, it'll likely account for 60-70%. It isn't a coincidence that both AMD and Nvidia are introducing their compute-centric cards months ahead of mainstream GPUs based on new architectures and that Intel is suddenly in a hurry to get back in the GPGPU race. That's where future revenue for embarrassingly parallel workloads is.
    Reply
  • nitrium
    20645250 said:
    Gaming won't prevail: datacenter compute accounts for ~25% of AMD and Nvidia's GPU business and 2-3 years from now, it'll likely account for 60-70%. It isn't a coincidence that both AMD and Nvidia are introducing their compute-centric cards months ahead of mainstream GPUs based on new architectures and that Intel is suddenly in a hurry to get back in the GPGPU race. That's where future revenue for embarrassingly parallel workloads is.
    While that might true, gaming will still "prevail" over cryptomining for discrete consumer grade GPU sales, which I suspect is what the knowom meant. Datacenters tend to favour speciality GPUs, which as you say I'm sure will become more important in the future.
    Reply
  • TJ Hooker
    20644311 said:
    I thought one of the touting assets to cryptocurrency was suppose to be it's relative safety compared to traditional currencies...I find this rather amusing.
    This has nothing to do with the security of the currency itself, and everything to do with the security of the exchange (most of which are uninsured). That's why it's recommended to never keep any significant value of currency on an exchange, but rather in a personal wallet.
    Reply
  • Karadjgne
    If someone can hack Experian's 128bit security system, what would make anyone believe a crypto-mining exchange would be any more secure?
    Reply
  • Kennyy Evony
    imagine a secret code embedded in a GPU that can track concurrency or at least leave bread crumb trails for hackers to get hold of the currency one way or another. You mine, THEY take.. me not that kind of orc.
    Reply