Japan's coincheck hacked, loses $530 mn in virtual currency

Coincheck, a major cryptocurrency trading exchange in Tokyo, has been hacked into and has lost about ¥58 billion ($534 million) worth of virtual money, it was reported on Friday.

The disclosure that Coincheck lost $400 million - $534 million in NEM tokens (reports of the exact amount are varying) is spooking investors in a country still wary of such venues four years after the collapse of Mt Gox.

Coincheck posted on its website on Friday afternoon that it had suspended withdrawals of almost all cryptocurrencies. The exchange has already reported the incident to the police and to Japan's Financial Services Agency.

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

After hours of speculation on Friday night, Coincheck Inc said the coins were sent ''illicitly'' outside the venue. Co-founder Yusuke Otsuka said the company didn't know how the 500 million tokens went missing, and the firm is working to ensure the safety of all client assets. Coincheck said earlier it had suspended all withdrawals, halted trading in all tokens except Bitcoin, and stopped deposits into NEM coins.

''We know where the funds were sent,'' Otsuka said during a late-night press conference at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. ''We are tracing them and if we're able to continue tracking, it may be possible to recover them. But it is something we are investigating at the moment."

The disappearance is among the biggest losses or thefts of investor assets since the advent of digital currencies with the launch of Bitcoin in 2009. Japan's Financial Services Agency said in a statement it is ''looking into the facts surrounding Coincheck.''

NEM, the 10th-largest cryptocurrency by market value, fell 11 per cent over a 24-hour period, to 87 cents, as of 2:30 pm Tokyo time today, according to Coinmarketcap.com. Bitcoin dropped 3.4 per cent and Ripple retreated 9.9 per cent on Friday, according to prices available on Bloomberg.

''Caveat emptor,'' said Yvonne Zhang, who had spoken on a panel on the future of cryptocurrencies at an Association of Futures Markets conference in Bangkok on Friday. ''The 'investors' that did not do due diligence and take time to understand what they're trading in, both venue and subject matter, face unhedgable risks. If they continue to 'trade' the same way knowing the murky nature of this market, they're gambling.''

In Japan, one of the world's biggest markets for cryptocurrencies, policy makers have introduced a licensing system to increase oversight of local venues, seeking to avoid a repeat of the Mt Gox exchange collapse that roiled cryptocurrency markets worldwide in 2014. At that time, the theft of Bitcoin was estimated at about $450 million, though the figure was revised down later.

Coincheck had applied with the agency for a license as an exchange, and was able to continue operating under the FSA's rules while awaiting a decision. As a result, Coincheck falls under the supervision of the agency, an official said.

Cryptocurrency exchanges, many of which operate with little to no regulation, have suffered a spate of outages and hacks amid the trading boom that propelled Bitcoin and its peers to record highs last year.

Like Bitcoin, NEM is a cryptocurrency built on top of blockchain, but it uses a more environmentally-friendly method to confirm transactions, according to its website. Bitcoin mining requires significant computing power, while NEM says it does not.

Coincheck, founded in 2012, had 71 employees as of July with headquarters in Tokyo's Shibuya district, an area popular with startups that was also home to Mt Gox, according to Coincheck's website. Last year, it began running commercials on national television featuring popular local comedian Tetsuro Degawa.