Coincheck To Start Repaying Customers Affected By $530 Million Hack Today

Coincheck, one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan, was hacked in January earlier this year. The hack resulted in coins worth $530 million being stolen and while Coincheck was quick to say that it would repay the affected customers, it didn’t detail the manner and time it would take to do that. Coincheck has now said that it will start repaying affected customers from today.

The $530 million Coincheck hack was one of the biggest hacks ever involving digital money. The country’s government has since reprimanded the exchange over lax standards and has also increased scrutiny of other exchanges based in Japan.

The hack resulted in a massive amount of NEM coins being stolen. Hackers were able to make off with them because the coins were kept in a hot wallet. They should have been kept in a cold wallet instead which isn’t connected to the internet and is thus harder to steal from.

Coincheck imposed curbs on trading and withdrawal of some cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin on its exchange after the hack in January. It now plans to lift those restrictions. The exchange has also been ordered by Japan’s financial regulator to improve risk management after finding that the exchange also didn’t have proper systems for dealing with money laundering and terrorism financing.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: General
Tags: Coincheck, cryptocurrencies