Japan’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) announced moments ago that it now plans to set up unspecified regulatory measures for crypto exchanges after the hack yesterday of Coincheck, which now counts as the largest and most expensive cyber theft in history as the loss exceeded the value of bitcoin that disappeared from MtGox in 2014.
The FSA met with Coincheck executives on Sunday to discuss the extent of the damage done to customers. Many of Japan’s millennials are heavily invested in cryptocurrencies.
According to sources in the Japanese finance ministry, an order to suspend some operations of the company could be in the works. The FSA will discuss the regulatory measures with the government later this week before implementing them.
Japanese police meanwhile seek cooperation from overseas investigation agencies as it suspects the hacking was orchestrated from outside its borders. No further details have been given.
The announcement comes on the same day that Coincheck had informed its customers about its intention to pay back as much as 90% of what was stolen from their site.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Coincheck?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Coincheck</a> has announced they will pay back their customers' funds in a press release. <a href="https://t.co/4OikSVFBbu">https://t.co/4OikSVFBbu</a> <a href="https://t.co/jnohqO4Mc5">pic.twitter.com/jnohqO4Mc5</a></p>— NEM (@NEMofficial) <a href="https://twitter.com/NEMofficial/status/957450834664505344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 28, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In a press release on its website this morning, Coincheck stated that it would be refunding customers holding the cryptocurrency NEM in Japanese Yen at a rate of 88.549yen per NEM.
Coincheck, which calls itself “the leading bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange in Asia,” was labeled as ‘sloppy’ by Japanese media outlets over the weekend who also claimed the company had ‘expanded business by putting safety second’.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin, the largest and best known of all cryptocurrencies, was trading near $11.5k having rebounded on the news of Coincheck refunding most of its losses.
Source:
