Coincheck $500 Million Hack or Scam!?
Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck said Friday that approx. $500 Million in NEM coins were stolen and transferred out of the exchange. Coincheck management stated that the NEM coins were stored via “hot” (online) wallet.
This is not the first time an extraordinary amount of cryptocurrency has been stolen from an exchange. I’m sure most of you are familiar with the Mt. Gox hack that occurred a few years ago. In 2014 approx. 750,000 Bitcoin were stolen (hacked), a large sum of money at the time, but of course not nearly as much as it would have been at today’s Bitcoin price.
To my knowledge, there is no evidence to support an accusation of misconduct on the part of Coincheck, or the Mt. Gox incident, but it does make me pause for questioning. It is hard to imagine Coincheck being so negligent and irresponsible. It's no secret that by not using cold (offline) storage, you make yourself vulnerable to hackers and theft. Let’s just presume for a moment that Coincheck is not a victim but in fact the criminal, and the supposed “hack” is a cover. It would be next to impossible to prove, and little to nothing that anyone could do about it.
Regardless of who is responsible for the wrongdoing, each of us as crypto investors need to exercises a bit of personal responsibility. To protect ourselves, we should be taking our coins off the exchange wallets into personal cold storage for safety. Trezor and Ledger Nano S are both hardware wallets and are excellent solutions for this problem.
one has to stay careful
Yeah its crazy out there. Apparently tho Coincheck came out that there are going to reimburse everyone. Lol so are they giving back money they stole or are they just really nice.
$500 Million in NEM coins??? That is super huge. That is a life changer. We need to be extra careful and this heist, that is what I will call it was done by someone who has access to there main server. This was an inside job, to clean out that much without a trace, that means this wasn't just a mistake but a long term plan. But let see it from another angle what if the originators wanted to scam people and they did it and looked for a lie to pin it to, just saying. All the same it is bad, this are people's sweat and sleepless nights. Although I am very new to Steemit is i am just 9days old and someone cleans my little account I will faint then die lol😁.
It's difficult to prove but not impossible. Whoever did it accessed their systems somehow, and they would have left a trace somewhere. If they try to cash out all at once they'l be caught easy as they can't explain where it came from. Their only chance if they did everything else right is to never use exchanges with passport registry. Just stick to changing the Nem to Bitcoin and then selling the Bitcoin cash in hand in person. This would take time depending on what type of customers they have but there seems to be no shortage of people who want Bitcoin. This gives the term bank robbery a whole new meaning. Security should be the #1priority of any financial service provider. These kinds of occurrences will be part of the arguments for regulation and you know what maybe it's high time.
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@theonej - I totally agreed with @stadex that it's difficult to prove but not impossible. Trading platform is a crucial part of the Ecosystem. There are always news Trading Platform at each day which is great but need to see more action on security and compensation plan at its worse case scenario.
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This is a huge hacking accident, it makes negative phenomenon for crypto market.😞
Smells like an exit scheme to me. Run away while you still can.
You have shamed your family
The biggest mistake they did is by not implementing multi-signature security check. Most of the exchanges (Bitfinex, Coinbase, Bittrex) have this feature to enhance the security. They are in big trouble right now.
I smell scam, imagine how much cryptos they have for themselves now
Coincheck has promised to reimburse affected users out of pocket. That in itself rules out a deliberate attempting at scamming users. And I applaud them for taking responsibility. That said, it has been said time and again, never leave huge amounts of cryptos on a centralised exchange unless you plan on trading it. Article on the reimbursement below.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/01/28/national/japanese-cryptocurrency-exchange-coincheck-reimburse-customers-lost-money-massive-theft/
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So much happening out there. The protection of our investment should not be left only to the cryptocurrency exchange but should involve us. I'd buy the idea of 'cold storage'