Coincheck cryptocurrency exchange hacked: key facts

The Friday evening (UTC +3:00) of the last week was marked by a very remarkable event. Coincheck, a cryptocurrency exchange, has lost 400 millions of dollars. These funds were stolen by hackers. All major financial outlets confirm this, even those which do not follow all news and events, instead describing only major historical landmarks in this new field of finance.

The reaction of the community was swift, but calmer than in the situation with Bitconnect, mostly due to the correct behaviour of the exchange leadership. Almost instantly confirming the hack and clearly learning from mistakes of Mt Gox (like Mt Gox, Coincheck is based in Japan), the exchange employees promised to pay compensations for those who lost funds. This happened at the recent press conference. According to the media, there are over 200 thousand victims.

In the midst of this news the price of Bitcoin neither jumped or fell considerably by the modern standards, continuing to float around 10 and 11 thousand dollars for one digital coin. But the stats on Coinmaketcap still show a little dip on Friday, and this dip corresponds with the time of the first messages on hack. But NEM, an altcoin in which the stolen funds were, fell from $1 to $0.7 and returned to initial values only on Saturday.

Image courtesy of KYODO