Biggest Cryptocurrency Hack Ever!
We have seen many high cryptocurrency hacks over the past few years. But on Thursday, 25th January 2018, the cryptocurrency market recorded the largest hack ever since<a class="ow4GDe1n mGj36A411gWU" href="#24189617" title="Click to Continue > by Counterflix"> Bitcoin<img src="https://cdncache-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png"></a> came into market in 2009
Biggest Cryptocurrency
Hack Ever!
We have seen many high profile cryptocurrency hacks over the
past few years. But on Thursday, 25th January 2018, the
cryptocurrency market recorded the largest hack ever since Bitcoin came into
market in 2009. Coincheckthe leading in cryptocurrency exchange in Asia
(Japan) reported on Thursday that up to $500 million in NEM coins
were stolen from Coincheck?s wallet resulting in a suspension of all coins
aside from Bitcoin.
Around 523 million of the exchange's NEM coins were sent to another
account around 3 a.m. local time. The stolen coins were worth about 58 billion
yen at the time of detection, or roughly $534.8 million, according to the
exchange. Coincheck management says it held the NEM coins in a "hot"
wallet, referring to a method of storage that is linked to the internet. The
exchange currently has about 6 percent of yen Bitcoin trading, ranking fourth
by market share on CryptoCompare.
CryptocurrencyNEM, briefly fell more than 20% on Friday
before recovering to trade about 10 percent lower near 85 cents, according to CoinMarketCap.
Most other major digital currencies, including Bitcoin, traded little change on
the day.
Coincheckmanagement said in the press conference that it
held the NEM coins in a "hot" wallet, referring to a method of
storage that is linked to the internet. In contrast, leading U.S. exchange
Coinbase says on its website that 98 percent of its digital currency holdings are
offline, or in "cold" storage. The Japanese exchange said it did not
appear that hackers had stolen other digital currencies.
Morgan Stanley analysts estimated in mid-December that more than $630 million in Bitcoin has been lost to hackers.
Experts say that this hack could push regulators to take a harder stand on cryptocurrency exchanges going forward, it can also push investors to find new ways to secure their coins outside an exchange using services like Tether and Zappo, This hack was bigger than the Mt. Gox hack that happened in 2014, Mt. Gox lost about 740,000 Bitcoins to hackers.