The Japanese authorities have announced a sanction against the Coincheck crypto exchange, in which hackers have captured digital currency worth around 430 million euros. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) will order that Coincheck improve its business, especially the customer protection, as government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said on Monday. The FSA will closely monitor the stock market. The relevant ministries and authorities should investigate the hacker attack on Coincheck at the same time and then propose further measures, as the government spokesman said.
Coincheck is one of the most important trading venues for digital currencies and the damage of yen 58 billion is one of the largest hackers ever made in the sector. Coincheck had suspended the payout of nearly all crypto currencies following the incident on Friday. On Sunday, the stock exchange announced that it would compensate its roughly 260,000 affected customers for most of their losses.
Coincheck said after the theft that the stolen NEM-type coins had been stored in a so-called "hot wallet" rather than a safer "cold wallet" outside the Internet. Coincheck had justified this with technical difficulties and lack of staff.
In 2014, a cyber attack had driven Mt. Gox, once the most important bitcoin trading center, to bankruptcy. At that time disappeared about 850,000 bitcoin in the then value of about half a billion dollars.
