$530 million cryptocurrency heist

[Khadgar]

May be the biggest ever

A cryptocurrency exchange in Japan is coming under government scrutiny after it said hackers stole $530 million from its users.

The exchange, Coincheck, has promised to partially refund the 260,000 cryptocurrency investors affected by the theft, although it didn't say when it would do so or where it's getting the money from.

The hacking at Coincheck, which bills itself on its website as "the leading bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange in Asia," came to light over the weekend. If confirmed, it's expected to rank as the biggest such theft on record, eclipsing the estimated $400 million in bitcoin stolen from Mt Gox in 2014.

Coincheck said the hackers stole customer deposits of NEM, a less well known digital currency.

The exchange promised to use cash from its own funds to pay out ¥46.3 billion ($426 million) toward covering its users' losses. That's about 20% less than the total value of the virtual tokens that were stolen.


Coincheck said in a blog post that the hack "has caused immense distress to our customers, other exchanges, and people throughout the cryptocurrency industry."

"We would like to offer our deepest and humblest apologies to all of those involved," the exchange said. It has currently suspended trading in all virtual currencies apart from bitcoin.

The price of NEM plunged almost 20% after the theft came to light over the weekend, but it has since recovered those losses.

Coincheck didn't respond to repeated requests for comment on how exactly it will fund the customer refunds.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/29/tech...le_hotListpool

[Gorsameth]

The joy of avoiding government oversight.

No guarantees when your 'money' gets stolen.

[jackofwind]

And they still had nowhere to spend it.

[Garnier Fructis]

Given how fucked the graphics card market is because of cryptocurrency, I'm really only feeling schadenfreude from this news.

[Machismo]

A single theft can destabilize the entire market. This is something that most cryptocurrency fans fail to understand. All it will take, is for governments to ban exchanges, or some internet trolls and thieves to commit theft, and the values will collapse. They are down roughly 10% on average so far today.

[PosPosPos]

The joy of avoiding government oversight.

No guarantees when your 'money' gets stolen.

Pretty much.

This is the free market our resident ancaps wanted. Freedom for your property to get stolen by others.

[Leyre]

I just dont fucking get it, every time some sort of cryptocurrency gets robbed its value decreases, isnt that counterproductive to the robbers?

[Machismo]

I just dont fucking get it, every time some sort of cryptocurrency gets robbed its value decreases, isnt that counterproductive to the robbers?

Not really, they still have hundreds of millions worth of binary code. Now, converting it to actual money may be difficult.

[Daedius]

I just dont fucking get it, every time some sort of cryptocurrency gets robbed its value decreases, isnt that counterproductive to the robbers?

Not if they cash out before it gets reported first, no ?

[Leyre]

Not if they cash out before it gets reported first, no ?

No idea, i dont even know how this shit work

"hey, i have 10b in virtual money, can you change it to real money?"

[Moralgy]

Given how fucked the graphics card market is because of cryptocurrency, I'm really only feeling schadenfreude from this news.

^^^^

I'm ready for cryptocurrency to die so PC upgrading starts having reasonable costs again.

[draynay]

Given how fucked the graphics card market is because of cryptocurrency, I'm really only feeling schadenfreude from this news.

^^^^

I'm ready for cryptocurrency to die so PC upgrading starts having reasonable costs again.

Oh good, its not just me.

[Mistame]

Oh good, its not just me.

Same here. It's fucking stupid.

[PC2]

Cryptocurrencies are harmless experiments. Most everything good requires a lot failure before you get a winner.

[Deleted]

I just dont fucking get it, every time some sort of cryptocurrency gets robbed its value decreases, isnt that counterproductive to the robbers?

Not necessary. There are ways to make profit by shorting some companies involved in cryptocurrencies without spending any stolen coins.

[PC2]

^^^^

I'm ready for cryptocurrency to die so PC upgrading starts having reasonable costs again.

Would you say the same for servers, HPC, and mobile? Non-PC use cases have been a larger driver of PC improvements than PCs.

[Deleted]

Would you say the same for servers, HPC, and mobile? Non-PC use cases have been a larger driver of PC improvements than PCs.

Bad analogy. The difference is currency mining offers absolutely nothing productive. It just wastes electricity, increases prices on graphic cards, but does nothing useful.

[Deleted]

People that invested in Nvidia and AMD would say otherwise...

Or, if you manage to sell the mined coin for money... That in itself is not "useful".... though more capital in chipmakers hands is a useful thing, long term anyway.

Money made by mining doesn't magically come from nowhere. It always comes at expense of some sucker buying into coins hype. So someone getting richer means someone else getting poorer, so its neither good nor bad.

Coin mining is just money changing hands, while wasting lots of electricity without producing anything.

Excuse that mining is good because someone became richer can be used to justify anything. Every action can be good for someone. Doesn't mean that its a good thing. Coal mining is good for coal miners and communities where they live, so coal mining must be a good thing, right (and it is according to Trump)? Killing person is good for whoever would get dead person's things, so murder is also a good thing, right?

[l33t]

Oh noes!

Well, maybe we'll be finally able to actually buy new GPUs. You know, the ones which cost ridiculous amounts of $$, because they are being used by fucking chinese miners.

Fucking cryptocurrency idiocy.

[breadisfunny]

good they deserve it.