Japanese Exchange To Repay Customers After Hacking

On Sunday Tokyo-based exchange Coincheck informed it will refund to customers about 46.3 billion yen, about $400 million U.S. dollars, after hackers incident.

All the 260,000 customers, who lost their NEM holdings will be repaid by company’s own funds. The digital coin NEM is the 10th biggest cryptocurrency by market cap.

The company detected an “unauthorised access” of the exchange on Friday. Later it suspended trading for all cryptocurrencies apart from bitcoin.

The resulting 58 billion yen ($530 million) loss exceeded the value of bitcoins which disappeared from MtGox in 2014.

The major Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange lost about 850,000 bitcoins, with amount of $480 million at the time.

The MtGox incident added enthusiasm for digital currencies in Japan. In April it became the first country in the world to legalize bitcoin.

According to a view, nearly one third of global bitcoin transactions were denominated in yen.

As many as 10,000 businesses in Japan are thought to accept bitcoin and bitFlyer, the country’s main bitcoin exchange, saw its user base pass the one-million mark in November.

On Sunday major Japanese newspapers described Coincheck as “sloppy” and said the company had “expanded business by putting safety second”.

The country’s Financial Services Agency was expected to take measures against Coincheck, which claims itself as the leading cryptocurrency exchange in Asian territory.