Remember the alleged $450 million in USD of Bitcoin that was stolen by a hacker in 2014 of the Mt. Gox exchange in Japan? That supposed theft embroiled the founder of Mt. Gox, Mark Kapeles, in a legal drama that is to this day, still unfolding.
Coincheck just announced in a late night press conference that the Japanese based exchange was suspending all NEM deposits, before stopping all NEM trading an hour later. Several updates followed a few hours after that halting all payments on the Coincheck platform completely. 500 million of NEM are now allegedly stolen from Coincheck.
There are also rumors swirling that NEM wasn't the only cryptocurrency stolen from Coincheck. A Twitter feed early Friday morning from Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, Costin Raiu, called attention to another 110 million in USD of Ripple were transferred out of Coincheck. The statement included a "Hacking Suspected" notation. Coincheck has not announced any information about stolen Ripple however.
Coincheck spokespeople were not immediately available for any comments of course.
Coincheck is a main access point for trading. They handle and hold users funds in reserve which makes them a prime target for any criminal with the capabilities to hack an exchange. Canada has had there own incident this week at an attempted robbery of one of there cryptocurrency exchanges. Is this becoming a trend?
If Mt. Gox is any sort of lesson, then the story of the Coincheck theft is just beginning.