Content adapted from this Zerohedge.com article : Source
by Tyler Durden
The anonymous nature of digital wallets continues to stymie investigators in last week's theft of 58 billion yen ($530 million) worth of NEM cryptocurrency from a Tokyo exchange, the biggest cryptocurrency heist in history.
Authorities know which user accounts were affected by the Jan. 26 hacking, and the accounts holding the pilfered funds can be immediately identified because the virtual coins are traceable. And, as the Nikkei writes, if the Coincheck exchange case were a regular bank robbery, identifying the bank accounts holding the stolen money would let law enforcement easily return the funds to victims.
But individuals who open a bank account must identify themselves, and no such requirement exists for opening a digital wallet. Anyone can obtain an anonymous digital wallet as easily as walking into a store and paying cash for an actual wallet.
That helps explain why Coincheck and the NEM Foundation, the international organization that manages and promotes the currency, are having trouble identifying the owners of the wallets and demanding the restoration of funds.
The foundation, which tags the NEM coins, could rewrite the blockchain virtual ledgers and forcibly return the stolen funds to Coincheck. But the NEM group has pledged never to rewrite blockchain records, so even those "transactions" resulting from a hack will remain valid.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department had received communication logs maintained by Coincheck as of Thursday. The logs are being analyzed for any violation of Japanese anti-hacking laws, but the investigation is expected to encounter challenges similar to those in past cybercrime cases.
In 2015, servers belonging to the state-run Japan Pension Service sustained a cyberattack in which computer viruses were used to obtain names, identification numbers and other data belonging to some 1.25 million people. The next year, travel agency JTB suffered a data breach affecting 6.79 million customers. In both cases, the hackers may have infiltrated systems via offshore servers, but no suspects have been named to date.
When Mt. Gox went bankrupt in February 2014 after a massive amount of cryptocurrency went missing from its exchange, it took about a year and a half for authorities to arrest CEO Mark Karpeles, who was suspected of falsifying account data. Investigators went as far as crunching data in servers located in the U.S.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, the infamous Coincheck exchange said it was preparing to announce a timeframe when yen withdrawals can begin. All yen deposits registered to customer accounts are being stored in a customer-specific account in a major financial institution, the exchange said adding that cryptocurrencies registered to customer accounts have been transferred out of hot wallets and are being stored in cold wallets, etc. And Google translated in its entirety:
As we are announcing at the release on January 30, 2018, we are currently undergoing verification and verification of technical safety etc. accompanying Japanese yen withdrawal, and we are preparing for resumption We are. Based on the confirmation / verification that we are doing with the cooperation of outside experts, we will inform you of the timing of resumption of Japanese yen withdrawal.
The Japanese yen held by the customer in the account is preserved in the customer exclusive account of the financial institution. Also, with respect to the virtual currency (BTC / ETH / ETC / LSK / FCT / XMR / REP / XRP / ZEC / LTC / DASH / BCH) which the customer has in the account, evacuate from the hot wallet, We keep it.
We are sorry for the inconvenience for a while, thank you for your consideration.
Meanwhile, someone is half a billion richer following the Coincheck theft, and nobody has any clue who it is.
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