Bitcoin Forum

Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck has confirmed it lost about $524 million after suffering a hack which stole 500 million NEM tokens, said to be the biggest cryptocurrency hack ever. NEM, the 10th-largest cryptocurrency by market value, fell 11% over a 24-hour period following the hack. The previous largest theft was pegged at $450 million in 2014 from a Tokyo-based exchange.

Shocking news huh? This will affect badly for the Crypto world. Are these hackers unstoppable ? I am worried all my coins are in exchanges, not in hardware wallets, Exchanges are really not safe, This news confirms it again.

It's pretty easy for an inside job to pull this off. In the old days you had to physically steal thing to pull off an inside job. Now it's one little software file or disk and it's done, with no traces.

I think most of these so called "hacks" are just inside jobs. I know it doesn't lessen the blow. This is obviously huge! I am guilty of leaving coins in exchanges as well, definitely making me rethink that.

As you think how to prevent this so called inside job ? They can't risk people's money like this. Something has to be done avoid these nasty stuffs, This may destroy the image of whole Cryptocurrency  concept in the end.

Yeah All my coins are exchanges, We are unsecured in exchanges, Something has to be done stop these nasty stuffs, Yeah somehow. This affects whole crypto market concept badly.. I hope authorities will get in to this matter seriously. 

i'm using different ip address and password for every exchange i'm on. and 2fa if it is possible. you cant be to safe.
change passwoord regulary and if they hack one you still have all others.

it has to be resolved. crypto is so fragile right now. we can use a few weeks without bad news

I think this year a solution on this matter will rise. I think we should be able to hold our coins on hardware and trading to be just like gold is traded, hope u got my idea ..

If you are using a centralized exchange, you are also at risk, no exception, poloniex, bitfinex, binance.. all can be hacked in the future. Exchange is for trading not to hold your coins.

The total Market cap of this coin is $9 545 759 999, it is about 5% from total amount,  to my mind it wil not  make so huge influence on total currency value

Changing your password is good for your own digital currencies but if we are talking about hacked exchange, even if you are regularly changing it, it will not help.


Crypto Currency is not fragile, the exchange is. If cryptos needs an improvement, it will not be on the security but on it's transaction speed and fees.


That is the reason we need to be careful. Don't let your exchange hold your coins, just use them if you will be just selling your coins, don't save it there.

Every criptocurrency exchange and every wallet could be hacked. So the best way is hold your coins at different exchanges and wallet. For ex., I use 4 criptocurrency exchanges and 10 different wallets

This is why people should never store their funds in an exchange

That's crazy to see that Japanese exchange has been involved on the biggest thefts, but Japan remains to be a crypto friendly country. Japan still impress me for that, if the same thing would happen some others countries, that would be a complete disaster.




In fact I don't consider it as fragile, as all these token will be currently unusable for the hacker. Exchanges can track these tokens and block them if they reach an exchange. This will maybe change once decentralized exchange will come out. Currently, this hack even had a positive impact on NEM valuation. Exchanges are fragile, but crypto aren't.

Almost all hack have been possible because of human errors (this one included)  ;)

Do you really think that leaving money on exchange aren't safe?! This makes me nervous right now, if one more news about exchange getting hack again i will pull out all my money on the exchanges that i have participated. How will you know if an exchange is really safe and secured?

Indeed, exchanges aren't safe. You can protect you by 2FA, strong passwords, but you can't protect Exchange wallet, this is their job. Here, it failed because they stored their coins on hot wallets, instead of cold wallets. I would suggest to move your coins before waiting another hack news, if you don't trade them  ;)

Currently, you cannot determine if an exchange is safe, the only way is through audits and even, can you trust this audit ?

The best way to protect you is by moving your coins on hardware wallets or offline wallets. If you want to trade, keep the minimal amount on the exchange.

Decentralized exchanges will change this by the way. These exchanges store no funds, so there's nothing to hack, and security will come back on user's hands  :)

You should never put your tokens online. That is the only rule that we should all live by. If it is online the hackers will mine.

Sounds like Coincheck is accepting fault and covering their customers coins for the price it was trading at. It was a big loss but also an important lesson learned, exchanges have tools to keep things like this from happening and coin developers have made it easier for exchanges to implement these security features. I think Coinccheck will be practicing them from now on.

Yes, these measures are good but still hackers are very active these days and they even have the mechanism to break the passwords and 2fa.
My recommendation is not to reveal your email in public sites as hackers might attempt to first hack email and then get access to exchanges where you have made accounts.

Also make sure you do not put extra money in online exchanges and withdraw the unused money to your local wallets.

Yes, bad news, but we should understand that in digital world everything is hackable, it is not easy thing to hack crypto, but it is possible. So it is also one of the related risks.

How it can keep you from losing your coins on the exchange? Nohow. To hack into your account very expensive. It can hack only if you'll allow it. Breaking of the exchange more profitable. We are talking about big money. You can attract more hackers. So using all these precautions will not protect you from losses.

i think the community is used to these hacks by now because i don't really see much drama related to this. although it is an altcoin which was stolen not bitcoin but there could have been a lot of drama if it was a couple of years ago.

and it is not as bad for "crypto world" as you may think. it once again proves what we have already known, that the centralized exchanges should die soon and be replaced by decentralized ones.

hopefully Lightning Network and Atomic Swap make this happen faster.

Its pretty cool that the exchange is going to refund 80% back to those who lost the money in the first place. That is a good sign that the times are changing and exchanges are behaving more professionally nowadays. A couple of months ago if your money was stolen that was that.

Is this news confirmed? So are you saying that they are going to refund around $400 million to the users, who lost their funds? It is a brave move, but I really suspect that they have that much funds remaining with them. Another question is about how the hack happened. Were they stupid enough to store $500 million worth of coins in a single wallet?

Indeed,Japan does impress everyone.That's what makes them unique and it's one of the Superpowers in the world.One of the striking features that can be found in them is their sheer hardwork and "never give up" attitude.Japan is a country which is prone to many natural disasters,but they all have accepted their habitat and have adapted to it very beautifully.In our country we look upto their hardwork and people's love for their country.They never fail in finding resolutions to their problems.
I am sure that Japan will find a way to stop these hackers.

I bet this is some kind of a inside job, or maybe the staffs with access to wallet got compromised.
This would never have happened if they used multi-sig wallet.

Hopefully lessons learned, and they start using multi-sig wallet for all cryptocurrencies.

Somehow I don't understand the price developements in the world of crypto currencies anymore
500 million NEM get stolen and their price increases 10%. I would have imagined that the opposite would happen.
Maybe that has something to do with the refund the exchange promised. They buy up all the NEM and that increases the price.

It doesn't matter, is was not a weakness on NEM itself.
The circulating supply still stays the same, so no reason to have any impact on the market cap.

As long as you are holding your funds in your offline wallets where no one can access your wallet without your permission then it is completely fine but there are some people who keep their funds on the exchange or web wallet or anything where internet is enabled and they lose their funds.

It is not about the trust on web wallet or exchange service providers, but it is about the security of which we might not have any idea at all. Where we are a part of the crypto world in which we are responsible for our actions and we shouldn't blame anyone else in such cases, definitely exchanges should maintain the highest security but it is the responsibility of the users too of holding their funds in a secure manner.

can someone explain me how this is possible for an exchange that have 2fa active? they have managed to steal the privete keys itselfs?

It's bad news for the exchange, but I think the way things are being handled will boost more confidence within the crypto markets. The exchanges, unlike MtGox is trying to solve the problem. They will not close doors, and they will refund it's customers with their own funds. The NEM team was quite fast as well, and did the exchange a big favor, by "placing" a track system on the coins, so that the hackers can't do anything with them. Right now, from what I've read, they can't really trade the coins for any other alt, or fiat, so they are stuck with tainted coins.
I hope that everything ends up well for the exchange and it's customers, and what started as a bad event, will bring trust to crypto.

That exchange has already done so much profit from trading and listing fees they must  refund the members who lost their NEM out of their own pocket.

What if a exchange just pretend as they were hacked but really not. then they can take money and run away, no one would blame them, because they were hacked by bad hackers. I just thought in that way when I was thinking about this incident ...

As i've heard, the Japanese have already paid off their debts to the victims. Very reliable exchange!

Exchanges should only be used for that ... to exchange the currency. Once the transaction is completed you should move your cryptocurrency to a safer wallet (offline, hardware, etc.). Sure, moving back and forth is an extra fee to pay, but I prefer that than risking my investment (I doubt every exchange will be willing to refund the lost currency).

Coins should be insured on all exchanges to protect against hacking.

we see it again and again. Security in the crypto world is extremely poor

My advice is nobody should leave his/her asset in the exchange except for short term trading and that won't be much reducing your loss

but not the full amount right?: only 80%

But I think most of people keep their coins in exchanges instead hardware wallets, I guess many people don't know how to do it either...

That's a lot of money. Exchanges should improve their security weekly or monthly for them to secure all the money inside it.

hackers again hackers again, a term I often hear
they always make the act, they hack whatever they want, break into the security system and steal the assets in it. we can only minimize that
don't never click on a link that is not clear source, or open a strange message in your gmail

the most serious problem! even cold wallets can not provide 100% protection of the crypt. I think projects that specialize in data protection will be very much in demand at the present time. you know what I mean?

Yes, they are unstoppable - and as more people begin to properly worry about their money, they go out of crypto again

Exchanges are main target of hackers and for this reason, people should learn not to leave their cryptocurrencies on exchanges. You must return them to your main wallet. So many people are losing huge amount of money to hackers and it seems the trend may not end on time.

Are this hacks ever gonna stop? This will cause a flash crash to bitcoin price if this didin't happend already. Nubit can be right , this could be an inside job and it will not be the last one as more and more cash is flowing into cryptos , people get tempted to steal so I really really hope that in the next years some realy tough rulles will put this people behind bars.

It is the exchange fault and not the NEM coin. The exchange didn't put XEM in a cold storage which is a basic protocol of every exchange in the market. That is why you must do a habit not to put all your holding in an exchange if you don't want to get lost all your  investment.