It's very suspicious. I believe that it was insider attack

It will require people to have a good amount of patience as according to the profits their business makes, it will take +2 years to fully compensate each account holder that was subject to the haircut. It's of course better than nothing, but this can be a trigger for other exchanges to walk the exact same road. Just fake a hack, and 'compensate' people afterwards by issuing tokens. Very lucrative....

Btw -- OP please fix the date.

By faking a hack I mean that exchange operators can just pretend that they are hacked, while they in fact stole the coins themselves.

Assuming it were indeed hackers, they will not take any risks by mixing the stolen coins. If an exchange gets hacked, it will act immediately and instruct every possible service that would allow the hackers to 'mix' their coins. But even if they did manage to 'mix' their coins, it won't have any effect as the hackers don't gain any form of privacy. All info from these services will be handed over to the exchange, and then to the law enforcement.

Mixing through the mainstream channels won't work. The coins will have to get mixed elsewhere. It could be done in the deep web, it could be done peer 2 peer, where people they are trading with don't know that the coins are stolen, etc. They have enough time to think through everything properly.

Regarding compensation -- they issue tokens/equity in the main business to compensate people. People can hold them till the time the business in question buys them back. That's the whole idea. People don't have any other option than to accept this lame form of compensation. Everything will be paid back in fiat equivalent. Better something than nothing, right?

This incident can cement that fear of some people to put currency in the exchange. I mean if a Korean exchange can get hacked (assuming this is not just an insider job), how much more with other exchange located in a poorer country? This can affect our confidence on an exchange company and I hope it won't happen with the others.

And I am thinking...is it not possible that there can be an insurance for such an incident? Rather than let the loss be taken by their users, can it be not taken cared by an insurance company?

the so called exchange insurance job is a real risk that must be mitigated considering the rise of bitcoin and altcoins, i have a feeling poloniex could be hacked any day now and the compensation to be a token called polo

Anyone with a lick of sense who has been on this message board (or any other internet access) more than a week should KNOW that an exchange is EXACTLY that, an EXCHANGE, not a freaking piggy bank. I'm sorry that anyone loses money but maybe a few more people will learn the lesson.