Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the keep-your-private-keys-offline dept.

There's a new contender for the largest theft of cryptocurrency ever:

A Japanese cryptocurrency exchange announced the theft Friday of $400 million in digital currency. Some estimates put the loss at the Coincheck exchange at over $520 million.

The stolen assets were stored in the cryptocurrency NEM, one of hundreds of digital currencies created in recent years. Bitcoin, the most well-known cryptocurrency, dropped precipitously on news of the hack but has since regained much of its value.

The incident could be one of the largest single losses of cryptocurrency ever, rivaling only the 2014 hack of online exchange Mt. Gox. Reports at the time put Mt. Gox's losses at over $400 million.

Coincheck says 500 million digital coins were lost. According to Cointelgraph, hackers stole the private key protecting access to Coincheck's accounts.

Does it matter that it was a $400 million theft if the value is going to collapse anyway?

Meanwhile, a stock trading app called Robinhood plans to allow users to buy and sell Bitcoin and Ethereum without any transaction fees.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:50AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:50AM (#629382)

    Of course not. With trading intrinsic value is increased (if the traded value gets lower than purchase price, people have less incentive to sell as nobody wants to loose money), because money is stolen the purchase price is 0, so there is an incentive to sell at any price available (no loss in the first place). Of course, this is not the best strategy, but stolen coins can get too hot to hold (and of course the thieves want cold hard cash instead of cryptos).

    My point is the exact opposite. Thieves most likely want to get rid of them asap and dump at any price, this reduces value stored previously that was build up by trading. The same point why "HODL" is a bad strategy for a coin to build up value and increases volatility.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=1, Informative=1, Total=2
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:57AM (2 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:57AM (#629384) Journal

    Thanks! That makes sense.

    SODL

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:00AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:00AM (#629386)

      More like "cryptocoins have to roll!"

      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:17PM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:17PM (#629469) Homepage
        Get with the porgram - they have to RLOL!
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves