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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.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:04PM
Uh, yeah, I tried debating that point ~8-10 years ago and was roundly shouted out of the room by people who wanted to astroturf the perception that it is a securely anonymous system (Silk Road vendors and their like, I would guess), and for ~7 years most people seemed to believe the astroturfers. Only lately, when the Wall Street analysts have really started to dig in, have I seen this "it can't ever be truly anonymous, because traceability is a core design component" logic come up to a level where average users are starting to believe it.
🌻🌻 [google.com]