Crypto Exchange Zaif Hacked In $60 Million, 6,000 Bitcoin Theft

Another Japan-based cryptocurrency exchange has been hacked with a loss of total 6.7 billion yen, or $60 million worth of cryptocurrency, including 6,000 bitcoin.

The exchange, called Zaif, operated by Tech Bureau and a licensed exchange in Japan, said on Thursday that the exchange first noticed unusual funds outflow on the platform around 17:00 Japan time on Sept. 14, after which the company suspended asset deposit and withdrawal services.

Tech Bureau further explained that after further investigation, it discovered the unauthorized access to the exchange's hot wallets had stolen a total of $60 million worth of cryptocurrency in bitcoin, bitcoin cash, and MonaCoin.

At the moment the amount of bitcoin cash stolen remains unknown.

The exchange added that since its own asset reserve is currently at around 2.2 billion yen, it has reached an agreement with a Japan-listed firm called Fisco to receive a $44.5 million investment in exchange for a major share of ownership.

Tech Bureau said given the nature of the unauthorized fund access, it has filed the incident as a criminal case to local authority for further investigation.

The incident marks the second hack happened in Japan this year, after Coincheck also reported a whopping $520 million worth of the NEM token got stolen by hackers in January.

Following Coincheck's hack, the Japanese financial watchdog the Financial Services Agency has launched a series of inspection on cryptocurrency exchanges in the country regarding their security measures.

The FSA has notably issued a business improvement order to Tech Bureau in March specifically on its security and anti-money laundering enhancement.

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