Japanese Exchange, Bitpoint Got Hacked; $32 Million Missing!

Japan has experienced another cryptocurrency exchange hacking this year, perhaps the first of the year’s second half. This time, a licensed Japanese cryptocurrency exchange, Bitpoint reported Friday to have been hacked of some crypto assets totaling around $32 million dollars.

According to report received in the early hours of Friday, Bitpoint halted all exchange operations including deposited and withdrawal requests, as well as trading activities on its platform following the event of the successful hacking.

Bitpoint is a licensed Japanese cryptocurrency exchange under its parent company Remixpoint Inc. In the announcement following the event, Bitpoint revealed that the exchanged noticed a security breakthrough in which irregular withdrawals were made from its online wallets on Thursday.

At the time of writing the article, Bitpoint had not revealed which assets were stolen, however, the exchange had trading support for only five cryptocurrencies including BTC, BCH, Ether, XRP, and LTC.

According to Remixpoint Inc’s official announcement, the hack affected majorly the customer’s funds. It was reported that 71% of the funds stolen were customers assets as $23 million of the stolen funds were customers deposits.

Japan has been getting hits from hackers recently and has reported cases of hacking a couple of times this year already. With Japan regulators looking to see into cryptocurrencies adoption, the news of exchange hackings would have a great impact on the country’s cryptocurrency regulations decision.

More updates expected from Bitpoint regarding the hack.

The exchange’s parent company Remixpoint Inc. said in an announcement that $23 million of the illegal outflow belonged to its customers.

The hack is the latest incident that has happened to exchanges in Japan. In September 2018, Zaif, also a licensed exchange under the Japanese Financial Services Agency, was hacked and lost $60 million worth in cryptocurrencies.