Coincheck Crypto Exchange to Compensate Hack Victims

Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck has announced it will start compensating customers that suffered losses in its January hack starting from next week.

In a press conference Thursday, Coincheck CEO Koichiro Wada and COO Yusuke Otsuka said that the platform will release more details of the compensation process in the next few days. The pair also revealed a further plan to resume trading services for some cryptocurrencies next week.

As reported by CoinDesk, Coincheck first confirmed some 500 million NEM token had been stolen on Jan. 26, which at the time were worth around $530 million. Soon after the incident, the platform announced it would compensate each stolen token at a rate of $0.81 per token – an amount near $420 million.

Following the breach, Japan's financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency (FSA), soon stepped in to inspect the platform's security measures and its fiscal capacity for refunding victims of the heist. As the investigation continued, customers of the exchange also filed class action lawsuits demanding that Coincheck expedite reimbursement of their losses.

Coincheck's plan to refund users comes amid a wider effort by the FSA to more closely scrutinize crypto exchanges in Japan to try and stop such events from reoccurring.

As reported by CoinDesk, following an extensive investigation of the remaining unlicensed exchanges in Japan, the FSA has issued administrative penalties to seven trading platforms today – two of which have been ordered to suspend services, while all are mandated to submit a written plan for security improvements by March 22.

Coincheck CEO image via CoinDesk archive