Cryptocurrency worth 58 billion yen stolen from Coincheck held in 19 accounts: sources

February 1, 2018

Tokyo- Cryptocurrency coins worth 58 billion yen stolen last week from virtual currency exchange operator Coincheck Inc. were held in 19 accounts as of Wednesdaynight, informed sources said.

The culprit of the theft "may be trying to figure out how to transfer the money" by making remittance to various accounts, said Yoichiro Hirano, leader of the Blockchain Collaborative Consortium.

According to disclosed transaction history data and consortium officials, 523 million units of XEM, the cryptocurrency of the NEM Foundation, were stolen and sent to an account in eight batches over about 20 minutes just after midnight Thursday (3 p.m. GMT).

Some more XEM coins were sent to the same account on more than one occasion after 3 a.m. Friday

Meanwhile, most of the XEM coins in the account were transferred to eight other accounts over about 30 minutes from around 3 p.m., followed by remittance to a different account on Friday night.

Remittance from the first account resumed around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. Recipients were nine other accounts.

The Singapore-based foundation is tracking the stolen XEM. Jiji Press