Hacked Bitpoint Exchange Finds $2.3M in Stolen Crypto

Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitpoint has discovered over 250 million yen ($2.3 million) in cryptocurrency — part of a $32 million sum that was stolen last week, local English language daily The Mainichi reports on July 14.

According to The Mainchi, Bitpoint found the stolen cryptocurrency on overseas exchanges that were using a trading system provided by Bitpoint Japan. Bitpoint told The Mainchi that the recent discovery brings the total sum of lost founds down from 3.5 billion yen ($32 million) to 3.02 billion yen ($28 million).

The exchange was initially hacked on July 12. 2.5 billion yen ($23 million) of stolen funds belonged to customers while 1 billion ($9.2 million) belonged to the exchange. Hackers stole Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Ether (ETH) and XRP from the exchange’s hot wallets.

Bitpoint suspended all services following the hack, while the exchange's parent firm Remixpoint Inc. shed 19% following the theft. Remixpoint went untraded in Tokyo following the attack due to a reported glut of sell orders.

The recent incident involving Bitpoint follows a record-breaking hack of Japanese exchange Coincheck in January 2018, wherein $534 million of NEM tokens were stolen from Coincheck’s low-security hot wallet.

Bitpoint was one of several exchanges to receive a business improvement order from Japan’s finance watchdog, the Financial Services Agency (FSA), in June of last year. One of the FSA’s main concerns was the exchanges’ compliance with Anti-Money Laundering and Know Your Customer requirements.

The agency also expressed concerns that customer funds were not being kept sufficiently separate from those of the exchanges.