On July 12, 2019, Tokyo-headquartered cryptocurrency exchange Bitpoint promptly suspended its services after noticing an error in the outgoing funds transfer system. Soon, an official announcement followed, revealing that the trading platform had lost around 3.5 billion yen (roughly $32 million) as a result of a security breach. The exchange’s administration has managed to find a portion of the missing funds since the initial announcement was published. Nevertheless, the security breach seems to continue the streak of hacks targeting Japan-based exchanges. Details of the hack According to the breakdown of the hack published by Bitpoint’s parent firm, Remixpoint Inc., Bitcoin …

Japanese exchange Bitpoint has published the breakdown of crypto assets stolen in the 3 billion yen (~$27.8 million) hack of its platform earlier this month. A document published by Bitpoint’s parent firm Remix Point Inc. on July 16 reveals that five crypto assets in total were stolen by the attackers. The breakdown provided by the company compares the proportion of stolen customer assets with assets belonging to the firm: Out of the 3.02 billion yen stolen in cryptocurrencies overall, 2.6 billion yen belonged to customers and 960 million yen were company assets. XRP accounted for the highest share of total …

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 …

Japanese authorities are investigating the impact of Facebook’s Libra stablecoin, Cointelegraph Japan reported on July 12. Per the report, Japanese authorities have set up a liaison conference tasked with investigating the impact of Facebook’s stablecoin on monetary policy and financial stability. The conference will reportedly consist of the Bank of Japan, the Ministry of Finance and the Financial Services Agency and has already started meeting this week. The report claims that the objective of the newly formed group is to coordinate policies that would address the consequences of Libra’s implementation on regulation, tax, monetary policy, and payments settlement. Unspecified officials …

Japanese crypto exchange Bitpoint has suspended all services after losing $32 million in a hack involving XRP, Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies. In an official announcement on July 12, Bitpoint revealed that it had lost around 3.5 billion yen (~$32 million) — 2.5 billion yen (~$23 million) of which belonged to customers and 1 billion (~$9.2 million) to the exchange. Bloomberg reports that shares of Bitpoint’s parent firm Remixpoint Inc. shed 19% following news of the incident, and were untraded in Tokyo as of 1:44 p.m. “on a glut of sell orders.” Alongside XRP and Bitcoin, a total five different …

Fortress Investment Group is buying bitcoin (BTC) claims from Mt. Gox creditors, according to a report by CoinDesk on July 8. The Japan-based cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy in 2014 after losing $473 million worth of bitcoin at the time due to an apparent hack. Bitcoin reportedly experienced a subsequent decline in value, dropping by 36% over the month when this took place. As per the report, Fortress executive Michael Hourigan has sent out a letter to creditors detailing the buyback offer. According an apparent copy of such a letter, Fortress has offered to buy the bitcoin claims …

Japan’s second most senior banking figure has said central banks cannot use digital currencies to enforce negative interest rates, Reuters reported on July 5. Speaking at an event held by the publication, Masayoshi Amamiya, deputy governor of the Bank of Japan, said that states issuing digital currency with a negative interest rate would force inhabitants towards cash. This cash supply would remain, Amaiya said, and despite the current trend to replace it, no government would actually do so. “To overcome the nominal zero lower bound, central banks would need to eliminate cash,” he hypothesized. “Eliminating cash would make settlement infrastructure …

Japanese tech research firm Fujitsu Laboratories has developed a blockchain-based solution for evaluating user credentials, identity and trustworthiness in online transactions, according to an announcement by Fujitsu on July 4. As reported, the solution considers user ratings, stored on a blockchain, to assign every user a “trustworthiness score.” Users reportedly rate each other when a transaction occurs and the technology evaluates this data to make a guess about users’ relationships with one another. Other users can then see how high someone else’s trust score is before agreeing to a transaction, according to the announcement. Fujitsu claims that this solution has …

South Korea’s Gram Asia is selling rights to its Gram holdings at $4.00 per token starting July 10, according to a report by Bloomberg on July 3. The proposed sale price is triple the original $1.33 sale price at Gram’s second initial coin offering (ICO) round in March 2018. The sale on July 10 is apparently happening exclusively through Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Liquid, as per its website. Liquid also hosted the Gram ICO in March, at which time Telegram raised $850 million, bringing its total valuation up to $1.7 billion. Citing an email from the exchange, Bloomberg reports that users …

Nobel prize-winning economist, Joseph Eugene Stiglitz, claims that “every currency is based on trust, but only a fool would trust Facebook’s Libra” in an article published on July 2. Stiglitz also notes that “in just a few short years, Facebook has earned a level of distrust that took the banking sector much longer to achieve.” He appears to fear that Facebook’s cryptocurrency could be hospitable to a shadow economy: “The last thing we need is a new vehicle for nurturing illicit activities and laundering the proceeds, which another cryptocurrency will almost certainly turn out to be.” Still, the economist also …

G20 leaders reaffirmed their previous stance towards cryptocurrencies in a declaration following the G20 Summit in Osaka on June 29 In the declaration, the G20 leaders state that cryptocurrencies do not currently constitute a threat to monetary stability, and that technological innovation can deliver significant benefit to the economy. The participants also welcome the ongoing work on those assets by the Financial Stability Board and other standard setting bodies, and encourages multilateral responses when needed. The authors of the declaration also reaffirm their determination to comply with the updated Financial Action Task Force anti-money laundering and countering terrorism financing standards …

A group of national trade associations representing the local Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) announced their intention to establish an association to provide a global representative for firms in the industry in a press release shared with Cointelegraph on June 29. Per the release, the aforementioned Japanese trade association signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Osaka aiming to establish the association. The associations that signed the agreement include the Australian Digital Commerce Association (ADCA), Singapore Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Industry Association, Japan Blockchain Association, Korean Blockchain Association, Hong Kong Blockchain Association, and the Taiwan Parliamentary Coalition for Blockchain & Industry …