At an emergency press briefing held on Friday midnight, Tokyo-based Coincheck — one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan — confirmed that they had just been hacked and lost 58 billion yen (about $530 million) worth of NEM, a new cryptocurrency especially popular among Japanese and Chinese crypto investors. The exchange was yet to be registered as an official dealer with the Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA) since they say the registration process takes a while due to the number of cryptocurrencies (13) to be dealt with. The company is still investigating how many users have been affected by the incident but says all NEM tokens stored in the exchange’s digital wallets have been lost. They have reported the issue to FSA and the Japanese National Police Agency, and have started exploring possibilities about how they can compensate customers for their damages in discussions with NEM Foundation. The company is currently suspending all dealing operations for NEM and all other cryptocurrencies on their exchange, forcing their customers to lose access for cash withdrawals. See also: Japan’s ResuPress launches online bitcoin exchange and payment gateway Coincheck Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy