Cryptocurrency traders filed a lawsuit yesterday against Japanese exchange firm Coincheck Inc, seeking repayment after hackers raided hundreds of millions of dollars in digital assets.
Seven plaintiffs — two companies and five individuals — took part in an initial lawsuit filed at the Tokyo District Court.
They are seeking the reimbursement of ¥19.53 million (US$167,000) in virtual currencies and further compensation for interest lost due to the hack, the plaintiffs’ lawyer Hiromu Mochizuki said after the filing.
Mochizuki warned his firm had received enquiries from “some 1,000 people” also considering a class-action legal suit over the hack, which was one of the largest of its kind.
Investors in this second class-action lawsuit planned later this month would likely seek compensation for the drop in their assets’ value while Coincheck halted withdrawals in the wake of the hack.
The hack of Coincheck — resulting in the disappearance of NEM cryptocurrency worth US$530 million — prompted authorities to search the firm’s office earlier this month, after slapping it with an administrative order.
The company has already pledged to reimburse about US$400 million to all 260,000 customers who lost their holdings of NEM, the 10th biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
Coincheck halted operations after the hack and prevented traders from withdrawing their virtual currency from the exchange — a decision that left those assets in limbo while the cryptocurrency markets continued to move.
On Tuesday, Coincheck said it had resumed operations for withdrawals denominated in Japanese yen, but has still frozen withdrawals of a dozen different kinds of cryptocurrencies.
One plaintiff in his 20s told reporters he had invested ¥400,000 , adding he wanted it back “as soon as possible.”
“I was surprised and worried at the incident,” he said on condition of anonymity.
A class-action suit is the best way to proceed in this case, as it is similar to when a large number of people seek damages over faulty consumer goods, lead lawyer Kanehito Kita said.
It is difficult and expensive for small-scale individual investors to file lawsuits in Japan.
Japanese officials have suggested Coincheck lacked proper security measures, leaving itself vulnerable to theft.
In the wake of the incident, the country’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) instructed more than a dozen local exchanges to submit reports on their efforts to monitor systemic risks.
Thieves siphoned away 523 million units of the cryptocurrency NEM from Coincheck during the Jan. 26 hack.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day