How much Cryptocurrency has been Lost / Stolen?

Coincheck - $544 million

A popular cryptocurrency exchange by the name of Coincheck is apparently looking for ways to reignite its popularity amongst the crypto community, since it was the subject of a hack on of its funds. The amount of cryptocurrency that was stolen by hackers amounts to an incredible ¥58 billion worth of NEM cryptocurrency, or over $500 million.

The Tokyo based cryptocurrency exchange is looking at a number of different ways it can "consider a capital tie-up in order to strengthen its financial base and regain trust following a massive cryptocurrency theft from the exchange in a hacking incident about a month ago."

It has been approximately one month since the attack on the Japanese exchange and there is air of uncertainty as to whether Coincheck has the capital to be able to refund all of their 260,000 customers who use their platform.

Following on from February 13th, 7 Coincheck customers filed a lawsuit at the Tokyo district court requesting the return of their cryptocurrencies, rather than in Japanese Yen. This took place on February 15th. The plaintiffs are requesting their NEM as well as another 12 kinds of cryptocurrencies, that include bitcoin and ether be reinstated.

NiceHash - $80 million

December 6th 2017 saw the Slovenian based mining company known as NiceHash fall victim to a cyber attack, and managed to lose 4700 BTC which equates to roughly $80 million. The CEO of NiceHash, Marko Kobal made an appearance on Facebook Live in order to address the issues regarding the cyber attack and the theft of its bitcoin.

In the live event, he didn't give away too much information about the attack, although he divulged some information about an employee's computer that was compromised during the attack, which lead to the eventual heist.

The attacks were able to gain access to the NiceHash core by using the employee's credentials. When the company had found out that it was the subject of an attack, it suspended operations for 24 hours in order to perform a thorough checkup and analysis of the situation.

Mt. Gox - $473 million

All the way back in 2014 there was a platform called Mt. Gox, which was a Japanese based exchange platform that was the subject of a massive $473 million robbery. Many of their users were filing complaints about the extremely long delays in service, and it got so bad that the U.S. banking system stepped in and froze Mt. Gox out because of the many regulatory problems.

The company actually stopped all bitcoin withdrawals on 7th February 2014, so they could analyse the situation and look the technical processes within the company. Upon finishing the analysis, they realised they had been subjected to a transaction malleability.

These are just some of the major cyber attacks that have taken place on major cryptocurrency exchanges, and it just goes to show that tight security is absolutely paramount but even then nothing is impenetrable. The total number of cryptocurrencies that have been hacked or lost amounts to well over $1 billion dollars.

BitGrail - $195 Million

An obscure Italian cryptocurrency exchange called BitGrail claims that it was hacked late last week and lost roughly $195 million worth of customers' cryptocurrency.

BitGrail, based in Italy, is one of many exchanges globally which allow the trading of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. BitGrail was until recently one of the main portals for the trading of Nano, a cryptocurrency formerly known as RaiBlocks. Last Thursday, BitGrail founder Francesco Firano claims to have discovered that 17 million Nano tokens, then worth roughly $195 million, had been stolen by hackers.

Suspicion is growing around Italian cryptocurrency exchange BitGrail after its owner seemingly asked for a coin's ledger to be changed after the exchange reported funds were missing Thursday, Feb 8.

Official Statement Regarding BitGrail Insolvency "BitGrail is an independent business and Nano is not responsible for the way Firano or BitGrail conduct their business. We have no visibility into the BitGrail organization, nor do we have control over how they operate."

Binance...

On the 7th of March, 31 accounts of Binance customers suddenly began buying Viacoin, a relatively low-value cryptocurrency, with Bitcoin. As a result of this, the price of Viacoin rose dramatically. The buyers then attempted to sell the tokens, but were prevented from doing so by an automatic block mechanism in the Binance system.

The accounts were customer accounts that had been compromised at some point between January and the date of the attack. The hackers had collected information quietly over this period and waited for the ideal moment before making their move. This suggests an organised, professional operation.

The thieves may not have been able to get away with the money, but the effect of the event on the market was drastic. Binance handles over 2 trillion USD in cryptocurrency trading on a daily basis, and doubts as to its security are apt to cause waves.

Binance Hacker Bounty"To ensure a safe crypto community, we can't simply play defense. We need to actively prevent any instances of hacking before they occur, as well as follow through after-the-fact. Even though the hacking attempt against Binance on March 7th was not successful, it was clear it was a large-scale, organized effort. This needs to be addressed.

Binance is offering a $250,000 USD equivalent bounty to anyone who supplies information that leads to the legal arrest of the hackers involved in the attempted hacking incident on Binance on March 7th, 2018.