Japan’s cryptocurrency exchange DMM Bitcoin announced on Friday that it had lost 4,502.9 bitcoin, worth roughly 48.2 billion yen or $308 million, due to an “unauthorized leak.”
The company did not provide details on how the incident occurred or if an external party was involved, but stated it is investigating and has restricted some services in response.
DMM Bitcoin reported that 4,502.9 bitcoins were stolen in the breach and assured its clients that their bitcoin deposits would be fully reimbursed.
“Please rest assured that all of your bitcoin deposits will be fully guaranteed, as we will procure the equivalent amount of BTC that was leaked with support from our group companies,” DMM Bitcoin said.
While cryptocurrency companies often face hacks and cyberattacks, losses of this magnitude are rare. DMM Bitcoin has assured customers that it will replace the lost bitcoin deposits with the assistance of other group companies.
Japan’s Financial Services Agency has demanded that the company conduct a thorough investigation into the incident, according to public broadcaster NHK.
Tom Robinson, chief scientist and co-founder of the crypto research firm Elliptic, commented that if DMM’s loss is confirmed to be theft, it would rank as the eighth largest crypto theft ever, based on exchange rates at the time of the incident. This would also be the largest crypto theft since the $477 million hack suffered by FTX in November 2022.
DMM’s loss is the second largest in the region, following the $530 million theft from the Japanese crypto exchange Coincheck in 2018. Last year, around $1.7 billion was stolen from various cryptocurrency platforms, as reported by crypto research firm Chainalysis.
The 2018 Coincheck hack, one of the biggest in the industry’s history, resulted in the loss of about $534 million worth of NEM (XEM) from its hot wallet. The incident had significant repercussions, damaging Coincheck’s reputation and exposing its inadequate security measures. The company, a subsidiary of Monex Group, spent several weeks attempting to identify the attackers and understand the breach.
