Coincheck To Be Granted Operating License By Japan’s FSA

Coincheck might well be one of the world’s most notorious cryptocurrency exchanges. In January 2018, Coincheck was the victim of one of cryptocurrencies biggest hacks, an attack that saw the theft of around $532 million worth of NEM tokens. This in turn inspired Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) to start to regulate cryptocurrency exchanges to ensure a hack on this scale could not happen again.

Through 2018, Coincheck have concentrated on rebuilding their reputation. Of course, the hack was not directly their fault, but the fall out that followed and the fact investors lost a lot of their tokens was in part their responsibility.

Now the dust has settled, it seems that Coincheck are back after local authorities have announced that the FSA have granted a new cryptocurrency exchange license to Coincheck. According to Cointelegraph:

“An announcement from the financial watchog is reportedly due to be released by the end of the year. Notably, in private correspondence with Cointelegraph Japan, Coincheck’s PR emphasized it is not [the exchange’s] official announcement and we haven’t confirmed the fact yet. As previously reported, the FSA has intensified its scrutiny of domestic crypto exchanges in the wake of the industry-record-breaking $532 million theft of NEM tokens from Coincheck’s wallets this January.”

By receiving this licence, Coincheck will be able to begin providing an exchange service to its customers once again.

We should note that 2018 has not been smooth sailing for this exchange. In the wake of the hack, the FSA issued a number of improvement orders to the exchange before it was eventually acquired by Monex in the middle of the year:

“Under the new stewardship of Monex, Nikkei reports the FSA has now purportedly judged that protection measures and other critical systems at the exchange have now been sufficiently improved to warrant a new license.”

We should also note that Coincheck have been operating without a license under restriction, once a full license is issued however, normal service will be resumed within the exchange, almost a year on from the hack that seemed to totally change the face of cryptocurrency exchange in Japan, and perhaps even across the rest of the world too.