The Japanese operator started operating in Panama in 2018. BITPoint had been advised by the authorities to improve its security system.

BITPoint, a small exchange house of Japanese origin, reported the hacking attack on its platform. The event meant the loss of US $32 million in XRP (3.5 billion yen) and other cryptocurrencies, according to some sources. The exchange house started operating in Panama at the end of 2018.

According to a statement released by the crypto wallet on July 12th, 2019, about US $23 million belonged to users of the platform. BITPoint owned the rest of the cryptocurrencies involved in the hacking attack. After the event, the shares of Remixpoint, company responsible for the platform, fell by almost 20%, and stopped being traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange due to an excess of sales orders.

The stolen funds were taken from hot wallets, which contained the five cryptocurrencies traded through the exchange house: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, XRP and Ether. Although the exact figures of the losses are still not clear at the moment of writing this article, Bloomberg informed that the highest percentage was stolen in XRP.

“We are committed to measures to minimize the damage. We will announce the lost amounts as soon as the details are known,” said Remixpoint, company that manages BITPoint.

According to the statement, after an emergency meeting, BITPoint suspended exchange operations after the hacking of cryptocurrencies, withdrawals and deposits on the morning of Friday, July 12th; this is, after reporting an irregular withdrawal of XRP from its hot wallet one day before.

BITPoint Latam made an official statement in which it said that the funds of the users of the exchange house in Latin America were not affected.

Below are the contents of that document:

BITPoint Latam informs its customers in Latin America that on July 11th, 2019, our parent company BITPoint Japan was the victim of a cyber attack that resulted in the theft of digital assets. The affected customers’ funds will be restored in their entirety. For the peace of our community, the funds of our clients in Latin America have not been affected.

As a security measure, the service is temporarily suspended. BITPoint Japan has used due forensic service to track the funds compromised in this event and recover them.

In case of any questions, please contact su*****@bi******.pa

BITPoint Latam, branch of BITPoint in Panama

This exchange house was among the group of operators that was urged by the Financial Services Agency of Japan to improve the internal security controls of its platform, after the hack suffered by the also Japanese crypto wallet Coincheck last year.

At that time, Coincheck was the victim of a theft of the equivalent of US $530 million in the cryptocurrency of NEM, XEM.

As a consequence of that hacking attack, the Japanese authorities tightened the noose on this type of companies, insisting on the need to improve their security system in order to avoid having a new case of cryptocurrency theft. It seems that BITPoint had not improved its system sufficiently before the event.

By Willmen Blanco

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