Japan, as we know, is one of the leading countries adopting the new cryptocurrency trend. And despite the enthusiasm, security measures are not that high to avoid malicious attacks or even systematic bugs.
Just a few days back, we reported how Coincheck, a bitcoin wallet, and exchange service got hacked. And now the Zaif exchange has stumbled onto a glitch that could have solicited a $20 Trillion purchase of BTC.
On 20th Feb, Zaif posted on their website about the aforementioned “glitch.” They reported that it lasted for 18 minutes, in which about seven users were able to trade yen for digital currencies at a price of 0 yen per coin.
One user even went to the length of attempting to buy 2200 trillion yen (which roughly translates to 20 trillion yen) worth of Bitcoins and selling them. However, Zaif was able to cancel all such illicit transactions, and no overall harm came out of the pandemonium.
Nonetheless, users became furious and criticised Zaif for their negligence and poor backend performance, as well as lack of support. Twitter posts were filled will a plethora of such complaints.
As we already stated, just a month ago, Japan faced a malicious $530 mln hack of Coincheck. A new “glitch” in one of their popular cryptocurrency exchanges is going to call for increased regulatory scrutiny. However, will it be enough?
All in all, technical errors on mainstream interfaces of cryptocurrency tools aren’t uncommon. It is a new technology in the market, and all haven’t been fully understood on what implications it can bring, and how it can be misused. A related incident happened incident happened last month(January) when Overstock showcased a glitch that allowed Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash as viable payment options with the same price figure.
But, despite all these technical and security risks, the popularity of digital currencies hasn’t diminished. In fact, some licensed members are supposed to form an umbrella self-regulatory group from April 2018 to enhances security measures.