Back in January, Coincheck became the victim of a massive hack which resulted in the crypto exchange losing $542 million in cryptocurrency, and not to mention its decline in reputation in the market. Following this event, the company finally agreed to Monex’s billion investment offer with which Monex Group was now officially acquired Coincheck.
According to local news source Nikkei, the Monex Group has also officially announced that they have acquired Coincheck. The crypto-exchange’s current CEO Koichiro Wada and COO Yusuke Otsuka will now hand over their position to Toshihiko Katsuya from Monex Group, who will now be the president of the house.
After Coincheck became the target of the biggest hack in crypto-history, decline to their reputation became inevitable. The company received criticism for their lack of security measures. Investors also started to demand compensation which resulted in even more pressure for the company.
Ultimately the company had managed to reimburse their users with 88.549 JPY for each coin they lost in the theft. In total the company spent over $430 people trying to cope up with their investor’s loss. After which they added all necessary security measure but still pending lawsuits came back to haunt them as they tried re-establishing their business.
In the midst of the company’s peril, the Tokyo based online brokerage Monex Group offered their support. Monex Group cited that they will work to bring changes in the company’s executive and management teams. And after days of speculation and discussion, the takeover was finalized.
As of now, “Coincheck is still applying for a license from the FSA, following the regulator’s decision to require a license for all cryptocurrency exchanges under a revised fund settlement law that came into force in April last year. The FSA will decide whether Coincheck qualifies after reviewing its operations under Monex,” according to reports from Nikkei.
Joseph Young, who is a cryptocurrency analyst points out, “if the market cap of a 100 billion yen Japanese online broker increases 23% overnight due to its plans to acquire major cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck, the strong demand towards the cryptocurrency market from investors in the public market is evident.”