Hackers who stole around $534 million worth of cryptocurrency from Tokyo-based Coincheck exchange last week - one of the biggest such heists ever - are trying to move the stolen "XEM" coins- a move believed to be an attempt to make the stolen currency harder to trace- the foundation behind the digital currency said on Tuesday.
The company suspended trading after detecting "unauthorised access" of its digital exchange.
NEM Foundation, creators of the XEM cryptocurrency, have traced the stolen coins to an unidentified account, and the account owner had begun trying to move the coins onto six different exchanges where they could then be sold, Jeff McDonald said.
"He is trying to spend them on multiple exchanges. We are contacting those exchanges," said McDonald. He also told Reuters that he couldn't yet determine how much of the stolen coins had already been spent. The location of the hackers' account is also not known.
As many as 10,000 businesses in Japan are said to accept crypto-currencies.
Coincheck, one of Japan's largest digital currency exchanges has said it will refund more than 46 billion yen of the virtual assets to its 260,000 customers using its own capital.
The heist has raised fresh questions about security and regulatory protection in the booming market.
