Quote from: xtraelv on February 07, 2019, 03:35:00 AM

https://www.police.govt.nz/news/release/police-continue-make-progress-cryptocurrency-investigation

and nothing denying that a second lot of funds were stolen...

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Police continue to make progress in cryptocurrency investigation
Thursday, 7 February 2019 - 3:22pm
Canterbury

Please attribute to Detective Inspector Greg Murton:

The Police investigation into the Cryptopia hack and theft of cryptocurrency is progressing well and advancing on several fronts.

The focus is on identifying those behind this offending and retrieving the stolen cryptocurrency.

This is a complex investigation involving the theft of cryptocurrency in an unregulated environment.

The stolen cryptocurrency is being actively tracked by Police and specialists worldwide due to the nature of the cryptocurrency blockchains being publicly available.

Excellent progress is being made in the investigation and we are working with Cryptopia management plus current and former employees who have been providing valuable assistance.

We are working closely with our international partners and cybercrime experts to continue the investigation.

Cryptopia’s managers are on site at their Christchurch address and Police are expected to finish at the premises by the end of next week (Friday 15 February).

This investigation is expected to take a considerable amount of time to resolve due to the complexity of the cyber environment.

ENDS

Issued by Police Media Centre

Quote from: Winstar78 on February 06, 2019, 10:26:29 PM

in bitgrail case, the withdrawals were reopen for a couple of hours then suddenly closed again by the italian court, who declared bankrupcy months later, so also who had only no coin stolen (btc instead of nano) will have to wait forever. I think this is the worst solution for all.

At best next week solicitors for the various group legal actions that have been proposed will serve Cryptopia's Owners with papers freezing assets. At worst, Cryptopia will file for insolvancy.

Will be interesting to read if Cryptopia will do the "we were hacked, and first come, first served to recover your funds" like they did during the 100+ 51% attacks last year.

Definitely not over yet.

Police skills in doubt over Cryptopia probe into missing $23m

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/110387805/cryptopia-director-says-technicians-are-helping-police-track-stolen-23m / (Archive)

Chris Hutching16:34, Feb 05 2019

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An expert in corporate law is questioning whether police have the skills to resolve the $23 million theft from Christchurch-based Cryptopia.

Auckland University associate professor of commercial law, Alex Sims, said information about the investigation had not been handled well and regulatory authorities were "struggling" to deal with cyber theft.

"No one seems to have a clue what's going on. But this hasn't come out of the blue. There has been a lot of dialogue in recent years about the security of cryptocurrency and where to store the digital wallets.

"Cryptocurrency is a legitimate business. It's not a scam. But our regulators are really struggling compared with the US, Japan and European countries which have set up secure custodial services," Sims said.

Cryptopia had held investors' digital wallets, when they should have been held by the investors or with a safe custodial service, and any money kept in trust by the exchange, she said.

Sims said cryptocurrency and the underlying blockchain technology was here to stay.

"It would be like someone in 1900 saying we should outlaw cars because someone got run over. If you outlawed New Zealand cryptocurrency exchanges people will just use overseas exchanges."

She made the comment as Cryptopia's sole Christchurch-based director Pete Dawson apologised for his silence because of the risk to the police investigation.

"Our team is giving police technical assistance and their advice to is maintain radio silence in case we inadvertently say something that might interrupt their investigation," Dawson said.

Dawson said the overseas reports had misinterpreted further transfers of some of the stolen cryptocurrencies, which can be traced through different trading exchanges.

Other overseas reports said police had said Cryptopia could be operating again this month, but an official police spokesperson said there had not been any indication of when it might re-start business.

A New York-based analyst, Max Galka of Elementus, said the thieves been busy liquidating the stolen tokens by converting them into other cryptocurrencies via an international exchange called Etherdelta.

Another Christchurch exchange called BitPrime recently assured stakeholders them it did not hold or manage customer funds.

"Holding customer funds increases the risk, which can turn out disastrously," BitPrime chief executive Ross Carter-Brown said.

"Our own cryptocurrency reserves are held by an institutional custodian in cold storage, with US$100 million worth of insurance coverage.

"If you use a centralised exchange, ensure you withdraw all of your funds to your own wallets as soon as possible. If the coins are not in a wallet that you control the private keys for, in effect, then they're not really your coins."

Another Kiwi exchange called Vimba gave similar advice.

"When you keep crypto on an exchange you don't actually have ownership of those coins. We highly recommend you to move it into a personal wallet that you control."

Ross Carter-Brown said investors would be unable to claim all tax losses losses because until their digital coins were cashed up they could be classed as income.

He has also written about what may happen when cryptocurrency investors die.

"Traditionally, gaining access to a bank account is relatively straightforward after a family member passes. In the case of Bitcoin, it is much more complicated as there are wallets, passphrases and security boundaries.

"If your family isn't aware of the existence of your crypto holdings, it will be lost forever. Keep your wallet passphrase somewhere secure like a deposit box or a locked safe and provide instructions on how to get to it in your will."