Coincheck Could be Sold to Monex Group

Japanese online broker Monex Group is offering to take over the cryptocurrency exchange platform Coincheck, which fell victim to a hack in January and is still having trouble due to it, Nikkei reported.

According to unnamed sources, Monex is offering several billion yen for a majority stake in the exchange. They would then introduce a new management team and get the crypto exchange back on its feet by their own rules. The deal could see the light of day as early as this week.

“It is true that we have been considering the acquisition of the cryptocurrency firm mentioned in the report today but have not made any decision yet,” Monex confirmed in a statement on their website today.

Also, the company said it has has been studying and experimenting on blockchain technology and cryptocurrency (crypto-assets) as its applied technology. As part of these efforts, the company set up the Monex Cryptocurrency Lab in January this year.

Nikkei also reports that this news of Monex taking over has caused a spike in Bitcoin price, having jumped up 5% as of 1:52 pm Japan Standard Time, which goes to prove that “investors welcomed the possibility of a well-established financial services company bringing order to the cryptocurrency market.”

Coincheck may welcome this move as well, since their troubles seem to have no end in sight. Another class action lawsuit for around 82 million yen (around USD 771,000) has been filed against the hacked Japanese exchange, according to Cointelegraph.

This follows two previous lawsuits through lawyer Hiromu Mochizuki, the first being in the name of ten crypto traders who sued over the freezing of crypto withdrawals. The second lawsuit filed involves 132 plaintiffs, reportedly suing for 228 million yen (around USD 2 million) in damages.

Coincheck began offering refunds in Japanese yen to customers affected by the hack on March 13 at the fixed rate of around 88.5 yen (around USD 0.83) to one NEM coin. Just before the hack, the XEM coin had been trading even slightly upwards of USD 1, according to data from coinmarketcap.com.

The platform suffered a USD 400 million hack in January.