On Tuesday, Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Zaif announced it experienced a glitch last Friday that caused the exchange to price coins at $0, meaning users were able to buy digital currencies for free. The platform, which is powered Tech Bureau Corp, and registered by the Japanese government, released a statement about the situation, which reads:
“About the afternoon of February 16, 2018, a problem occurred in the price calculation system on our simple service ‘simple trading,’ the situation occurred where [users] could buy and sell the virtual currency at zero yen. We sincerely apologize for the extraordinary worry and inconvenience caused by our customers regarding the abnormal value.”
Zaif also revealed what caused the glitch:
- The failure occurred in the price calculation system of “simple trading”, and troubles such as being able to buy and sell even at zero yen on the web system side overlapped, and seven customers purchased virtual currency at zero yen.
- Some virtual currencies purchased at zero yen by some customers were ordered for selling at the exchange, so abnormal figures were displayed on the transaction board.
Zaif reported that seven users were eligible through the glitch and six of the users have already responded. The problem has been corrected and the system is completed restored, therefore there will be no impact on the platform customers.
The news of Zaif’s glitch comes almost one month after another Japanese cryptocurrency platform Coincheck was hacked, with more than 523 million XEM stolen. Coincheck notably rectified the situation by reimbursing all impacted investors. Coincheck reported that all hacked accounts will be repaid through the Coincheck wallet and all funds will be in Japanese Yen. The platform also used Zaif for the calculation in XEM. Coincheck is reportedly not one of the platforms that were licensed by the Financial Services Agency.
