Crypto Exchange Coincheck Abruptly Halts Withdrawals

Major Japanese exchange Coincheck has announced the suspension of a number of services today, including all withdrawals.

The exchange posted on its websitehttps://coincheck.com/en/blog/ early this morning (UTC) that is had stopped most cryptocurrency buying and selling, and halted withdrawals of all cryptocurrencies and Japanese yen (JPY).

While it's not clear at the moment what might have caused the issue, the suspension started when the exchange announced around 13:00 JST (04:00 UTC) that it had restricted deposits, trading and withdrawal of XEM, the token running on the NEM blockchain.

A wider suspension on withdrawals of all cryptocurrencies as well as JPY was announced around 30 minutes later. In the following hour, trading of all cryptocurrencies was also restricted, except bitcoin. According to the latest update, other deposit methods including credit cards have also been stopped.

The exchange so far has not given any statement regarding the cause of issue.

According to CoinMarketCap, prices of the NEM token started to drop around the time Coincheck published its initial announcement. NEM has seen an 18 percent decline as of press time.

In a statement to CoinDesk, Lon Wong, president of the NEM.io Foundation, said there are no issues with its network, saying:

"As far as NEM is concerned, tech is intact. We are not forking. Also, we would advise all exchanges to make use of our multi-signature smart contract which is among the best in the landscape."

CoinDesk will continue monitoring the evolving situation.

Bitcoin and yen image via Shutterstock