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BitGrail cryptocurrency exchange loses $170 million in Nano tokens

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The Wall Street Journal has reported that Italian cryptocurrency exchange BitGrail has lost about 17 million Nano tokens. In total, the stolen tokens were worth $170 million.

BitGrail made the announcement on its website and said that it had lost about $170 million due to fraudulent transactions. It has already notified the authorities, who are investigating the matter. In addition, the exchange has placed a hold on all transactions in order to verify their authenticity.

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A similar theft occurred earlier this year with Japan’s Coincheck exchange. That particular hack was much larger, with the exchange estimated to have lost as much as $534 million in cryptocurrency. Coincheck has said that it will reimburse the affected users, but BitGrail founder Francesco Firano said it would be impossible to completely refund the affected clients.

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The team behind Nano have released a statement saying that theft was not due to an issue with Nano’s protocol, and lays the blame on BitGrail’s software. The announcement went on to state that they believe that “Firano has been misleading the Nano Core Team and the community regarding the solvency of the BitGrail exchange for a significant period of time.”

The team said that they would not be responding to any accusations from Firano, and are turning over all of their information regarding the incident — such as blockchain entries, screenshots, and chat logs — to law enforcement.

Additionally, the team published a copy of the conversation with Firano. They allege that he suggested modifying the Nano ledger to cover his losses. Nano said that was impossible and not something they’d do even if they could.

In a tweet, Firano called the accusations against him “unfounded” and said that he told the police that the Nano development team may have compromised their investigation by releasing the transcript of his conversation with them.

In a later tweet, Firano denied that he or Bitgrail were at fault for the theft.

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