Japan to Hold First Ever Trial Over Crypto Hacking Losses

An 18-year-old Japanese youth has been sent to prosecutors in the country's first ever trial involving cryptocurrency cyber-theft.

According to a report from The Japan Times on Friday, the unnamed minor from the city of Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, allegedly stole about 15 million yen in the cryptocurrency monacoin.

In Japan, you are legally considered a minor until the age of 20.

From Aug. 14 to Sept. 1, 2018, the youth is said to have repeatedly hacked cryptocurrency wallet Monappy by leveraging a glitch on its website, sending multiple transfer requests to himself and causing losses to about 7,700 users of the service.

He later transferred the stolen tokens to an account with a different cryptocurrency platform where he exchanged the monacoin for another cryptocurrency.

The stolen funds were spent it on items such as a smartphone, according to the report.

"I felt like I'd found a trick no one knows and did it as if I were playing a video game."

Monappy's website has been offline since the hacks, and currently reads that the "Service has been suspended due to external attacks."

Through cryptocurrency thefts over the years, with major breaches including Coincheck.

Karpeles was handed a suspended sentence of two and a half years.