Officials from NEM have announced that the stolen NEM coins will not be used by the thieves after developers behind the NEM Fund have utilised specialist technology to track them. 

On 1st February, the NEM team revealed that they had successfully traced coins which were previously stolen from Coincheck, the Japanese exchange. The stolen coins cannot be traded on the free market.

The NEM foundation commented by saying that the decentralized system enables transactions and withdrawals to be tracked, supporting criminal and malicious activity. In addition to this, it means that thieved XEM tokens are rendered unusable as they cannot be invested without having been flagged.

Over 520 million coins were stolen from hundreds of investors. NEM confirmed that traders would be compensated at a rate of $0.81 per coin whilst NEM currently trades at around $0.72. Furthermore, NEM have confirmed they are on the lookout for digital wallets that accept stolen funds.

This latest press release comes after the exchange was closely scrutinised by Japanese authorities after the attack on Coincheck. Exchanges in Japan are legal and the majority of users are small, individual investors. After the hacking activity, authorities in Japan revealed that all exchanges would need security testing in order to protect the personal finance of traders.