Virtual Currency Girls (hereafter VCG), regarding whom I wrote about in an earlier post, held a press conference recently following the hacking of Coincheck, a cryptocurrency exchange where the idol group had their NEM salaries stored.
The exchange lost approximately 58 billion yen worth of NEM—2 million of which belongs to the idol group—and has since frozen deposits and withdrawals of all cryptocurrencies except Bitcoin as they assess their NEM losses. The company has promised to recover 90% of the lost NEM and has identified the address the lost NEMs are transferred to, although I don’t understand enough to see how it can be recovered.
Due to the temporary freezing of transactions, VCG’s talent agency had suggested paying the members in Japanese yen for the time being. However, member Shirahama Hinano who represents BTC declined, saying they will delay receiving their salaries due to their pride as a group propagating the use of cryptocurrencies and wish for the exchange to recover soon.
The group has also decided to hold a free concert for users of Coincheck in Minami Aoyama, Tokyo on February 16. I don’t know the details to the show but if you’re a user of Coincheck and would like to catch them live, don’t forget the date!
