- Over the weekend, the FTX hacker made some daring plays that sent the market tumbling.
- BTC is down 4%, while Ether has shed approximately 8% of its value in 24 hours.
- Vitalik Buterin emphasized the stability of cryptocurrency’s underlying technology, the blockchain.
On Monday, the crisis caused by the fall of Sam Bankman-Fried and his once-powerful FTX crypto empire caused cryptocurrency prices to drop even more.
The FTX hacker, who stole almost $600 million from the defunct FTX exchange, disposed of the stolen cryptocurrency over the weekend. This triggered the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to crash.
Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, is down approximately 4% over the past 24 hours, while Ether, the second largest, is down nearly 8%. Dogecoin, a meme token and a gauge of the wildest speculative emotions in the digital realm, is down 11%.
FTX Hacker Dumps ETH Holdings
The hacker who stole from the now-defunct exchange FTX on November 12 has been very busy over the past 48 hours. To purge the stolen assets, the hacker appears to be relying on decentralized pools and crypto bridges.
The FTX thief (or thieves) made headlines last week when they emerged as one of the world’s largest holders of Ether with a stash of around $288 million. According to tweets posted by blockchain experts Chainalysis on Sunday, stolen funds from FTX “are on the move,” with some likely being moved from Ether to Bitcoin in an attempt to “cash out.”
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1/ Funds stolen from FTX are on the move and exchanges should be on high alert to freeze them if the hacker attempts to cash out— Chainalysis (@chainalysis) November 20, 2022
Digital assets and the blockchain technology they are built on have come under fire recently due to a number of factors. These include the failure of major corporations, the possibility of criminal activity, and the 72% decline in a gauge of the top 100 tokens over the past year.
As of writing, the price of Bitcoin was roughly $16,027, a significant decline from its all-time high of about $69,000 set in November 2021. The price of Ether was roughly $1,124.
On the Flipside
- Nonetheless, Vitalik Buterin, co-creator of Ethereum, has defended blockchain technology. Buterin said that all of the cryptocurrency industry can learn from what happened to FTX. While conceding the devastating effects of the collapse of the Sam Bankman-Fried crypto empire, Buterin emphasized the resilience of crypto’s purported underlying technology, the blockchain.
- In a Twitter post, Bill Ackman, founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, said that cryptocurrency accounts for less than 2% of his assets but that he is still bullish on the sector as a whole, citing the potential social impact of cryptocurrency as being on par with that of the telephone and the internet.
Why You Should Care
Like many in the crypto community, Buterin has recently taken to Twitter to suggest ways in which exchanges may work to boost user confidence in the sector. After FTX went down, the financial services industry as a whole had to do some soul-searching, especially when it came to issues of transparency and risk. The ripple effect of SBF’s careless actions is expected to increase.
Read more about the crypto market and the FTX hacker:
FTX Hacker Hoarding Ethereum (ETH) for Possible Market Selloff
Six-Year Dormant Ethereum Whale Wallet Activated Before ETH’s $1,500 Rally