New data suggesting that the recently detected omicron variant spreads twice as fast as delta caused Bitcoin to plunge more than 20% over the weekend
24-hour crypto market snapshot
Bitcoin (-2%) $48,593
Ethereum (-4%) $4,044
Solana (-8%) $181.97
Luna (-12%) $65.41
Cryptocurrency’s uncertain footing
Cryptocurrency prices are still falling this morning after a massive sell-off through Friday night and into the weekend, despite a valiant attempt by El Salvador president Nayib Bukele to prop up the market by buying the dip.
While prices recovered somewhat on Sunday, bears seem to be back in control this morning.
The bitcoin price is down by a further 2% on this time yesterday, with other major cryptocurrencies suffering even bigger losses.
Ethereum is off by more than 4%, while its major rivals Binance’s BNB, solana, cardano, polkadot and new challenger terra’s luna are down between 4% and 12%.
Bitcoin is now back under the $1 trillion market capitalization level and the combined crypto market is falling toward the $2 trillion mark.
Expectations of a pre-Christmas Santa rally seem to have been wiped out and “down bad” has replaced “gm” as the most popular saying on crypto Twitter.
Hackers hit Bitmart
Cybercriminals have made off with almost $200 million worth of cryptocurrencies from Cayman Islands-based crypto exchange Bitmart, it was first reported by digital security analysis company Peckshield over the weekend. Representatives of the trading platform initially claimed that the outflows were routine withdrawals, calling hack reports “fake news” in Bitmart’s official Telegram channel. Bitmart’s CEO then confirmed the hack via Twitter.
What’s a few million dollars between friends: There was some disagreement over the amount stolen, with Bitmart’s Saturday night statement saying hackers withdrew about $150 million in assets.
However, Peckshield estimates that the loss is closer to $200 million. Bitmart added that all withdrawals had been temporarily suspended until further notice and said a security review is underway. Peckshield reckons the losses to be $100 million in various cryptocurrencies on the ethereum blockchain and $96 million on Binance smart chain.
The hacker has been systematically using decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator 1inch to swap the stolen assets for the ethereum’s ether and using a secondary address to deposit the ether into privacy mixer Tornado Cash, making the hacked funds harder to track, Coindesk explained.
Why it matters: The $200 million worth of cryptocurrencies lost makes this one of the biggest centralized exchange hacks to date. See a full list of trading platform hacks here.