Crypto Market is experiencing a bearish trend partly due to ceaseless hacking and fraud. However, crypto whales are buying this dip in the market as they see it as more of an opportunity to hodl at discounted prices.
More than $300 Million in digital assets has been drained of Crypto in 2023, and the crypto industry is in dire need of improvement. The recent hacks have let down many users, prompting a new wave of bears in the market. Let us take a look at the most recent and biggest crypto hacks of this month.
Latest Crypto Hacks
Vitalik Buterin’s X Account Hack – $691K Loss
On September 9th, 2023, hackers took control of Vitalik Buterin’s X account. A malicious link was posted by Consensys highlighting free commemorative NFT. Later, users fell victim to the post after gaining access to it as the users’ wallets were directly connected to steal their funds.
A total of $691K was drained from Buterin’s account. Meanwhile, he was able to retrieve his account a day later. Furthermore, the link of the hack was quickly taken down, and Buterin’s father informed that he was trying to restore his data.
Later, Buterin warned the users not to connect their phone numbers with their X account. He says it because it is a rather easy way to be a victim to the hackers. He suggested that two-factor authentication should be used.
The attack was quickly highlighted as yet another example of how crypto enthusiasts are at risk of being hacked. https://t.co/Myxd9a0Yw0
— FORTUNE (@FortuneMagazine) September 11, 2023
Famous Hack of CoinEX – Lost about $55M
Another recent incident made its way through the industry on September 12th, 2023. CoinEX, a professional renowned Crypto exchange which links up with $ETH, $BTC and $XRP, got robbed of a total of an estimated $54 million.
It is said that a North Korean group named Lazarus was behind the hack. The hack was linked it a Polygon and Op stake, where the hackers used the same unspecified address for both scams.
The investigation team of CoinEX discovered that the hackers drained $18,000,000 in $ETH, $6,060,175 in $XRP, and $5,987,520 in $BTC. But rest assured, the users of CoinEX were not involved. And if any of them were affected, CoinEX were to reimburse the loss. After the incident, CoinEX shut down for a while for security purposes, which meant that withdrawal and deposit services were not available.
In the past 10 days, the Lazarus Group has been linked to 2 separate hacks totalling >$95M in damage.
They’re a North Korean state-sponsored hacking organization, estimated to be responsible for $1.7 Billion of hacks during last year alone. pic.twitter.com/trERjofpBz
— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) September 14, 2023
Fortress Trust Hack of $12M
The downfall of crypto does not end here. The CEO of Fortress Trust, Scott Purcell, a custodian who protects customers’ crypto, has lost $12 Million of its firm in the latest crypto hack. Most of the Crypto lost was Bitcoin, but there were some other losses, too. These include the USDC and USDT. Fortunately, Fortress managed to regain the losses in no time.
It is stated that the hack was made by a third-party vendor whose cloud tools were jeopardized. Although, there was no loss of funds.
However, Fortress made sure to use their balance sheets to compensate their impacted customers with the help of Ripple.
Scott Purcell, the founder and CEO of Fortress Trust, a custodian that safeguards customers’ crypto, told Fortune that his firm lost $12 million to $15 million in crypto in a recent hack. https://t.co/tNRJw9Vouj
— FORTUNE (@FortuneMagazine) September 13, 2023
Crypto Market is Down Amid the Rising Crypto Hacks
The total crypto losses were relatively lower in 2022, but they have risen this year massively. In only one month of July, the crypto hacks were recorded for a total of about $303 million this year. Out of all the funds stolen, $8.6 million loan was lost to exit scams and the other $8.7 million were lost in flash loans. Whereas the rest of $285M was lost in exploits in July. These figures are about 1.5 months old, and since then, a lot of hacks have happened, raising caution amongst investors and forcing them to lose confidence in the market.
While it has been said that blockchain projects are secure, back-to-back hacks have taken place in the market. Therefore, it is gradually deteriorating the marketplace, leaving potential investors with no other choice but to back off.
Interestingly, there have been reportedly 7,000 people with a loss of $81 Million complaining about the crypto scams. Plenty has also stated that there are certain websites which are portrayed as investing in crypto but are fake. They offer several investment ideas, like investing little and getting more in return. Many crypto sites use fake testimonials to get to the customers and brainwash them into investing in the company. Later, people are eventually told to send in more crypto when it’s time to withdraw it.
Having said that, the number of customers has been reduced over the years, potentially the ones who would invest in crypto. Furthermore, this back-to-back series of crypto hacks is only adding fuel to the fire. Thus, overall crypto market capitalization is affected. Only two days back, the total market capitalization of the crypto market fell below the $1 trillion cap. this is an alarming situation, as crypto prices are falling and the bear ma
Crypto Whales Are Buying this Market Dip
However, Crypto whales are buying the dip in the market regardless of the crypto downfall.
Crypto whales are a part of the cryptocurrency community, where an individual who holds a certain amount of a digital asset is said to be a Crypto Whale.
Whales can manipulate their rate through large orders, which can trigger a crash across the market, allowing investors and traders to withhold negative reactions. Let us take a look at some examples of recent crypto whales that are buying in this bearish market trend.
Peck Shield is a blockchain security company that offers security checks for wallet security, smart contracts and blockchain security. According to X, it holds $22.7 Million worth of cryptos and recently bought $rETH and $sETH worth $24.2 Million.
#PeckShieldAlert The phisher, who grabbed ~$24.2M worth of $rETH & $stETH, has transferred 701 $ETH (~$1.15M) to #TornadoCash
The phisher currently holds $22.7M worth of cryptos, including 13.1K $ETH and 1.1M $DAI pic.twitter.com/GODpSp51wO
— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) September 8, 2023
Moving on, Multistig wallet purchased 32,890 RPL tokens using $ETH 450 at $22.4. After the massive purchase, the price of RPL increased by 9%.
Who pumps the price of $RPL?
We noticed that a safe multisig wallet spent a total of 450 $ETH ($735K) to buy 32,820 $RPL at $22.4 in the past 8 hours.https://t.co/8sCag8nPXx pic.twitter.com/4faGf28WUo
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) September 4, 2023
Nevertheless, Crypto whales influence the price trends intentionally or unintentionally. Whales aim to make more money by increasing their holdings since they have access to a huge crypto holding. So, during a period of continuous surges in prices, people tend to make more money by increasing their holdings by adding up to it. Thus, this is the reason behind crypto whales buying the dip.