The downward spiral of bitcoin and the overall cryptocurrencies market continues.
Over the weekend, following a hack on a South Korean virtual currencies exchange called Coinrail, about $42 billion of cryptocurrency market value was wiped out. That’s a lot of dough.
From Bloomberg:
Coinrail said in a statement on its website that some of the exchange’s digital currency appears to have been stolen by hackers, but it didn’t disclose how much. The venue added that 70 percent of the cryptocurrencies it holds are being kept safely in a cold wallet, which isn’t connected to the Internet and is less vulnerable to theft. Two-thirds of the stolen assets — which the exchange identified as NPXS, NPER and ATX coins — have been frozen or collected, while the remaining one third is being examined by investigators, other exchanges and cryptocurrency development companies, it said.
Coinrail trades more than 50 cryptocurrencies and was among the world’s Top 100 most active venues, with a 24-hour volume of about $2.65 million, according to data compiled by Coinmarketcap.com before news of the hack.
In the coming months, you could witness greater dips as investors not only suffer from buyer exhaustion, but also become frightened by the lack of cybersecurity.
Of course, the news contributed to the deepening selloff of bitcoin, which has endured a year-to-date decline of roughly 50 percent.
At the time of this writing, bitcoin is trading below the key $7,000 mark at a little more than $6,700. You still have to feel bad for those who bought in at $19,000 last year.
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