The crypto industry is no stranger to hacks or scams. While some go on to lose a large number of Bitcoins, a few others have lost personal data. Bitfinex, a prominent cryptocurrency exchange, went on to experience the largest hack to date. Back in 2016, the exchange was subjected to a massive attack, which resulted in the loss of nearly 119,756 BTC.
More recently, the hacker behind these stolen funds decided to move some of the loot. While the hacker has moved some of the BTC in the past, this time it seemed to have caused a drop in the price of the king coin.
Bitcoin Worth More Than $740 Million Moved
Prominent analytics platform, Whale Alerts went on Twitter to alert the community of the massive transaction that took place. In an array of tweets, the portal revealed that over 11,799 BTC was moved in over 30 transactions. Most of the transactions were for about 1 or 1.5 BTC, the largest transaction entailed over 1,000 BTC. The tweet below sheds light to the largest transaction that was worth about $78 million.
Furthermore, the community speculated that this could have caused the recent drop in the price of BTC. Just yesterday, Bitcoin surged up to a high of $64K. However, in no time the asset collapsed to $62K with a 2.79% dip in the last 24-hours.
However, some investors like Alistair Milne tweeted,
“No, the Bitfinex hacker can’t sell the #Bitcoin (not in any volume). But he/she/they can move it to try to manipulate the market while they short it elsewhere …”
Additionally, Santiment, a prominent on-chain analytics platform pointed out that the whales would look for opportunities to “make big moves.” Turns out Bitcoin wasn’t the only asset experiencing $100+ transactions, ETH, reportedly followed suit. The tweet further read,
While this did cause quite a stir in the crypto-verse, the hacker or hackers behind the attack are still on the run. The exchange did not garner any luck, despite offering an award of $400 million.