More than 24 hours have passed since Twitter hack news broke the internet, but a random google search for “bitcoin news” would still give results for an article that’s more than a day old.
In honest opinion, the Bitcoin conundrum has created a massive stir across media platforms, and a lot of eyes and attention has been drawn to the world’s largest digital currency. Many websites have even begun to publish a Bitcoin Introductory article, a testament to the rate at which news spreads like wildfire.
But with the dust starting to settle, is Bitcoin Cryptocurrency currently in a better position in terms of popularity, or is it the situation the biggest crypt could have done without?
Bitcoin cryptocurrency took a minor hit; Price Wise
Let us discuss the most important things first; Bitcoin cryptocurrency’s valuation.
The Bitcoin scam/Twitter hack broke out towards the later hours of 15th July and took the internet by storm. Within hours, it was trending worldwide and every media publication under the sun was covering the issue. The price did not facilitate an immediate reaction but around 10 hours later, the impact was starting to surface in the charts.
As illustrated above, Bitcoin cryptocurrency’s price is no stranger to massive pullback after an event tarnishing its image. A similar thing happened after the infamous hack as well with BTC crypto falling below support at $9149 and $9089 in 4 hours.
Since hitting a low at $9026, the largest asset did well for itself in terms of recovery as a quick return above $9089 was orchestrated. The asset continued to mediate below resistance at $9149 for the time being, but over the next 24-hours, the token should be able to sustain a position above the aforementioned range.
In short, major disaster averted?
Bitcoin cryptocurrency and world-wide coverage; Silver-Lining?
To understand the coverage received by the story and Bitcoin altogether, let us shed light on a minor comparison.
The average traffic received by cryptocurrency media outlets is usually under or just over 1 million hits per month, which varies every month, but it is never way-off than the one million range.
On the other hand, recent data suggested that BBC news averages a whopping 1.5 billion monthly page views every month. Now, BBC covers everything from politics to sports to entertainment, but that is still a huge number.
Conducting a “Bitcoin news” search, the first article that pops up is a BBC news article on Bitcoin. Without assuming that one article is going to change the ball-game for Bitcoin crypto, but if 1 percent of those people read that article, that is 15 million people reading about Bitcoin.
Adding in the traffic brought in my other media outlets, it is fair to speculate that north of 30 million people must have read about the Bitcoin hack if not more.
“Any publicity is good publicity”, is a fair idiom to use in favor of Bitcoin at the moment.
BTC’s credibility; Hit and Miss?
Now to some extent, Yes! Bitcoin’s image was sprung under the bad name of being a scam but it also allowed others to understand BTC’s traceability.
Data set from OKLink disclosed that the scam address had received 371 Bitcoin inflows, representing a total of 12.85 BTC. This sum has already been transferred and is expected to reach crypto-exchanges soon. Hence, the ease with which these transactions were tracked is certainly a nice color on Bitcoin, as its functionality continued to hold its core values of being a transparent form of transaction.
Additionally, Jay Hao, CEO of OKEx suggested that to his surprise, the ratio of long/short did not decrease, but increased. Such a ratio can be used as a market sentiment indicator, with the present one underlining the bullishness among users of Bitcoin.
Twitter was hack; Bitcoin not so much
Now, if the melodramatics surrounding Bitcoin is taken out of the picture, the root of the issue was associated with Twitter. The social media platform‘s security levels should have received its set of scrutiny because Bitcoin was just the mere prize of the scam.
Some parts of the ecosystem also re-ignited that debate of Centralization vs De-Centralization, and rightly so. Twitter’s centralized medium causes over 30 million user accounts to suffer more information leak every year, highlighting the fact that a decentralized system incurs functionality in certain aspects.
Hence, the narrative of Bitcoin receiving the end of the stick seemed unfair by a majority of the BTC community. Major industry players stated that the hack pointed to a fundamental issue with Twitter and other centralized systems, and made an argument for decentralized systems like Bitcoin.
Kristin Smith, Executive Director of Industry trade group Blockchain Association, stated,
“We don’t know how this hack happened, but when you have a centralized system where there’s a point of contact that the bad guys can point to and try to get into and penetrate, that’s very vulnerable. But it’s really important to realize that this was a hack and the crime is the hack, it’s not the fact that Bitcoin was the desirable prize of this attack.”
The conclusion is pretty straight
To be frank, the recent hack is not going to stir a situation beyond what it was or what it is at the moment. It will probably go down at the most infamous one involving the digital asset but it is important to note that the attention received by Bitcoin over the week, good or bad, is only going to grow its image.
Accredited readers will understand and comprehend the facts well to acknowledge that the frailties lied on the hands of the social media platform rather than the digital asset, and that would be enough for now.
As for Bitcoin on Twitter, people are unlikely to trust the BTC addresses for a short period now, but narratives change and systems as well, so it is all part of the global image of Bitcoin.