Bitcoin and Ether prices dipped, while smaller tokens saw worse losses, as traders reacted to an almost $1.5 billion (R27.57 billion) hack of the Bybit exchange that analysts say was the largest crypto theft ever.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bitcoin reversed an earlier gain of as much as 1.4% on the day to fall 2.1% and trade at about $96,057 at 2:32 p.m. Friday in New York. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ether \u2014 the token that was stolen in the Bybit hack \u2014 slid more than 7% from its high of the day and was trading at about $2,650. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two largest cryptocurrencies remained within the ranges in which they\u2019ve traded for most of this month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smaller altcoins such as XRP, Solana and Dogecoin posted deeper slumps.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Bybit breach has triggered a market downturn,\u201d said Alexis Sirkia, chairman of Yellow Network and co-founder of market maker GSR.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c<\/strong>As with past CEX failures, panic selling and liquidity disruptions followed, exposing the ongoing risks of centralized custody,\u201d he added, using the \u201cCEX\u201d shorthand for centralized exchanges like Bybit. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shares of Coinbase Global Inc., the largest US crypto exchange, slid more than 5% after rallying earlier when the company announced that the US Securities and Exchange Commission was poised to drop its yearslong case against the company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bitcoin and other major tokens have traded in a narrow range in recent weeks with implied volatility for short-term Bitcoin options contracts dropping to the lowest since June. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A sudden decline in digital assets earlier this month prompted a wave of liquidations of bullish bets, with Ether falling as much as 26% on 2 February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bybit Chief Executive Officer Ben Zhou confirmed a hacker took control of one of the exchange\u2019s offline Ethereum wallets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While the full effect of the hack remains unclear, a significant amount of the stolen crypto assets were already being sold. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Research firm Arkham Intelligence said the funds that were stolen from the exchange \u201chave begun to move to new addresses where they are being sold.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The hack is the largest ever crypto theft, according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, surpassing the $611 million stolen from Poly Network in 2021. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The hack is the largest ever crypto theft, according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, surpassing the $611 million (R11.23 billion) stolen from Poly Network in 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":528421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44696],"tags":[187,76266,41576,98897,43338],"class_list":["post-583597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency","tag-bitcoin","tag-bybit","tag-coinbase","tag-crypto-theft","tag-ether"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583597"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583597"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":583602,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583597\/revisions\/583602"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}