Dubai-based cryptocurrency exchange Bybit said Friday that it had suffered what could be the largest cryptocurrency theft in history, with hackers stealing ETH worth around $1.5 billion from one of its Ethereum cold (offline) wallets. The exchange responded immediately, with CEO Ben Zhou addressing the community within 30 minutes and holding a two-hour livestream to provide real-time updates. In an announcement dated Feb 22, they said: "within the first 10 hours of the incident, we processed over 350,000 withdrawal requests, completing 99.9% of them by 1:45 AM UTC. As of now, all withdrawals across all tokens are fully operational, with our systems running smoothly and processing without delays. In total, over 580,000 withdrawal requests have been successfully completed". Lookonchain reported that Bybit acquired $742 million worth of Ether between Feb 22 and 23. By Feb 24 at 05:00 CET, the exchange had completely closed its ETH gap, according to CEO Ben Zhou in a post on X. Following the hack, Ether dropped more than 7% in seven hours, from around $2,800 to $2,600. It rebounded to $2,800 on Sunday before falling again to $2,700 during the Monday morning Asian session, where it found support. Blockchain investigators, including ZachXBT and Arkham Intelligence, have identified North Korea’s Lazarus Group as the likely perpetrators of the attack.
Earlier today, Infini, a Hong Kong-based stablecoin bank, was hacked for $49.5 million in USDC after an attacker used a single private key to drain its vault. The hacker converted USDC to DAI and then to 17,696 ETH before transferring the funds to Tornado Cash. According to blockchain security firm Cyvers, the attacked operated from an address that had initially been used to develop the contract as part of the Infini project, secretly keeping admin access to the project even after completing it.
The global crypto market cap decreased 2.31% over the past day, currently at $3.13tn. The total crypto market 24h volume increased 15.34% to $80.97bn. Meanwhile, markets are anticipating the release of the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Index, the Federal Reserve's preferred measure of inflation, on February 28.
Crypto liquidations came in at $249.41m over the past 24hours of which over 81% were long positions, with ETH based long positions leading.
FTX is set to unlock 11.2 million SOL tokens worth over $2 billion on March 1st, potentially leading to another round of auctions. Previous FTX auctions saw significant discounts, with Galaxy Digital, Pantera Capital, and Figura Market purchasing SOL at rates up to 40% below market value, resulting in strong returns. Unlike earlier sales, where FTX urgently sought funds, this auction is expected to offer a smaller discount, potentially resulting in buyers lacking the incentive to hold long-term and selling in batches instead, potentially capping SOL's price in the short term and creating selling pressure if prices hit target levels. Over the past day, SOL has decreased 8% to around $158, while the 24h volume has increased 90% to $3.08bn. Over the past week, SOL price has decreased 14%, in part due to the recent memecoin scandals.
While BTC crossed $99,400 on Feb 21, the Bybit hack crushed the attempted upside breakout. BTC is currently trading at $95,740, 0.67% lower than 24 hours ago. Meanwhile, the 24h trading volume increased 43.96% to $23.13bn.
The US SEC has officially closed its investigation into the NFT marketplace OpenSea. OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer announced the news on social media on Feb 21, calling it a victory for the digital asset sector. The SEC had previously issued a Wells notice in August 2024, signaling potential legal action for allegedly operating as an unregistered securities exchange.
