Bitcoin
Steady at $64K as Crypto Rally Cools, Mt Gox Fears Persist By Investing.com
Investing.com– Bitcoin’s price was little moved on Thursday, slowing after a major rally as lingering fears of token distributions by now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt Gox remained in play.
Bitcoin has rebounded from near four-month lows in recent sessions as the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency has traders weighing the potential for a much friendlier regulatory environment.
was trading up 0.3% over the past 24 hours at $64,769.3 as of 8:35 a.m. ET (12:35 p.m. GMT).
Nervousness over Mt Gox persists after $2.8 billion rally
Concerns over Mt Gox’s token distributions have continued, especially as wallets associated with the exchange were seen mobilizing $2.8 billion worth of tokens earlier this week.
The exchange had recently signaled that it would begin returning tokens stolen in a 2014 hack to creditors in July. It was not yet clear how much Bitcoin the overall distribution would involve.
This has raised concerns that a sharp increase in Bitcoin supply will increase selling pressure on the token and drive down its price, as token holders will be more inclined to sell after a stellar run over the past decade.
Fears over Mt Gox caused Bitcoin to plunge sharply in early July, sending the token to four-month lows and close to levels that could trigger some capitulation for miners.
But the token has rallied sharply this week amid growing speculation about a second Trump presidency, as the former president has expressed support for cryptocurrencies in his recent campaign efforts.
Trump is also set to speak at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville in late July. The former president has been seen receiving a major boost in popularity following a failed assassination attempt last week.
Additionally, cryptocurrencies have benefited from the recent weakness in the dollar amid growing expectations that the Federal Reserve will begin cutting interest rates starting in September.
Cryptocurrency Price Today: Altcoins Also Stabilize and Cool Down
Among broader cryptocurrency prices, major altcoins also remained in a tight trading range as the recovery rally cooled.
The world’s No. 2 token was also flat at $3,461.78, although it still remained relatively bullish on the prospect of spot exchange-traded funds being approved for U.S. markets.
fell 5.3%, reversing course after rumors of a settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sparked strong gains on Wednesday.
and moved in a flat to bearish range, while among meme tokens, SHIB dropped 10% while DOGE dropped 2%.
Cryptocurrency exchange WazirX suffers $230 million exploit
In other related developments, cryptocurrency exchange WazirX suffered a wallet exploit, leading to the unauthorized transfer of over $230 million worth of crypto assets.
The exploit targeted the exchange’s multisig wallet on the network, potentially due to a private key compromise, draining the funds. To execute the attack, the perpetrator updated the Safe Wallet implementation to a malicious contract, according to security firm Blocksec.
The stolen funds were transferred to an address that began converting assets such as , GALA and into ether. On-chain data reveals that the hacker stole over $100 million in , along with 15,290 ETH and 20 million MATIC tokens.
WazirX has acknowledged the breach and is investigating the outflows while pausing all withdrawals.
“We are aware that one of our multisig wallets has suffered a security breach. Our team is actively investigating the incident. To ensure the safety of your assets, INR and crypto withdrawals will be temporarily paused,” WazirX stated.
“It appears that there is a private key leak on the WazirX exchange. The leaked private keys are used to upgrade a secure multi-sig wallet, which contains a large number of assets, to a malicious contract. The malicious contract is then used to drain most of the assets in the secure wallet,” Blocksec reportedly told The Block.