The biggest crypto heist in history happened on Thursday, 29th October. Such was its impact that Santiment Intelligence reported that the Binance hack “hijacked” the crypto sphere’s attention entirely this week.
An estimated $6.3 billion was affected, which was more than the next 9 crypto hacks combined.
Bitcoin [BTC] had tentatively rallied to $81K when the Federal Reserve announced its decision to hold the benchmark rate at 3.75%-4.00%. Within a day, the Binance news shocked markets into a $1.50+ billion liquidation cascade, mostly longs liquidated.
Entities such as Circle and Tether worked quickly to freeze the stolen assets, and on-chain collaborations managed to freeze roughly $3 billion of the affected assets. The other $3.3 billion remains unaccounted for though and is thought to be in the attackers’ control.
Stalled recovery, but Bitcoin remains “resilient”
On Friday, 30th October, Bitcoin Spot ETF flows measured -$643.2 million, the largest single-day outflow since 25th June. On that day, it recorded figures of -$691.7 million when BTC threatened to slide below $60K.
The bearish sentiment could force a deeper price slide on the charts.
Crypto analyst Axel Adler Jr. drew attention to the short-term holder realized price. Defined as the average acquisition price of BTC short-term holders (under 155 days), the metric was at $75.9K, marking it as strong support.
Compared to the FTX crash news, the price reaction to the Binance hack has been relatively measured. According to the analyst, this might be evidence of a more resilient Bitcoin.
The exchange netflows measured 23,600 BTC in outflows on 30th October, wrote Alphractal’s CEO Joao Wedson. This further supported the idea of Bitcoin’s resiliency.
Market is yet to reveal the next move’s direction
Blindly betting on a recovery, or on a sustained price drop below $73K, could both be risky ventures at this point. Traders and investors need to wait for more evidence.
For instance, an analyst on CryptoQuant drew attention to the neutral readings on the Spot Volume Bubble Map. It showed cooling spot volumes during the correction into $60K earlier this year.
The sell-off from $87K in recent weeks has been accompanied by neutral readings. The last time we saw overheated signals was during the February’s price drop from $85K to $60K.
This suggested that the recent selling was closer to profit-taking than capitulation. Worth noting, however, that the analyst also warned that the bear case is a real possibility due to the recent price action and investor sentiment.
Final Summary
- The Binance hack was larger than the next nine biggest crypto hacks combined.
- Despite $3 billion still unaccounted for from the heist, Bitcoin has remained relatively resilient thus far.