(Bloomberg) — Bitcoin and Ether prices dipped, while smaller tokens saw worse losses, as traders reacted to an almost $1.5 billion hack of the Bybit exchange that analysts say was the largest crypto theft ever.
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. Ether — the token that was stolen in the Bybit hack — slid more than 7% from its high of the day and was trading at about $2,650. The two largest cryptocurrencies remained within the ranges in which they’ve traded for most of this month. Smaller altcoins such as XRP, Solana and Dogecoin posted deeper slumps.
“The Bybit breach has triggered a market downturn,” said Alexis Sirkia, chairman of Yellow Network and co-founder of market maker GSR. “As with past CEX failures, panic selling and liquidity disruptions followed, exposing the ongoing risks of centralized custody,” he added, using the “CEX” shorthand for centralized exchanges like Bybit.
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.
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. 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 Feb. 2.
Bybit Chief Executive Officer Ben Zhou confirmed a hacker took control of one of the exchange’s offline Ethereum wallets. While the full effect of the hack remains unclear, a significant amount of the stolen crypto assets were already being sold. Research firm Arkham Intelligence said the funds that were stolen from the exchange “have begun to move to new addresses where they are being sold.”
The hack is the largest ever crypto theft, according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, surpassing the $611 million stolen from Poly Network in 2021.
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