Bitcoin Fell 4 Percent on the Biggest Hack in History
A $6.3 billion theft at the world's largest exchange knocked bitcoin down about 4 percent. In 2018, a failed attack on the same exchange — one that stole nothing — knocked it down roughly 11 percent. The difference between those two numbers is the story of how this market has changed.
Bitcoin tumbled to a six-week low of $76,368 as the news broke, then pared losses to trade near $77,300 on Friday and about $77,509 on Saturday morning, per Finnhub. Ether fell to $2,178, a two-month low, before recovering toward $2,246. Leveraged traders took the sharpest hit: about $1.5 billion in liquidations, $468 million of it in bitcoin and $358 million in ether, according to Cryptowisser.
Crypto stocks fell harder than crypto. Coinbase closed down 10.6% on October 30, Strategy fell 7.8% and Robinhood 7.2%, per DefiLlama equity data cited by Coinjuice — a reminder that the equity wrappers carry exchange risk even when the networks themselves were never breached.
Analysts split on what comes next. Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan expects bitcoin's price to recover within a week, and TD Cowen, Cantor Fitzgerald and Compass Point all called the selloff a buying opportunity. Standard Chartered's Geoffrey Kendrick is the caution, expecting pressure until the frozen assets' status clears. With a crypto market worth about $2.6 trillion and U.S. spot ETFs holding roughly 1.3 million BTC, the shock absorbers are simply bigger than in 2018.
Sources: WSJ, Cointribune, Cryptowisser, Finnhub
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