Why have bitcoin and ethereum sunk in recent days? The hack that makes cryptocurrencies tremble

The price of bitcoin, the reference cryptocurrency in the markets, has lost more than 3% in the session this Monday and accumulates a fall of more than 17% since last Friday, after the trading platform of ‘cryptos’ BitMart has recognized that 150 million dollars (132 million euros) in assets were stolen and has suspended the withdrawals.

In addition, the impact of the omicron variant in the markets has generated a certain aversion to risk during some days, which has also been able to affect bitcoin and the rest of the cryptocurrency universe. Against what is popularly believed, bitcoin shows more correlation with stocks than with gold (safe haven). So the fear of the new strain of covid has caused a flight of money from risk assets (stocks, oil, cryptocurrencies …) during some days of the past week.

“We have identified a large-scale security breach related to one of our active ETH wallets and one of our active BSC wallets,” confirmed BitMart, which estimates that “hackers were able to withdraw assets worth approximately $ 150 million. “.

BitMart seeks solutions

The platform, which is still trying to determine the possible methods used by hackers to commit the theft, has stressed that the affected wallets “have a small percentage of assets in BitMart”, adding that the rest of the platform’s wallets “are safe. and without damage “.

“We are conducting a comprehensive security review and will release updates as we progress. At this time we are temporarily suspending recalls until further notice,” he announced.

The price of the bitcoin stood at $ 47,551.07 on Monday at its lowest point, after falling 3.66% below Sunday’s close and 17.2% below Friday’s $ 57,482 level, before the BitMart incident.

Despite everything, cryptocurrencies seek to redo this mess and at the end of this Monday they are trading practically flat. Nevertheless, bitcoin continues below $ 50,000, while Ethereum is trading in the area of ​​$ 4,190 per unit.

It must also be taken into account that bitcoin is trading far from its maximums reached in November, specifically the cryptocurrency is left more than 25% from the maximums reached on the 10th of that month when it exceeded $ 68,000 per token.