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In November, the popular Korean crypto asset exchange Upbit “lost” $ 50 million Ethereum (ETH) through an apparent hack. Details about the attack remain sparse.
Some think it is an inside job because the word “hack” was not mentioned – and because of the timing of the loss of money. However, Upbit has promised to compensate all affected users with company money.
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Nevertheless, the stolen ETH is still in the wild, so to speak. And according to blockchain analysis, the hackers are now starting to move the funds again after a few weeks of silence. This could potentially be a catalyst for some downward price action in the Ethereum market.
Stolen Ethereum on the move
On Saturday, the Twitter account Whale Alert reported by tweet: 5,000 ETH, worth around $ 660,000 at the time of writing, were from a wallet
the scammer operated transferred to an unknown wallet.
This may seem negligible, but analysis of the transaction and the addresses associated with it have shown that this single transfer is more scary than it might appear at first glance.
Our analysis with the Ethereum blockchain explorer Etherscan showed that parts (in smaller batches of 25, 50, 100 coins) of the 5,000 Ethereum are scooped up in newly created addresses, which in turn send money to crypto exchange sites.
So far, it has turned out that part of the stolen Upbit funds is sent to at least three exchanges: Bibox, Binance and one that we cannot identify at the moment.
Millions of dollars remain in Ethereum in connection with the hack in non-exchange wallets – which makes it likely that the hackers will wait for the right moment to transfer these funds to exchanges and pay off their loot.
What it means for prices
Sending hackers sending money to exchanges means one of two things: they are trying to convert their stolen cryptocurrency to cash – or they are trying to convert their assets to another crypto currency (in this case, maybe Bitcoin or Monero), to make their transactions less traceable.
Anyway: That means that Ethereum should experience some selling pressure in the coming days from the sale of these hacked funds on Binance, Bibox or other exchanges.
Yes, $ 600,000 may not seem like much money in the large scale crypto industry, but there are still thousands of ETHs on the market that can be liquidated.
Chainalysis, a blockchain analytics company, has also found out that the PlusToken wallet scam – a China-centered crypto scam that has secured billions of Bitcoin and Ethereum – still has tens of millions of ETHs that need to be liquidated.
Since PlusToken is said to have driven the Bitcoin crash of the past six months, its liquidations of the second largest cryptocurrency could continue to worsen the problems in this already shaken market.
However, there is a silver lining: Changpeng “CZ” Zhao of Binance promises to “work with Upbit and other industry players to ensure that all the hacked funds make their way to.” Binance could be frozen immediately ”.
Text credit: newsbtc
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