The Biggest Crypto Hack of All Time
ByBit Loses $1.5 Billion to North Korean Lazarus Group - Whats Next for The Market?
The unexpected happened when we all thought the market was gearing up for a major rally.
North Korean hacker group Lazarus hacked ByBit for $1.4B in Ethereum, turning them into the 14th largest ETH holder in the world.
They’re now even bigger Ethereum holders than Vitalik himself, a dagger in the heart of Ethereum Maxis everywhere.
How can Ethereum possibly withstand any more sell pressure as more and more shorts continue to pile up?
This is the biggest crypto hack of all time, occurring shortly after the biggest liquidation event in history.
When does it end?
The next closest hack in size and scale was the Ronin network with $625M, 2.2x lower than the Bybit hack.
The question on everyone’s mind is, will this cause some market-wide contagion, sparking another massive selloff?
As the LIBRA scam came to light, the timeline was already in complete shambles, with many expressing extreme anger.
Anger often coincides with bottoms during stock market cycles, and it’s usually the same in crypto.
While this isn’t a be-all-end-all chart, it certainly provides a loose framework to follow when assessing where we’re at in market cycles.
Extreme emotions always bubble up at extreme tops (euphoria) and extreme bottoms (anger).
As anger dissipates, it turns into depression, and many silently capitulate before the next massive rally.
Judging from the current timeline and the fear/greed index, we’re likely at that stage in the market.
Interestingly enough, Bitcoin still sits above $95,000, with many altcoins beginning to bounce, suggesting that the whole market is mostly bottomed.
However, crypto still isn’t showing any bullish momentum.
It barely rallies when good news is released, like when the SEC drops its case against Coinbase.
They also just closed their case against Opensea.
For the first time in history, crypto doesn’t have to fight being labeled a security or be worried about random fines from Gary Gensler and his cronies.
However, the market did not respond positively; instead, it sold off on the Bybit hack news.
At least it didn’t spark a major selloff (yet).
So, for now, we sit and wait.