The year 2024 is slowly coming to a close with significant fluctuations in the cryptocurrency market. Today, cryptocurrency prices continue to experience a decline, with Bitcoin (BTC) down 1.8% to $91,800, marking the lowest price since early December. This is a drop of more than 14% from the December peak of $108,278. Alongside this, Ether (ETH) also reported a decrease of 0.7% to $3,320, while Solana (SOL) showed a bit of strength compared to Bitcoin.
The CoinDesk 20 index of top cryptocurrencies has dropped 3.74%, with Ripple (XRP) and Stellar (XRM) suffering the most significant losses. Profit-taking is occurring strongly, with over $1.2 billion in profits realized, particularly from long-term investors holding Bitcoin. Concerns about macroeconomic factors, including weak manufacturing data in the U.S. and uncertainty regarding the Federal Reserve's interest rate policy, are increasing pressure on the market.
Nevertheless, some analysts remain optimistic about Bitcoin's future performance as its adoption continues to grow, provided the U.S. economy avoids a severe recession.
In another development, the hacker known as Blockchain Bandit, who stole 51,000 Ether by correctly guessing weak private keys, has recently moved the stolen funds into a single multi-signature wallet after nearly two years of inactivity. According to blockchain investigator ZachXBT, this transfer occurred in batches of 5,000 Ether on December 30 from 10 different wallet addresses. Previously, the stolen funds had remained inactive since January 2023.
This hacker has accumulated Ether through a process called "Ethercombing," which involves guessing 732 private keys corresponding to multiple transactions. Although the identity of this hacker has yet to be determined, there are some opinions suggesting possible state involvement, such as North Korea.
In a broader context, cryptocurrency hackers have stolen over $2.3 billion in 2024, a significant increase primarily due to access management breaches on centralized exchanges. Under these pressures and challenges, the question arises as to whether cryptocurrencies are sinking deeper into darkness or are awaiting a strong resurgence in the near future?
