Bittensor’s TAO Tank 14%, Following This Reason

In the ongoing struggle within the cryptocurrency market on July 3, 2024, Bittensor (TAO) co-founder Ala Shaabana made a post on X confirming an attack that resulted in an $8 million crypto loss. Following a series of attacks on several wallets, Bittensor temporarily halted its network. In a post on X, Ala stated, 

“By way of an update, we have contained the attack and put the chain into safe mode (blocks producing but no transactions are permitted). We’re still mid investigation and are considering all possibilities. Stay tuned.”

Here’s why, TAO token plunges significantly

Following the attack on the Bittensor blockchain, the native token TAO experienced a massive price drop of over 14%, and the price fell from $271.9 to $234. However, it later stabilized as the project’s core team assured the community of measures to prevent further incidents.

In response to the attack, Bittensor core team members took immediate action by halting all on-chain transactions as a preventive measure. This move, expressed as putting the chain on “safe mode,” ensured that while blocks were still being produced, no transactions could be processed until the nature and scope of the attack were fully understood.

During this attack, a security firm ZachXBT said on their Telegram that one user lost a massive 32,000 TAO token worth $8 million due to a private key leakage that caused this incident. A Private Key is a type of password generated by the users during the wallet creation and typically consists of a 12 to 15 series of letters and numbers which later users use to manage wallet holdings. 

TAO price-performance analysis 

Following all these updates, TAO is currently trading near $234, and in the last 24 hours, it experienced a price drop of over 13%. After this attack, the 24-hour trading volume surged more than 170%, this massive surge indicates user participation amid the attack. If we look at the performance of TAO over a longer period, in the last 7 days it experienced a price drop of over 17%. Whereas, in the last 30 days, TAO is down by 40%.

The reason for this massive fall is the ongoing bearish sentiment across the cryptocurrency market where top assets also experienced massive price drops. According to coinmarketcap, top crypto assets including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), BNB (BNB), and Toncoin (TON) have experienced a price drop of over 13%, 14%, 15%, 14%, and 26% respectively in the last 30 days.