The South Korean coin exchange Coinrail was hacked over the weekend, causing a loss of about $42B in market value, and a real headache for some of the currencies longing for the good times of 2017.
According to Bloomberg, the price of Bitcoin dropped almost 12% since the end of the workweek last Friday, and most other major virtual currencies fell as well, sending the market value of digital assets to a two-month low of $298B, down from about $830B in January.
The South Korean exchange was among the world’s Top 100 most active venues, with a 24-hour volume of about $2.65m before the hack took place — then came the dumpening.
After a tweet from Coinrail confirmed the cyber-attack over the weekend, people bounced without hesitation, leading to a loss of almost 30% of the coins traded on the exchange.
The virtual coin market’s lost some of its luster over the past several months, following a string of cyber heists (for example the nearly $500m stolen from Japanese exchange Coincheck last January).
And it looks like this time, people weren’t willing to stick around for the fireworks.