How the $36 million hack of Upbit led to surging altcoin prices, China’s mining ban less effective than ever, Thailand vs WRLD: Asia Express Korean crypto traders are having an outsize effect on local altcoin prices following a major hack at South Korean exchange Upbit, according to CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju. Upbit got hacked and paused withdrawals, but Koreans are pumping alts since arbitrage bots are no longer running, Ju said in an X post on Thursday, shortly after the exchange halted transaction activity after detecting an abnormal transaction with a value of around $36 million. With arbitrage activity suspended, local buy orders are having more significant pressure on prices, allowing Korean-listed altcoins to surge, as the selling pressure that typically puts a ceiling on price increases has disappeared. Read more
How the $36 million hack of Upbit led to surging altcoin prices, China’s mining ban less effective than ever, Thailand vs WRLD: Asia Express Korean crypto traders are having an outsize effect on local altcoin prices following a major hack at South Korean exchange Upbit, according to CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju. Upbit got hacked and paused withdrawals, but Koreans are pumping alts since arbitrage bots are no longer running, Ju said in an X post on Thursday, shortly after the exchange halted transaction activity after detecting an abnormal transaction with a value of around $36 million. With arbitrage activity suspended, local buy orders are having more significant pressure on prices, allowing Korean-listed altcoins to surge, as the selling pressure that typically puts a ceiling on price increases has disappeared. Read more
Alibaba’s global e-commerce arm is reportedly developing a bank-backed deposit token for cross-border payments as Beijing tightens its crackdown on stablecoins. The cross-border e-commerce arm of Chinese tech behemoth Alibaba is working on a deposit token amid mainland China’s crackdown on stablecoins, according to CNBC. Alibaba president Kuo Zhang told CNBC in a Friday report that the tech giant plans to use stablecoin-like technology to streamline overseas transactions. The model under consideration is a deposit token, which is a blockchain-based instrument that represents a direct claim on commercial bank deposits and is treated as a regulated liability of the issuing bank. Traditional stablecoins, which these tokens closely resemble, are issued by a private entity and backed by assets to maintain their value. The report follows JPMorgan Chase — the world’s biggest bank by market capitalization — reportedly rolling out its deposit token to institutional clients earlier this week. Read more
After announcing the “largest forfeiture action” in the history of the DOJ, the US faces questions about how it accessed the over 127,000 Bitcoin stolen from the LuBian mining pool. China’s national cyber defense agency has made big claims around the alleged role of the US in the multibillion-dollar hack of LuBian, once a major Chinese Bitcoin mining pool. The Chinese National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center (CVERC), a state-backed cyber defense agency, on Sunday published a technical analysis report on the 127,272 Bitcoin (BTC) stolen in the LuBian hack. Although the hack occurred in December 2020, it remained largely unknown to the public until recently, with Arkham reporting it in August as the “largest ever” Bitcoin hack. Read more