Multi-Million BNB Chain Hack and Bitcoin’s Battle for $20K: This Week’s Crypto Recap

In terms of overall market movements, not much was happening in the past seven days. The total capitalization remained somewhat flat, around $990 million, unable to recover above the coveted $1 trillion mark. Bitcoin’s price, as well as that of the majority of altcoins, also failed to post a significant difference.

At the time of this writing, Bitcoin’s price trades at around $19,700 – more or less where it was this time last week. The volatility is currently gone from the cryptocurrency market, and Bitcoin is no exception. The bulls attempted to rally above $20,000 and even managed to keep the price above this level for a couple of days, reaching a weekly high at just shy of $20,500 (on Binance).

Unfortunately, today, the price tumbled below $20K when the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics posted information about the jobs added through September. The number exceeded expectations, and market participants perceived it as a sign that the current measures to curb inflation and encourage spending are insufficient, hence pushing the price down.

Much like BTC, ETH is also charting a 0.2% increase over the past seven days, indicating a flat trend of rangebound trading. Most of the altcoins followed suit.

The most exciting thing, albeit in the bad sense of the word, was yesterday’s hack of the BNB Chain. Someone managed to exploit a security vulnerability in the BNB Bridge and siphoned at least $100 million worth of cryptocurrency. Developers were quick to react and froze some of the funds while the entire network was paused.

Now, the blockchain is operating as usual, and the vulnerability has been patched, but the efforts to recover the funds are ongoing.

All in all, the past week wasn’t as eventful as the previous ones, but it remains very interesting to see how the following seven days will turn up. As it’s well-known in the cryptocurrency industry, the markets don’t stay calm for long, and it’s these periods of seeming inactivity that are usually the precursor of a major movement.

Market Data

Market Cap: $986B | 24H Vol: $54B | BTC Dominance: 38.1%

BTC: $19,697 (+0.2%) | ETH: $1,335 (+0.2%) | ADA: $0.42 (-3.1%)

This Week’s Crypto Headlines You Better Not Miss

Binance Smart Chain Paused Following $600 Million BNB Hack (Report). The BNB Chain was temporarily halted after it suffered a security breach. It resulted in over $100 million being compromised. The network is now operational, but the teams are working to freeze and possibly restore the funds.

3 Reasons Why Bitcoin Bottom Might Be In: ARK Invest Crypto Analyst. Bitcoin’s price is trading near the coveted $20,000 level and has been stuck in a range between $18,000 and $24,000 for quite a while. However, an analyst from ARK Invest has provided data that the bottom might be in.

These Crypto Executives Have Stepped Down Since the Market Crash in May. The market crash has taken its toll on cryptocurrency-related companies, and many of them had to cut personnel to cope with the crypto winter. In this article, we take a look at some of the executives that have also stepped down.

Bitcoin and Gold Correlation Spikes to Yearly Highs. There’s been a notable shift in the market structure of late as the correlation between Bitcoin and Gold took a new turn. The latter is at yearly highs, which comes as a result of the strengthening US Dollar and the rising interest rates.

Bitcoin Lightning Network’s Public Capacity Surpasses 5,000 BTC. The Lightning Network – the largest Bitcoin scaling solution –  has seen its capacity expand beyond 5,000 BTC for the first time ever. This comes despite the drawdown of almost 60% in BTC’s price this year.

Leading Asset Manager Fidelity Introduces $5 Million Ethereum Index Fund. Fidelity – one of the world’s leading asset managers – has offered an Ethereum Index Fund to its clients through its brokerage arm. The product raised over $5 million since the sales started at the end of September.

Charts

This week we have a chart analysis of Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, Binance Coin, and Polygon (MATIC) – click here for the complete price analysis.