The cryptocurrency market had a slight pullback this week, after a strong bullish rally that aroused the enthusiasm of investors, something that has not been seen for a long time. However, Solana’s network was the victim of another major heist, in which a large number of wallets were breached and looted. Bittersweet week without a doubt, promising alliances, hacks and much more, so a very interesting blog awaits you.
Cryptocurrencies suffered a slight decline at the beginning of the week, after a strong rally that led some cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin to break out of a range in which they had been for several weeks. Although the setback was minimal and technically the situation looks quite good, it can be said that we are in a moment of great indecision and uncertainty, with mixed opinions on the part of investors, since although news and events have emerged quite interesting in the world of cryptocurrencies, we are still in a rather delicate macroeconomic environment and with a high risk due to various factors such as disproportionate levels of inflation, the situation between Russia and Ukraine and a growing tension between China and the United States.
Solana is the victim of another massive hack. Yes, it is neither the first nor the second time that it happens, and it is that last Wednesday, the popular Solana blockchain confirmed that it was the victim of an attack in which approximately 8,000 wallets were affected and looted. The security breach would have been made in funds located in the slope digital wallet, which is linked to Solana, both in the native Solana token (SOL) and in USD Coin (USDC), with an approximate amount of between 5 and 8 million dollars.
However, a statement by Slope’s company has stated that the violation was directly in its system and not directly in the Solana network, so it is not yet known with certainty what the real reason or reason for said violation was.
In addition, another massive heist has also been registered, the Nomad bridge being a victim, which is responsible for connecting various blockchains. So far, nearly $20 million has been recovered; however, looting so far is estimated at around $200 million.
Given this situation, the startup behind the Nomad project, which bears the same name, has stated that it is offering a reward to hackers of up to 10% to recover user funds. In addition, as already mentioned, they have already managed to recover a part of the funds, and have stated that said reward will be both for those who return the funds from now on and for those who have already done so before.
In other news, BlackRock, the world’s largest and most important asset manager, has partnered with cryptocurrency exchange CoinBase, in order to offer access to Bitcoin to all institutional investors. This certainly shows us how more and more BlackRock is showing interest and optimism regarding the digital assets market and the blockchain ecosystem. With this alliance, BlackRock’s institutional clients will be able to obtain Bitcoin trading and custody services on its Aladdin platform, CoinBase being a key piece for them to have access to the cryptocurrency with the highest market capitalization.
Joseph Shalom, Global Director of Strategic Ecosystem Associations at BlackRock has mentioned that the interest of institutional clients in digital markets is increasing, so this alliance will generate very good things for both companies, as well as for clients and the crypto asset market.
This without a doubt totally changes the luck of CoinBase so far this year, since 2022 has been a very bitter period for the company, and they have even laid off about 18% of their workforce due to the uncertainty generated. for the fear of an economic recession, which caused the cryptocurrency market capitalization to fall by an amount of more than $2 billion.
In other news, crypto financial services platform Voyager Digital announced last Friday that they are planning to restore access to cash deposits from August 11, seeking to return up to $270 million in fiat money to their clients, after declare bankruptcy. The company has obtained judicial approval to comply with requests for withdrawal of dollars from clients of the Metropolitan Commercial Bank, an institution in which they had a deposit account. However, they have stated that the return process would take 5-10 days to process.
Also good news for crypto enthusiasts in Argentina, is that the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, announced last Thursday the launch of a prepaid card in Argentina in collaboration with Mastercard, to which all clients of the exchange that have a valid ID will be able to access. These cards will allow users to make purchases worldwide with cryptocurrencies in all stores that accept MasterCard, with quite attractive benefit and reimbursement or cashback programs.
Bitcoin is above $24,000, breaking a very important resistance zone, so if it consolidates above that area, it could look for a bullish movement to $28,000.
BTC/USDT 1D (TradingView Chart).
For its part, Ethereum makes a similar move, and is above $1,800, with very good chances of reaching $2,000 again.
ETH/USDT 1D (TradingView Chart).
These have been difficult weeks, and yet a more optimistic outlook is beginning to be seen in the cryptocurrency market, after various rallies that have once again aroused the interest of a large number of investors. However, we must not ignore the macroeconomic environment, and understand that we are still in a very complicated situation, which increases the risk in investments in assets as volatile as cryptocurrencies. Without further ado, we wish you an amazing week.
