$ETH Cryptocurrency tension: Bitcoin and Ethereum fall after Bybit suffers a hacker attack worth US$ 1 billion

On Friday (21), Bybit's ethereum cold wallet (not connected to the internet) was hacked; 401,346 ETH tokens were lost, equivalent to US$ 1 billion, at current prices.

Those who invest in cryptocurrencies woke up this Saturday (22) scared to see the devaluation of the main cryptoassets. The fall in the virtual currency market began after a hacker attack on Bybit, the second largest brokerage in the world in terms of cryptoasset trading volume.

In 24 hours, bitcoin (BTC) fell 2.3%, trading at US$ 96,858.80. Ethereum (ETH) has fallen 3.4% in the last 24 hours, trading at US$2,733.99.

Bybit: Understand what happened

On Friday (21), Bybit's ethereum cold wallet (not connected to the internet) was hacked. In total, 401,346 ETH tokens were lost, equivalent to US$1 billion at current prices.

The cryptocurrency market was trading high before the hack, and the value reached over US$1.4 billion. Despite the information still being preliminary, this could be the largest hacker attack with stolen funds in the history of the digital assets market.

According to initial information, the criminals were using wallet mixers to make it difficult to track the tokens. It is worth remembering that cold wallets are considered safer precisely because they are not connected to the internet. Since the attack occurred on this specific type of exchange wallet intended for ETH, this means that the flaw only affected Bybit's own assets, without compromising users' deposits.