One of the main reasons behind this volatility is due to the fact that the South Korean virtual currency exchange Coinrail has been hacked. Bitcoin suffered the biggest drops in months, after the exchange informed about a ‘cyber intrusion’ in the system.
At the moment, Coinrail’s official website shows a sign saying ‘System Maintenance,’ and all the information related to the attack that they suffered. According to it, 70% of the total coins and token reserves is safely stored in cold wallets.
At the same time, the exchange informs that all the authorities have been warned about the situation so as to catch the hackers as soon as possible. As soon as there is more information they said that they will be releasing it and updating the community.
The exchange has an important number of trading pairs between some ICO tokens, important virtual currencies and Bitcoin or South Korean won.
It is not clear how such a small cryptocurrency exchange was able to affect the community in so negative way. At press time, Korean authorities did not comment on the matter. As CoinMarketCap reports, Coinrail is the 98th virtual currency exchange by trading volume in the market, showing that it is not one of the most important in South Korea.
Some of the cryptocurrencies that have been exposed are NPXS, NPER and ATX.
Most of the virtual currencies in the market are operating in red. One of the two cryptos that remained stable was Tether (USDT), which is quite logic because it is linked to the USD dollar. Veritaseum (VERI) is also another currency oeprating in the green area in the last 24 hours with an increase of 6,9%.
The digital currencies that lost more were WaykiChain (WICC) (-23,13%), MaidSafeCoin (MAID) (-18,41%), Centrality (CENNZ) (-18,33%), IOST (IOST) (-18,08%), and CyberMiles (CMT) (-17,21%).
In the top 10 we have Bitcoin (BTC) losing 9,94%, Ethereum (ETH) -10,42%, Ripple (XRP) -10,58%, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) -11,98%, EOS (EOS) -15,39%, Litecoin (LTC) -10,32%, Cardano (ADA) -9,83%, Stellar (XLM) -10,18%, MIOTA (IOTA) -14,12%, and Tron (TRX) -12,57%.
Currently, US President, Donald Trump, and North Korean Leader, Kim Jong-un, have arrived at Singapore to have one of the most important summits in recent history. The main intention is to strike a deal so as to denuclearize the Korean peninsula.
Important security measures have been taken to protect the integrity of both leaders and the event.
In the past there have been some links suggesting a relation between Bitcoin price and world’s geopolitical stability. Cryptocurrencies could work as a safe haven in case of war and other conflicts.
Currently, the US Dollar Index (DXY) is operating stable.