How Hacking Affects the Cryptocurrencies Market

Recently it was seen that the price of Bitcoin is fluctuating and touching new highs in 2021. Financial giants like BNY Mellon in February have announced that they will be providing guardian services to these Digital Assets by the End of 2021. And that announcement has raised the price of bitcoin to $48,000. 

Fluctuations in Cryptocurrencies

Mr. Raj Dhamodharan Head of Mastercard’s digital assets says that “Whatever your opinions on cryptocurrencies . . . the fact remains that these digital assets are becoming a more important part of the payments world,” 

While Mastercard will continue to handle only traditional currencies in the future because these are the stable ones as compared to cryptocurrencies. These traditional currencies are widely accepted and used to buy things (other than tesla).

The immense price fluctuations of bitcoin have attracted a large number of investors in the market. 

Theft Attempts 

Research conducted by the University of Vaasa indicates that about 1.1 Million bitcoins were accumulated by theft attempts of bitcoins between 2013 to 2017. Comparing these thefts to today’s rates then it would become around $44 Billion. 

This research paper indicates that it can be very dangerous to handle cryptocurrencies. Because most of the exchanges control the private keys of customers so that they seem very attractive to hackers to steal the private keys of customers. 

Break into the exchange and you’ll have the keys to every currency holder.

To avoid these kinds of hacking attempts about 90% of exchanges are using a method that is somewhat like cold storage for keys where keys are kept offline. In Past years the number of bitcoin wallets has increased almost four times in a few years from 8.2 million in 2013 to 35 million in 2016. 

Hacking of Bitcoin 

The researcher has discussed 29 individual case studies of hacking attempts. He Indicates the prolific nature of these attempts and told about the eagerness they create in a market to fluctuate the prices does not affect the price all the time. It does not have any sudden effects on the market, they have effects around 5 days after the date of the attack. 

It recommends that the bitcoin market isn’t particularly productive nor successful at handling data news like this and reflecting it in the cost of other currencies. It’s a checked difference to fiat monetary forms that will in general respond to vital situations like a flash. Additionally, the effect of the invasions appears to influence other cryptocurrencies too.

The Researcher said that “While earlier literature documented co-movements of cryptocurrency returns, a novel finding of the current research is that hackings in the bitcoin market also affect other cryptocurrency markets,” the researcher explains. “Our evidence suggests that there is a contagion effect in volatility associated with hacking incidents.” 

Spreading Risk

The examination tracked down that after a hacking occurrence on bitcoin, there was additionally an increment in unpredictability in the Ethereum market (though after a similar delay seen on bitcoin).

The degree of instability seen on these different trades was unacceptable from that found in the bitcoin market itself, which implies that individuals are valuing the security and hazard of cryptocurrencies in general instead of particularly Bitcoin. 

Likewise, neither bitcoin nor Ethereum shows imbalances in the volatility of bitcoin even though in more traditional monetary business sectors, instability reactions will, in general, be more grounded for negative news of cryptocurrency than for positive news. 

It seems that these attacks on bitcoin will not minimize shortly because as the Bitcoin market will rise the attraction towards hackers will also rise due to a large monetary attraction towards these markets. When these hacking attempts will be shortened then the price of bitcoin will get stronger and people tend to invest more money in bitcoin.