Cryptocurrencies Lose $42 Billion After The Coinrail Hack

The market has not yet recovered from the Coinrail hack. Right now, it seems like the situation has led a minus of $42 billion in the total cryptocurrency market cap.

The 2018 selloff in cryptocurrencies has wiped off around $42 billion of market value over the weekend and affected Bitcoin’s price. According to some observers, this retreat is because of an exchange hack in South Korea – and others think that it is pointed to lingering concern over a clampdown on trading platforms in China.

What’s a fact is that Bitcoin has dropped about 12% in only a couple of hours – bringing its decline this year to a staggering 53%. Most of the other cryptocurrencies also retreated,  The total market cap, on the other hand, is down from $830 billion in January to less than $300 billion right now.

Even though the South Korean Coinrail hack is much smaller than the $500 million theft from the Japanese exchange Coincheck Inc. in late January, it is still something that can lead to bad news, according to Stephen Innes who is head of Asia Pacific trading at Oanda Corp. in Singapore.

As Innes says, “This is ‘If it can happen to A, it can happen to B and it can happen to C,’ then people panic because someone is selling,”

When asked about the slump and the low market liquidity during the weekend, he said:

“The markets are so thinly traded, primarily by retail accounts, that these guys can get really scared out of positions. It actually doesn’t take a lot of money to move the market significantly.”

Coinrail was among the world’s top 100 most active venues with a 24-hour volume of around $2.65 million according to data. In a statement on their website, Coinrail said that some of the exchange’s digital currency appears to have been stolen by hackers – but they don’t know how much.