Digest

• The weekend sale-off incites fear and jumps 250 points
• (LUNA) rises to a new record, while the market plummets.
• Bitmart Hack: Stolen private Key behind $196 Million Bitmart Hack
• Metaverse land is tops in NFT sales; BSC launches $200 million GameFi funds.
• Binance will relaunch the U.K. in 12 months. Trading volume for DEXes reaches new record high.

Weekend Sell-Off Ignites Extreme Fear, Dow Futures Jump 250 Points

Investors were hopeful that the market would recover after the initial signs showed promise. However, the December 4th was a disaster day as the price dropped to as low as $42,874 in just hours. Others cryptocurrencies followed suit.

The total market cap of cryptocurrencies fell to $1 trillion during the deepest waters of the “sea of red”. The market decline, which saw Bitcoin selling at $42.8k, has sent the ‘Crypto Fear and Greed Index’ into “extreme fear” territory.

Now, the Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index is at 16 despite Bitcoin’s price rising to $48k. It had reached an earlier peak of 84 on the 9th November, when Bitcoin hit $69,000.

The “extreme fear” marker ignited a sell-off that led to new record trade volumes for Bitcoin. For the first time since September 7, 2017, the 24 hour BTC trade volume on major exchanges surpassed $61 billion.

Flipsider:

• Dow futures rose 259 points after Bitcoin fell as investors sold tech stocks at high valuations.
• Investors now place their money on companies that are linked to the recovery economy.

Terra (LUNA), Spikes to New All Time High, Market Slumps

Terra (LUNA), excelled during a cryptocurrency market bloodbath on Saturday, December 4. Bitcoin fell to $42.8k on Saturday, a sharp drop that represents a 60-day low.

LUNA saw a 35% increase in its price over the course of 24 hours. The market cap reached $77.94 for an all time high. Terra’s market cap crossed the $30 billion milestone during the interday session as it briefly became the 9th largest cryptocurrency.

The December 4th – 5th trading chart for Terra (LUNA). Source: Tradingview

Flipsider:

• While crypto markets are slowly rebounding from their decline, LUNA’s market cap is on the rise.
• Terra (LUNA), which has fallen as high as 15% in the past 24 hours, is currently trading at $64.32.

Terra (LUNA) price chart 24 hours a day Source: Tradingview

What You Need to Care About

Terra is still the leader in development and has seen its price increase of 2,700% since 2021.

Stolen Private Key Behind $196 Million BitMart Hack

As the crypto market recorded one of the biggest declines of 2021, crypto exchange BitMart suffered “a large-scale security breach.”

Sheldon Xia is the BitMart founder and CEO. He claims that hackers stole $196m (as against the $150 million previously reported) from BitMart by stealing a key that allowed two hot wallets to be opened on December 4.

Peckshield claims that the hackers stole $100 million in cryptocurrencies and $96 millions from BitMart’s Binance Smart Chain.

Peckshield pointed out that the hacker made use of popular DEX aggregator 1inch in order to exchange the stolen tokens for Ethereum. The hacker then deposited the ETH at Tornado Cash, a privacy mixer to conceal their identity.

While BitMart’s founder said only a “small percentage” of the exchange’s assets were at risk, the company has frozen all withdrawals on the platform “until further notice,” and is reviewing security. The date of resumption for withdrawals has been established as December 7.

Flipsider:

• BitMart has received help from the Huobi, as well as communities around it to overcome its breach of $200 million.

What You Need to Care About

Despite the industry’s significant development, large-scale cryptocurrency heists remain a significant headache for crypto firms to solve.

Metaverse Land Tops NFT, BSC and Animoca Brands Launch $200 million Fund

Ever since Facebook’s rebrand, there has been an explosion in the popularity of metaverse platforms. Therefore, land in digital realms is quickly becoming the most desirable asset in the nonfungible market.

The sale of metaverse land was worth more than $106million out of the total $300 million in NFT transactions that took place in the week ended December 2, 2012. Over 6,000 sellers bought plots of land, with Decentraland and Sandbox the leading marketplaces.

A $200 million investment fund has been launched by Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and Animoca Brands to help GameFi develop. This program will help to develop early stage cryptocurrency-based gaming projects that are built on BSC.

Program, which aims to increase the BSC ecosystem will also support non-fungible token projects (NFT) and decentralized financing (DeFi).

Flipsider:

• Industry leaders are not sure what the future holds despite Web 3.0 and the metaverse being two of the most discussed subjects.

The U.K. will see Binance relaunch. In 12 months, trading volume of the DEXs reaches new all-time high

Binance, a troubled cryptocurrency exchange is planning to relaunch its services here after being told by the Financial Conduct Authority to stop advertising within the country. Binance, which has many compliance officers including former FCA workers, is trying to be more regulatory-compliant.

According to the CEO of Binance, Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao, the exchange company will be reapplying for an FCA license. CZ explained that Binance plans to register crypto-asset firms and offer derivatives and futures trading by complying with anti-money laundering regulations.

Flipsider:

• Binance is a well-known centralized trading platform, but many traders now prefer decentralized options, which offer greater assets and cheaper transaction rates.
• Based on Dune Analytics, the trading volumes on decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregators surged last week to a new ATH of $6 billion – more than 50% of the first week of November.