Posted on

Lazarus Group Transfers $64M ETH From Harmony Bridge Hack

During the weekend, the notorious North Korean hacking gang Lazarus Group started transferring stolen money in the Harmony Bridge attack. Notably, the organization transferred over $63.5 million, or approximately 41,000 ETH. 

On January 16, blockchain detective ZachXBT published information about the transfer of a significant amount of Ethereum. The cryptocurrency assets which originated from Tornado Cash were transferred via Railgun. Railgun is a private smart contract platform that uses zero-knowledge proofs to hide financial transactions.

According to the analyst who followed the trail of more than 350 addresses, some 41,000 ETH worth about $63.5 million were sent through Railgun and deposited on three different exchanges.

Funds Frozen By Binance And Huobi

Binance’s CEO, CZ, tweeted that the exchange had previously uncovered suspicious money transfers from the Harmony One hackers when they attempted to launder money through Binance. As a result, the accounts were frozen by the exchange. 

The Group had been keeping its money in Tornado Cash, a service that helps keep people’s identities secret and is used by criminals to launder money in the crypto industry.

The experts followed the funds through more than three hundred addresses. They concluded that Railgun had spread around 41,000 ETH among multiple receivers before the cryptocurrencies were deposited at various exchanges. He did not name the exchanges, but he did say that the Lazarus Group routinely makes rapid withdrawals from such platforms.

Connections Between Lazarus And Harmony’s Attack

Lazarus is now quite skilled at hiding their movements from law enforcement agencies while transferring illegal cryptocurrencies. For example, they were suspected of being behind the attack on Harmony Bridge in June 2022. In-depth information about the attack was published by Elliptic, a blockchain analytics service, at the time it occurred.

Multiple large crypto heists, totaling over $2 billion, have been linked to the Lazarus Group. DeFi and cross-chain bridges became a new target in 2022, and the group was also suspected of being behind the $600 million Ronin Bridge attack.

According to a recent report by cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, another North Korean hacker group BlueNoroff has expanded its illegal activities by posing as venture capitalists looking to invest in cryptocurrency startups.

Kaspersky’s report shows the global attacks by BlueNoroff against cryptocurrency businesses were uncovered in January 2022 but slowed down until the fall.

Theft of cryptocurrency has become a profitable business for North Korean hackers. According to information about their operations, South Korean spying services estimate that over $1.2 billion in cryptocurrency has been stolen from the global community since 2017. In 2022, numerous companies, including FTX, were victims of cyberattacks.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $20,800, up 21% in the last week. It is currently trading above its 50-day Simple Moving Average (SMA), which indicates that the price will remain bullish in the short term.

Featured image from Euronews, Chart from Tradingview.com.

Posted on

This Crypto Influencer Predicts Bitcoin Price At $25,000-$30,000 Soon

The start of 2023 is bringing a different phase in the crypto market. Over the past few days, most crypto assets have regained value. The bullish trend has spiked a new sentiment in the market as several positive predictions have emerged.

Ben Armstrong, a popular YouTuber known as BitBoy, predicted a bullish trend for Bitcoin in a few weeks. Armstrong, the author of a new book “Catching Up To Crypto” took to Twitter to express his views on BTC’s future price surge.

Bitcoin Price Rally Triggers Bullish Sentiment

According to Armstrong, the primary crypto asset has triggered a bullish sentiment in the crypto community with its recent uptrend. Finally, BTC broke the barrier and climbed to the $18,000 level. As of January 12, the leading token reached $19K during trading hours.

A review of the price history indicated that BTC reached the $15K region in November 2022. Notably, Bitcoin started alternating between $16,000 and $17,000 in December 2022. But this 2023, the primary crypto asset is showing impressive price movement.

Bitcoin

According to BitBoy’s post on Twitter, Bitcoin will gradually reach $25,000 or $30,000 this year. He forecasted that BTC would attain this new price rally within the next 10 to 15 weeks. Also, several people are becoming bullish in their trades with Bitcoin.

On January 11, Armstrong posted about his belief in Bitcoin’s price explosion in 2023. However, the controversial YouTuber noted that the primary cryptocurrency might not hit a new all-time high (ATH) this year.

On January 12, Bitcoin slightly hit the $19,000 level before retracting to the $18K level. BTC’s new price rally is likely due to the risk-on sentiments associated with other markets.

At the time of writing, the price of Bitcoin is hovering around $20,627. This shows that the token increased by 3.50% within 24 hours. Bitcoin’s market cap is about $366.43 billion having a surge of 4.62% in the past day. Also, its dominance over altcoins is 40.26%.

This Crypto Influencer Predicts Bitcoin Price At $25,000 - $30,000 Soon

Recall that in December 2022, Armstrong gave a forecast for Bitcoin. According to BitBoy’s tweet, the end of 2023 will see BTC reaching the $30,000 level. Also, he predicted the token would finally hit a new all-time high (ATH) by the end of 2024, while a new cycle of bearish trend would break out in 2025. But now, analysts believe BTC will reach the price mark in a few weeks.

Crypto Whales Resume Transactions In Bitcoin

With the recent BTC price rally, some crypto whales have resumed massive transactions in BTC. Some of the on-chain data providers have recorded huge BTC transactions recently.

According to WhaleAlert, an unknown whale moved 5,545 BTC tokens to another anonymous wallet. The value of coins is worth over $104.3 million in the current market prices. On January 12, 4.000 BTC tokens worth $72.51 million were moved from an unknown wallet to the Huobi crypto exchange.

Further, Santiment, an on-chain data firm, confirms the increasing whale transactions involving BTC.

The data provider reported that the BTC whale transactions average had exceeded 1,700 daily. This new average occurred for the first time in the past two months.

Posted on

Why Justin Sun’s Stablecoin USDD Is Struggling To Maintain Its Dollar Peg

A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency that is pegged to a certain fiat currency. It provides stability for investors of crypto, making transactions easier. USDD, a stablecoin created by the founder of the Tron Blockchain, Justin Sun, has been losing its peg to the U.S. dollar.

According to Coingecko, USDD is currently trading at $0.9805. Although USDD was designed to be pegged to the dollar like other stablecoins, its value has fluctuated between $0.9806 and $0.9798 during the past week.

As this developed, Sun’s crypto exchange, Huobi Global, joined the ranks of crypto companies that started this year with job cuts.

Adding to the pressure is the fear, uncertainty and doubt surrounding the Huobi exchange itself. Recent social media posts regarding the exchange shows that Huobi has higher withdrawals than deposits which strengthened fears of a possible halting of withdrawals. 

Justin Sun

How Does USDD Stablecoin Work?  

USDD is an algorithmic stablecoin which uses complex arithmetic to keep the price pegged to a dollar. According to Tron DAO’s blog post about the inner workings of USDD, the stablecoin is not considered de-pegged by the system when it drops lower or goes higher than $1. 

Looking at the charts, the stablecoin is consistently testing its 3% leeway set by the system. Although the system itself does not consider USDD depegged, this consistency is worrying as any further drop might cause more troubles – or eventually led to the fate that befell UST  when it crashed.

With investors skeptical of USDD since its inception, Sun has not done anything as of now. This is clearly because of the current situation at Huobi, leaving the reins to the system that  govern USDD. 

Huobi’s Situation And What It Means For USDD

Sun, who is advisor to Huobi, has been said to be withdrawing more than a billion dollars which further strengthened the FUD surrounding the exchange. Speculators, however, believe that the withdrawn funds would be used for the operations of Huobi. 

This might be true, as the exchange might be burning through its liquidity as withdrawals continue to mount up due to recent negative developments. Any negative news on Huobi might have an effect on the peg of USDD and USDJ. 

Not to mention that both stablecoins are limited in where they can be bought and sold. According to CoinCodex, USDD is tradable on 11 exchanges while USDJ is tradable on three. Both can be traded on Huobi and Poloniex.

With Sun being one of the shady characters in the crypto, it remains to be seen whether his “ignore the FUD” strategy will work. But with Huobi’s worsening FUD, the exchange becoming the next FTX would definitely devastate many investors and send shockwaves to the entire crypto space.

-Featured image by PortalCripto

Posted on

USDD Stablecoin Faces Possible Collapse Amid Huobi Insolvency Rumors

The bear market deepens as negative news and FUD keep popping up. The latest on the list of fear-causing information is Justin Sun’s USDD stablecoin and popular crypto exchange Huobi. 

Mike Alfred, an investor serving as a board member of BTC miner Iris Energy and digital asset investment platform Eaglebrook Advisors, earlier today voiced out some warnings on USDD stablecoin and Huobi Exchange. 

According to Alfred, Justin Sun shadow owns Huobi, and he is perhaps the “most erratic billionaire in crypto.” Justin has been sending a handful of billions of dollars of stablecoins around the space, including in and out of exchanges such as Binance, said Alfred. Adding, “Something huge is afoot. Withdraw all coins from unregulated exchanges.”

He also went ahead to tackle Justin Sun’s USDD stablecoin saying the algorithmic stablecoin on Tron has de-pegged and could be in the process of collapsing. “It’s code red time in crypto again,” Alfred concluded. 

Following the accusations that Justin Sun appears to shadow-own Huobi, rumors of the exchange being insolvent have now begun to spread. When a tweep commented on Alfred’s post saying, “I doubt he is a billionaire.” Alfred replied that Justin cashed out $1.5 billion to fiat in the last couple of months. “He’s looting Huobi before it crashes.”

Is Huobi Really Insolvent?

Several theories have intensified Huobi’s rumor of being insolvent. It was reported yesterday that Huobi had shut down internal employee communication groups and feedback channels and is now asking employees to receive their salaries in stablecoins.

While the validation of the rumor has not been confirmed, and there have been no reports of clogging of withdrawals on Huobi yet, the conclusion of whether the exchange is solvent or not is still quite an uncertain projection. 

Amid the ongoing Huobi rumors, the exchange has entered the red in trading volume over the last 24 hours. According to data from Coinmarketcap, Huobi’s 24-hour trading volume is down by over 15%, sitting at $343 billion. 

Effect On USDD And The Crypto Market 

As of the time of writing, USDD has de-pegged and is now trading at $0.9799 with a trading volume of $33.5 million. The Huobi native token (HT) has also fallen by more than 7% in the past 24 hours, with a trading volume of $20.5 million over the same time period.

Huobi Token Price Chart on TradingView.comThere hasn’t been any significant drop in the global crypto market; however, should the rumor about Huobi be true and the exchange eventually crashes, there could be potential drops, particularly in altcoins. Furthermore, both Bitcoin and Ethereum seem to be in a consolidation state, almost as if they are waiting for significant news before they begin to move.

Featured image from iStock, chart from TradingView