TL;DR Breakdown
- Colonial Pipeline hack behind Bitcoin price dip
- How authorities recovered Bitcoin ransom from hackers
Although Bitcoin price has been on a recess over the past week, it has not faced any severe plunge recently like it did in the past 12 hours.
Analysts have said that the recent plunge in Bitcoin Price results from fears that U.S authorities’ hacked’ the Bitcoin network.
Despite acknowledging that these are hard times for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, the number one crypto shed another eight percent from its value after news emerged that the FBI and DOJ recovered a portion of hacked funds in the Colonial Pipeline hack.
These funds denominated in Bitcoin had authorities recover a sizable amount colonial pipeline paid as ransom to their ransomware hacker.
However, reports that the hacker’s Bitcoin wallet was hacked are false. Instead, an FBI affidavit reveals that authorities were able to trace the ransomed Bitcoin using a block explorer to a specific address containing 63.7 Bitcoin.
They then seized control of the private key linked to this address, thus accessing the ransomed Bitcoin. However, Bitcoin price has taken the hit and dropped from its near $40,000 level to $33,000 it currently trades at.
Beyond Bitcoin, altcoins markets have also been hit, with ETH, BNB, XRP all sharing in the loss.
In the last 24 hours, Ethereum is down 10.3 percent, Dogecoin is down 13.3 percent, and Solana, a stand-out cryptocurrency of late, has fallen a whopping 18.7 percent.
Bitcoin price dip: The Colonial Pipeline operation
Cryptopolitan reported on Monday that the FBI had recovered some of the money the pipeline company paid to ransomware hackers to regain access to their computers back after the colonial pipeline attack.
They were attacked on May 7 with their billing system affected, and they were forced to freeze their operation to limit further damage. However, it resulted in fuel shortages throughout the region.
Shortly after the attack, the company reportedly paid the 75 Bitcoin ransom, roughly $4.4 million at that time.
Yesterday, The Department of Justice (DoJ) announced that they had recouped $2.3 million of said funds.
Coinsmart. Beste Bitcoin-Börse in Europa
Source: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/why-bitcoin-price-plunged-again/
