Here are some of the major developments from the world of crypto over the past few days
Bitcoin whales took full advantage of the cryptocurrency market’s fall earlier this month, buying 71,000 Bitcoin at the fastest rate since April 2023. According to IntoTheBlock, a large portion of the $4.3 billion worth of Bitcoin was purchased when prices fell to $54,200 on July 5, 2024.
During the first 10 days of July, Santiment also saw a 261 per cent net rise in the number of Bitcoin wallets holding at least 10 Bitcoins. This is likely to reassure traders in the long term.
On July 14, following a 12-year break, a dormant Bitcoin whale moved 1,000 Bitcoin, or about $60 million, to two new wallets, according to Whale Alert.
Bitcoin is currently trading at $60,850, down 8.1 per cent in the last month, owing in part to Mt. Gox’s plan to sell $8 billion and the German government’s sale of roughly 50,000 Bitcoin for $3 billion. However, it showed signs of recovery over the weekend, breaching the $60,000 resistance and rising 6 per cent since July 12, 2024.
A Phishing fraudster has unexpectedly returned over $9.3 million to a victim after taking $24 million in a phishing attack last September. Scam Sniffer first detected the fraudster on July 13, 2024 and he used Dai DAI $1 Stablecoin to repay the cash in two transactions last week.
CoinMarketCap, a cryptocurrency market data portal, and other industry participants have identified the flaw which might allow anonymous developers to implement fraudulent smart contracts to swindle customers. The latest $9.3 million return is a 38.4 per cent increase while 14,429 staked-Ether would now be worth $47.5 million.
Phishing scammers stole almost $300 million worth of crypto from 324,000 victims in 2023, according to Scam Sniffer’s 2023 Wallet Drainers Report. In 2023, the most notable phishing fraudsters were Inferno Drainer and MS Drainer, who stole $81 million and $59 million, respectively. Pink Drainer, a notorious phishing scammer, took more than $85 million before closing down in May 2023.
Alexey Pertsev, the developer of the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)-sanctioned cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash, has been refused bail while his attorneys prepare to file an appeal for money laundering accusations.
Keith Cheng, Pertsev’s defence lawyer, told DL News that the rejection of his bail request caught him by surprise.
Judith de Boer, another of Pertsev’s lawyer, disagreed with the court’s ruling, stating that pre-trial detention on such fundamental legal issues was inappropriate. On May 14, 2024, Pertsev was convicted guilty of money laundering by the s-Hertogenbosch Court of Appeal in the Netherlands. The developer was sentenced to more than five years in jail for laundering $1.2 billion in criminal assets.
During his previous trial in March, Pertsev had claimed that he could not be held responsible for the activities of anyone who exploited the Tornado Cash protocol for malicious or unlawful reasons. The court denied Pertsev’s claim, stating that if he and the other Tornado Cash co-founders truly wanted to avoid unlawful usage, they would have taken extra efforts to improve security.