Crypto Stocks Suffer Due to Low Bitcoin Prices and Escalating Hacks and Exploits

The shares of companies in the cryptocurrency and blockchain technology sector dropped on Tuesday after the recent crypto exploit involving Curve Finance caused the price of Bitcoin to drop to a six-week low. The shares of the publicly listed crypto mining companies were equally affected.

The NASDAQ-listed Coinbase was down 8% at the time of publication, while the shares of Bitfarms have dropped 6% on the daily chart. Similarly, Riot Platforms, Marathon Digital, and the Canadian-listed Hurt 8 have declined 5%, 7%, and 8%, respectively. Besides that, Bitcoin is down 1.5%, according to CoinmarketCap.

Market Volatility

Curve Finance, a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform for stablecoins, was hacked during the weekend through a vulnerability in its smart contracts programming language, Vyper. Following the exploit, the DeFi platform’s native token CRV experienced heightened volatility. Additionally, Upbit, a South Korean cryptocurrency exchange, temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals in CRV.

According to the cryptocurrency exchange Huobi, the amount believed to have been stolen from Curve is estimated at USD $52 million. The exploit arrived when cryptocurrency platforms are experiencing security challenges due to hacks and exploits, exit scams, and attacks on flash loans.

Finance Magnates reported that hackers stole USD $313 million through hacks and different kinds of malicious activities during the second quarter of the year. Additionally, in the first quarter of the year, the amount lost was USD $320 million.

Impact of Crypto Hacks

In July, crypto hacks and exploits reached the highest level year-to-date at USD $303 million. The funds lost in July to exploits, exit scams, and attacks on flash loans amounted to USD $285 million, USD $8.7 million, and USD $8.6 million, respectively.

According to the security company Certik, the blockchain bridging platform, Multichain, reported the highest amount of losses worth USD $125 million from exploits in July. The highest loss to exit scams was reported on Kannagi Finance at USD $1.9 million, while Conic Finance had the highest loss of USD $3.2 million from attacks on flash loans .

The shares of crypto-related stocks have also been affected by the ongoing litigation in the US against the top cryptocurrency exchanges, Binance and Coinbase, Reuters reported. Additionally, the hike of interest rates by the Federal Reserve has equally affected the digital assets space.