As CCN reported, the little-known Coinrail became the latest cryptocurrency exchange to fall prey to hackers, who are said to have made off with approximately $40 million worth of tokens, a fairly pedestrian figure relative to some of the hacks seen over the years.
Later that day, the bitcoin price began to careen downwards, taking every other major cryptocurrency with it. This led some observers to draw the conclusion that the two events were linked.
Writing in market commentary made available to CCN, Greenspan said that “there is absolutely no reason why this smash and grab job at a local boutique should have sent bitcoin down by $1,000.”
While the bitcoin price did experience a small decline in the immediate aftermath of the report that an exchange had been hacked, Greenspan noted that the bulk of the decline came more than 15 hours later and that the scale of the pullback was entirely disproportionate to both the size of the hack and Coinrail’s significance in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
The bitcoin price declined after the Coinrail hack was first reported (circled), but the major drop occurred more than 15 hours later. | Source: eToro
He argued that the decline was instead a technical correction, as most of it occurred immediately after the bitcoin price broke beneath its long-term trendline and moved closer to two key support levels.
“Though the CoinRail hack may have set us off-track, I don’t think that this will have very significant ramifications in the long run,” he said. “The industry has certainly seen much bigger hacks before and other than a technical price level, this doesn’t change much for the path of the industry over the next five years.”
