Cryptocurrency Update for August 14: Bitcoin, Ethereum climbs over 6%

On August 14, cryptocurrency prices are again reaching the peak hikes with the market cap ranging from $1.99 trillion, a 6.38 per cent increase over the past day, whereas the total crypto market volume for the 24 hours slot is $106.24 billion, which resulted in a 9.79 per cent dip.

Bitcoin & Ethereum climb over 6%

On August 14, cryptocurrency prices are again reaching the peak hikes with the market cap ranging from $1.99 trillion, a 6.38 per cent increase over the past day, whereas the total crypto market volume for the 24 hours slot is $106.24 billion, which resulted in a 9.79 per cent dip.

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All stable coins now carry a volume of $82.04 billion around 77.22 per cent of the total crypto market of the 24-hour volume. Bitcoin’s price is currently ranging at $47,583.29 with a nearly 44.82 per cent share in the market, a dip of 0.04 per cent a day. This result arrives after a major cyber loot by the hackers targeting around $610 million cryptocurrency.

“The only remaining tokens to be returned are $33 million tether stablecoins frozen earlier in the week by cryptocurrency firm Tether,” Poly Network said.

By August 10, the hackers started giving back the stolen coins, leading few blockchain analysts to act upon the stolen cryptocurrency on a scale.

Polygon acquires Hermez Network for $250 million

Ethereum scaling project Polygon (formerly known as Matic Network) has reportedly acquired Hermez Network, a ZK-Rollups-based Ethereum scaling solution by closing a deal of $250 million. The two projects will act as a conglomerate to their native tokens: MATIC and HEZ.

This year, two major Ethereum projects like Keep and NuCypher, also combined their protocols but ensured to keep their brands separate from each other.

On August 4, Polygon and Hermez, reached an initial agreement last week where Hermez proclaimed “discussions for a potential merger with a public network.” As of 11:00 CET on August 4, the two projects emerged on a peg or swap ratio of their tokens as per their prices. The peg, closed today, at 3.5 MATIC: 1 HEZ, therefore HEZ token holders will be able to swap their tokens for various of Polygon’s MATIC tokens.

CoinFund appoints former Citigroup exec as the new president and managing partner

CoinFund is a blockchain-focused investment firm, that hired and appointed Christopher Perkins from  Citigroup Inc. as the new managing partner and president of its firm that will aid in bridging the gap to the traditional finance sector.

“At Citigroup, Perkins was global co-head of the futures, clearing and foreign-exchange prime brokerage businesses. At CoinFund, he’ll work with employees and institutional investors to help narrow the divide between crypto investing and traditional equities,” the company averred in an official statement on Thursday.

“Chris Perkins will play a key role in driving institutional scale to further position CoinFund as a major global investment manager at the intersection of crypto and traditional finance,” Jake Brukhman, CoinFund’s founder and chief executive officer, asserted in the statement. “Chris joining CoinFund is not only a major milestone for our firm, but is also indicative of a broader trend as Wall Street turns its attention to the opportunities within the blockchain-technology space.”

Does crypto have any future after the $600 million heists?

Hackers have stolen a whopping $600 million in cryptocurrency from the decentralized finance platform named Poly Network, reportedly the largest theft ever!

“The amount of money you hacked is the biggest one in the defi history,” Poly Network addressed in a letter to the attacker in a tweet. “The money you stole is from tens of thousands of crypto community members… you should talk to us to work out a solution.”
Poly Network persuades other members of the cryptocurrency chain to “blacklist” the assets arriving from addresses used by the attacker to take away the funds that included a mix of all coins with a $33 million of Tether, as per Tether’s CTO.
Following the hack, Poly Network created several addresses to which it said the attacker could give back the money. As of 7:47 a.m., Poly Network said, it had received about $4.7 million back. It was not immediately clear who was behind the hack.
Later by noon, more money, about $261 million, had been returned, as per the blockchain forensics firm Chain analysis. “I take the responsibility to expose the vulnerability before any insiders hiding and exploiting it!” the attacker wrote. “I understood the risk of exposing myself even if I don’t do evil. So I used temporary email, IP or _so called_ fingerprints, which was untraceable. I prefer to stay in the dark and save the world.”
“With the inherent transparency of blockchains and the eyes of an entire industry on you, how could any cryptocurrency hacker expect to escape with a large cache of stolen funds?” the company stated in its report. “In most cases, the best they could hope for would be to evade capture as the funds sit frozen in a blacklisted private wallet.”
Regulators have amplified their scrutiny of crypto platforms in order to encrypt and secure for the investors who put billions of dollars into digital currencies. Senator Elizabeth Warren recently asked SEC Chair Gary Gensler to investigate the SEC’s potential to upkeep trading on crypto platforms. In response, last week, Gensler added: “Right now, I believe investors using these platforms are not adequately protected.”