It seems that cryptocurrencies all over the world have joined hands and plunged into an unexpected but rather intense plummet, with no bottom in sight. The recent turn of the markets must be an unwanted episode straight out of a nightmare for many Crypto-investors irrespective of what currency they are in, but before we begin unpacking the investors take on things, let’s dive into the actual events of the markets.
The Theory Of Why
At present, the theories behind this apparent sudden drop in value are grandiose and have little common ground between them, yet one stands out above the rest. Recently, a new but perilous problem has been identified within the world of Cryptocurrencies, and the need to solve this problem is extremely dire as without a solution Cryptocurrencies may not be viable to the mainstream market at all. What is this mindboggling issue? Well, it has been surmised that there is currently no absolutely foolproof method of storing purchased Cryptocurrency tokens in a way that they are one hundred percent safe and secure from the many criminal organizations that intend to steal them.
Ethereum’s Perspective On It
The highlighting of this problem is made even more pertinent by the events from earlier this week; one of the founders of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin had attacked privately controlled Crypto exchanges for the power they exercise over the trading prices of Cryptocurrencies. Vitalik then went on to add how he felt that by moving all Crypto exchanges onto an open source platform any issues that are currently being faced within the Crypto world would simply melt away. However, while Vitalik is correct in stating that Crypto exchanges that are run by a global community would no longer have the opportunity to guide prices, they would still have their own bucket of problems to settle.
One example of a community-run Crypto exchange is Bancor Network, who just yesterday informed the media that they had suffered a hack into their exchange that led to over $23 million being stolen from their funds. The managing team behind Bancor Network sent out a tweet to the global community informing them that currently, the site would be down for repairs and upgrades to security. In the meantime, a thorough police investigation was also underway.
More On The Theft
There was not just one type of token stolen from the Bancor
network, no ETH, BNT, and NXPS were all taken in varying amounts, with the total US$ amount roughly adding up to $23 500 000. After hearing the news, many people who made use of the exchange vented their frustrations on social media stating that the platform might be run by the open community, but that it acted as if it was managed by a private board.
Apparently, as soon as the technicians who oversee Bancor realized what was happening they immediately froze all BNT transactions, in order to halt the theft. In contrast, ETH cannot be held in limbo as yet, therefore the Bancor team had no choice but to let it continue running. Yet, Bancor is not letting this get them down is instead committed to working with Ethereum to improve ETH’s security daily. So, perhaps open source Crypto exchanges might not be as easy to do as some think?
