We’re on the heels of cross-chain bridge Nomad suffering a demolishing hack earlier in the week, and now hackers are doubling down with an attack on Solana hot wallets mid-way through the week. On Tuesday afternoon, reports emerged of some sort of vulnerability that was taking advantage of Solana-based wallets. Approaching 24 hours later, there are still quite a bit of unknowns, and we’re approaching nearly $5M of hacked funds.
Let’s take a look at what we do know so far.
A Solana Scare
Nearly 10,000 wallets across mobile users utilizing both Slope and Phantom (two of the leading Solana wallets) fell victim to this week’s hack in what is seemingly a result of poor user privacy management. While reputable users in crypto Twitter are still working on a post-mortem, a Dune Analytics dashboard created by @tristan0x shows a visual of how quickly things developed; while activity on Wednesday has been at a standstill, there is still cloudy forecasts around whether or not this vulnerability is still active.
General crypto Twitter consensus thus far has pointed towards Slope as being the domino to fall here; the platform’s latest correspondence on Twitter, from Tuesday, states that they are “actively working to sort out the issue as rapidly as possible and rectify best we can.” On Wednesday, Slope released a message to users that was reposted by reputable crypto Twitter user foobar:
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Statement from the Slope team pic.twitter.com/uOEdO25x8c
— foobar (@0xfoobar) August 3, 2022
Despite abundant question marks around Solana security, the price of the SOL token has remained surprisingly strong. | Source: SOL-USD on TradingView.com
Related Reading | Why The Crypto Fear & Greed Index Points To Sustainable Recovery
Crypto Vulnerabilities Run Rampant
So how did it all happen? Post-mortems from independent sleuths and other reputable sources in the space have yet to be released, but speculation has largely landed on some variation of a ‘software supply chain attack’ being the likely downfall here. This is where attackers search far and wide for security vulnerabilities across network protocols, server infrastructure, and platform coding practices to take advantage of potential holes.
In this case, the root issue seems to lie within Slope and some have even speculated that it could be a malicious insider at Slope taking advantage of the platform’s practices. As foobar notes in the Twitter thread above, “compromised Phantom wallets came from seed phrase imports used in Slope.”
If you or someone you know is concerned about the safety of their funds on a Solana-based wallet, move funds to a hardware wallet where the seed phrase key has not been typed or inputted digitally on any device. Until a post-mortem from Slope and other reputable resources in the community emerges, there will be a variety of assumptions around these circumstances – so stay tuned and stay secure.
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The United States’ newest release on its inflation rate for July has created a celebration reason for many, especially the crypto sector. According to the Department of Labor publication, the July customer price index (CPI) report dipped to 8.5%. This was against its last year’s value of 9.1%.
With the report’s release, many people have expressed their recommendations for the Biden Administration and their shock. Some confessed that they have expected to see a spike in inflation due to some of the prevailing factors at the moment. They mentioned that the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war and price increase in goods were expected to play a role.
US President Joe Biden has reacted to the great news of the CPI report. Commenting from the White House, he maintained that the news shows that the economy ran with zero percent inflation for July.
President Biden further mentioned that their approach to controlling inflation yields positive results. Hence, he encouraged Congress to pass the inflation Reduction Act. This will help to build an economy that would reward hard work.
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In the past six months, the US reported a negative GDP value for the two quarters of the year. Inflation also rose within the period, as indicated by the high-priced economy.
The report pointed out the monthly energy cost reduction that hit 4.6%. The value contradicts that of 2021, which gave a climbing curve to be at 32.9%. On the part of food expenses, there is a continuous uptrend.
The report recorded an 11% increase for July and a 10.9% rise on a year-over-year basis. Pundits reported that this value stands as the highest surge since May 1979.
Cryptocurrency market trends downwards | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap on TradingView.com
Gasoline prices dipped by 7.7% monthly to give drivers a little aid. However, it remained higher than the value for 2021 by 44%.
Crypto Market Followed An Uptrend
In a new development, the crypto market is making positive progress in price and value. However, the crypto space has been in shamble due to the impact of the crypto winter and other combining factors.
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In addition, the geopolitical climate and macro influences had been quite unfavorable. As a result, bitcoin and most major crypto assets experienced drastic price drops over the first half of 2022.
While expecting the CPI July report, many cryptocurrencies dropped on August 9. On its part, BTC plummeted by 4% to trade at $23,100. This sudden downward move was after it hit the $24,000 level as of Monday. For Ethereum, the drop went below 5%.
But the market prices are making a bounce with most assets moving uptrend. For example, while Bitcoin has climbed above $24,200, Ethereum is increasing slightly beneath $1,900 at the time of writing.
Featured image from Phemex, Chart from TradingView.com
Polkadot (DOT) price reveals that the extreme bullish movement pumped the price reaching $9.54.
DOT price extremely bullish; set to retest $9.88 key resistance level.
Support spotted at the $9.29 zone.
Polkadot pumped up its price to $9.54.
DOT’s price trendline has spiked for the past couple of weeks following the coin’s overwhelming gains over the past few days.
Today, DOT/USD is trying to test the $9.87 key resistance level which is pretty strong. However, if the bulls continue to push further then DOT will have no problem breaching this critical resistance zone.
DOT Price Pumped To $9.54
On the 24-hour timeframe, DOT price has shown a boost in price value as it pumped its price to $9.54 a few hours ago.
According to CoinMarketCap, DOT is now trading at $9.49 or showing an impressive spike of 2.20% as of this writing. DOT price was down by a trickle in a few hours but is still on the green lane. The DOT/USD pair has shown a remarkable 10.05% gain in terms of value as seen in the past week which hints a continuation of the bull run.
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On the flip side, trading volume for DOT tremendously fell by 12.66% which shows some weak spots in terms of momentum.
DOT/USD pair shows increased volatility as seen in the expansion of the Bollinger bands. The price is seen to be trading the upper limit with $9.99 as the current key resistance, and the lower band or $6.84 poised as the current support zone for the coin.
More so, the EMA is spotted at $9.10 with RSI at 64 which is indicates strong buying pressure in the market.
Polkadot Price Correction Anticipated
The 4-hour timeframe shows that DOT price breached upwards which was observed at the onset of the trading session which prompted the price to spike to $9.58, but when the selling pressure resurfaced, the price also went down in the last few hours.
The 4-hour chart for DOT shows a rather very mild volatility. The upper band is spotted at $9.84, while the lower band is found at $8.73. More so, the EMA trades at the $9.35 level with the RSI showing a mild downtrend as it continue to trade at index 62 propelled by the immense selling pressure.
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DOT price reveals that the coin is working extremely hard to override the key resistance found at $9.87, as the price is still seen trading on the green. A price correction is expected for short-term or in a just a few hours before the coin retests the key resistance zone again.
On the other hand, if the bears manage to dominate the bulls, then DOT may hold on to $9.29 as its next support zone.
DOT total market cap at $10.3 billion on the weekend chart | Source: TradingView.com Featured image from Bitcoin Addict, Chart from TradingView.com
Filecoin (FIL) price action shows the formation of a flag and pole pattern that indicates a bullish movement.
Filecoin price displays a robust uptrend with a bullish flag and pole pattern.
Four-hour time frame for Filecoin showed the formation of a symmetrical triangle pattern
Filecoin currently trades at a long-term supply range following a breach of short-term key resistance
Currently, Filecoin price trades at a long-term supply level after successfully breaching a short-term key resistance.
Prior to the breach, FIL price has been in convergence for quite some time. With that said, the breach of the supply level has made a tremendous impact which blasted a robust bullish streak.
Filecoin Shows Robust Upward Movement
Following a robust bullish movement, FIL coin price has started consolidating once again and creating higher high as well as higher low patterns seen on a daily time frame.
According to CoinMarketCap, the Filecoin price has been highly bullish trading at $8.55 with a surge of 0.69% as of this writing.
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As of press time, FIL coin price has breached the critical 50 and 100 EMAs. More so, the coin currently trades midway of the Bollinger band indicator after it failed to outpace the upper bands. More so, trading volumes for the coin have also surged following the breach.
At this point, investors are advised to keep an eye for any signs of a breach in the bullish flag and pole pattern, and then act fast.
FIL Price To Surge Once It Breaches Flag, Pole Pattern
Given a 4-hour time frame, the FIL coin price is observed to form a symmetrical triangle. The ADX curve has also spiked on a higher time frame as it moves in sync with the coin’s uptrend which hints at a rally in FILE coin price.
Judging by the daily time frame, the ADX curve is seen to have swerved past the 20 levels and shifted upwards. On 4-hour time fame, the coin is spotted currently sitting in the short-term demand zone. At this point, investors need to wait for the formation of a positive candle in the demand area.
FIL coin’s RSI is showing trading activity at the 50.41 mark. Its RSI also shows a crossover on the 50 zones. Remarkably, the FIL coin price revealed a breach seen at a robust supply zone. In the event that the coin price manages to breach the bullish flag and pole pattern, the RSI will also quickly swing upwards. RSI curve also shows that it has successfully crossed the 14 EMA which defines a short-lived bullish movement.
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The Supertrend indicators are also very optimistic, especially with the breach of the critical small-term supply mark as seen on the daily time frame which also prompted the continuous rallying of coin prices.
Crypto total market cap at $1.15 trillion on the daily chart | Source: TradingView.com Featured image from Binance Academy, Chart from TradingView.com