Bitcoin has been rejected just shy of the significant $50,000 level after eight days of solid gains. In its longest rally so far this year, the leading cryptocurrency secured an astounding eight green daily candles in a row. It hit its highest price level recorded this year after breaking above $48,200 on 28 March, but as buying power dried up, BTC began a quick descent back to $46,500. A mild rejection is not unexpected after a continuous rally of this nature, but there are some external factors that could be responsible.
Axie Infinity Hack
Ronin Network, which runs popular NFT-based gaming platform Axie Infinity, announced yesterday that it was hacked to the tune of $625 million. The hackers managed to steal 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million USDC in just two transactions by exploiting a security weakness in the Ronin bridge, the platform’s cross-chain token conversion protocol.
Although no Bitcoin was stolen in the hack, catastrophic events like these often illicit crypto market jitters, causing some investors to take profit no matter what coins they hold.
Ethereum and Cardano (ADA) appear to have suffered some of the worst losses today, losing between 2-3% each, while XRP is down 1.7% and Bitcoin down 1.4%.
Solana (SOL) on OpenSea
Not everyone has been hit though, with Solana (SOL) enjoying 1.3% gains today on the news that leading NFT marketplace OpenSea will begin listing its tokens. Solana is currently the second-largest NFT platform after Ethereum, with digital art collections amounting to a total of $1.5 billion. After a hacker leaked images related to the news, OpenSea indicated it will begin supporting Solana this April, although no specific day was given.