Cardano under attack

Reading time: 5 minutes

Elon Musk deepfake touts crypto scam on Australian broadcaster’s YouTube

Key points:

  • Australian broadcaster 7News’ YouTube channel livestreamed a crypto-touting deepfake Elon Musk.

  • The YouTube channel was hacked on the morning of 27 June, rebranding all of its content under a Tesla theme.

News - The YouTube channel of 7News, a prominent Australian broadcaster under the Seven Network, was compromised by crypto scammers who rebranded it to mimic Tesla, featuring a deep fake of Elon Musk discussing cryptocurrency.

Fake Elon Musk promises gains - About 150,000 viewers watched three livestreams showing the AI-generated Elon Musk. It's worth noting that some of these viewers may have been automated bots aimed at inflating viewership numbers.

The scam encouraged viewers to scan a QR code on the screen and deposit money into the scheme, offering them the opportunity to “double their assets”. “Let’s make this evening unforgettable and double your wealth with Tesla,” the AI-generated Musk said.

A spokesperson from Seven Network acknowledged the issue, stating, "Seven is currently investigating the situation and collaborating with YouTube to resolve it promptly."

Scammers associated with the incident also promoted a website soliciting Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, and Dogecoin. The news comes days after American rock band Metallica’s X accounts were compromised by hackers to promote a token called “METAL.” The band has since reclaimed their account and has deleted the posts.

Cardano comes under attack - A detailed account of what happened

Key points:

  • The hack was foiled, and the attackers lost some of their holdings.

  • Developer activity on the network showed a slight increase, likely as a response to the hack.

News - The Cardano network experienced a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on 25 June. The attack was aimed at exploiting the network’s staking mechanism to steal ADA. But the network’s developers successfully repelled the attack.

Here’s what happened - According to a detailed post by the CTO of Fluid Token, the attack commenced at block 10,487,530. Each transaction executed during this attack involved 194 smart contracts, with the attacker spending 0.9 ADA per transaction. 

By filling each block with numerous such transactions, which utilized “reward” type smart contracts, the attacker managed to send large transactions while minimizing expenditure.

Philip Disarro, the founder of Cardano development firm Anastasia, provided a solution to halt the attack by suggesting the deregistration of the stake credential used by the attacker. Following his post, the attack ceased. 

However, Disarro noted that before the attack was stopped, the attacker’s funds had been significantly depleted. 

Bitcoin dominance drops: Should you bet on altcoins now?

Key points:

  • Bitcoin dominance has experienced a decrease as it hovered around the 53% mark.

  • Bitcoin’s market cap stood at over $1.2 trillion at press time, with the total crypto market cap at about $2.27 trillion

News - Bitcoin’s dominance in the cryptocurrency market has seen a notable decrease as it struggled to maintain its value. AMBCrypto’s analysis showed that at the end of the trading session on 24 June, BTC dominance was above 54%. However, by the end of the next day, 25 June, it had fallen to around 52.28%.

This rapid decline within 24 hours suggested that while Bitcoin was losing value, some altcoins were performing relatively better and gaining market share.

BTC dominance experienced a slight decrease on 26 June but still hovered around the 53% mark. This level of dominance indicated that Bitcoin still accounted for over half of the total cryptocurrency market capitalization. 

Traders looking for other options? It seems buyers are hesitating to acquire more Bitcoin. According to data from CryptoQuant, there has been a noticeable increase in the volume of Bitcoin held in Over the Counter (OTC) reserves.

Over the last six weeks, more than 103,000 BTC, valued at over $6 billion based on current prices, have been added to these reserves.

The continuous increase in OTC reserves suggested a lack of buyers at the moment, which could be attributed to the recent decline in Bitcoin’s price.

Whale loads up on 2.3 million WIF tokens amid price drops

Key points:

  • The address that accumulated these tokens is the largest holder.

  • WIF was trading at $2 at press time, down 46% over the last 30 days.

News - dogwifhat [WIF] experienced significant accumulation by a notable whale address, coinciding with positive trends in its price over the last two days.

Whales make a splash - The whale invested $4.65 million to purchase 2.3 million WIF tokens, priced over $2 each. This transaction made the whale the largest holder of WIF.

With its latest spending spree, the whale in discussion now holds 23.39 million tokens worth around $49 million. Separately, a look at WIF’s Open Interest revealed a relatively stable market condition.

The Open Interest was around $260 million at press time, marking a slight increase from $246 million in the previous trading session. This modest rise indicated a somewhat stagnant market activity level for WIF derivatives.

Additionally, the Weighted Funding Rate showed a slight increase, suggesting a marginal shift in market dynamics.

Interesting facts

  • The maximum number of Bitcoins that will be created through mining is 21 million. As of December 2023, there were about 1.4 million Bitcoin left to be mined.

  • Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, was only 19 years old when he proposed the idea of Ethereum in a white paper. By the time Ethereum was launched in 2015, he was 21 years old, making him one of the youngest influential figures in the cryptocurrency space.

  • Unlike many cryptocurrencies, XRP has a fixed supply of 100 billion coins, all of which were created at its inception. No new XRP can be mined or created, which means its supply is static and cannot be inflated.

Top 3 coins of the day

NOTCOIN (NOT)

Key points:

  • NOT prices have surged by 170% over the last 30 days.

  • Notcoin team announced the burning of $3 million NOT tokens.

What you should know - At press time, NOT was trading at $0.01556 following a 4% drop in the last 24 hours. NOT’s technical indicators showed that the token was registering buying pressure. The coin’s SMA was also below the price on daily charts - When prices are above SMA, it means that buyers are dominating with increased asset demand, resulting in higher buying pressure. The RSI was at the neutral zone, at press time. However, it shifted from 44 to 51 over the past couple of days. An upward movement of RSI shows the market sentiment is shifting to the bullish side.

Floki (FLOKI)

Key points:

  • Floki was down 6% over the past 24 hours, highlighting sellers’ strength.

  • Floki’s price may be at the start of a major upswing, provided sell pressure doesn’t increase.

What you should know - FLOKI’s chart tumbled over the past 24 hours as prices dropped by more than 6%. However, the coin was still up over 500% on a year-to-day basis. At press time, the memecoin was trading at $0.0001669 . The RSI at 37 showed that FLOKI was in an oversold condition. The OBV confirmed this as it highlighted Floki had reached a point of sellers’ exhaustion. Hence, there is a chance for a bounce in the next few days. Traders are, therefore, considering the current price to be an optimum point of entry.

Cardano (ADA)

Key points:

  • Data showed that ADA sellers were exhausted and buyers might have a chance to push prices up.

  • ADA’s price-DAA divergence confirmed the buy signal.

What you should know - At press time, ADA was trading at $0.3789 after dropping 3% over the past 24 hours. ADA has been on a continuous downtrend for most of June, as is evident from the price chart. The RSI at 34 confirmed ADA’s oversold situation. However, based on on-chain metrics, it seems ADA is about to turn around. Cardano’s network activity and daily active addresses showed growth, which suggests a bullish potential for the token. The Bollinger Bands indicated that ADA could turn volatile soon. This could give ADA the required momentum to cross $0.42.

How was today's newsletter?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.