Cryptocurrency stocks tumbled into Friday trading as the digital asset space reckoned with a $6.3 billion hack at Binance, the largest crypto exchange.
Coinbase stock fell 6% in premarket trading on Friday, with the Binance hack erasing any investor goodwill from the crypto exchange’s surprise third-quarter profit reported after the bell on Thursday.
Circle Internet stock dropped 6.6% as the issuer of currency-backed tokens also felt the pain, and Strategy stock lost 7.2% as the Bitcoin proxy play via its massive crypto treasury suffered amid the parallel decline in Bitcoin prices.
Strategy stock’s decline is based on its exposure to Bitcoin, which was dropping close to 4% against the dollar early Friday.
Coinbase and Circle are now in the security spotlight, even if there’s nothing to suggest they are particularly vulnerable to a similar hack. Both companies have shown that you can forge a path in the Wild West of crypto by trying to be as regulated as possible. It would be a good bet that both companies have the best cybersecurity money can buy.
But the Binance hack underscores how even the biggest players and systemic pillars in crypto have a target on their back in a digital asset economy that has a long history of panics. There are few signs of widespread contagion so far, but if crypto traders are spooked by the Binance hack—and they could be—trading volumes could fall across crypto and stablecoin usage may also slip.
That would be bad for the businesses of both Circle and Coinbase. A $6.3 billion cyberattack on the largest crypto exchange could also reignite regulatory pressures across the sector.
As the shine continues to fade from crypto, with Bitcoin down almost 40% from its all-time high a year ago and Coinbase and Circle’s record-high stock prices a similar distant memory, the Binance hack is nothing but bad news.
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