(Bloomberg) -- While a sharp selloff pummeled crypto markets and inflicted steep losses on holders of most major tokens, one unusual party spied an opportunity to buy the dip.
A blockchain wallet linked to a hacker that pulled off a massive crypto heist two years ago swapped a chunk of its ill-gotten gains for Ether on Monday — even as the second-largest token sank by as much as 23%.
Nomad, a so-called “bridge” protocol used to transfer cryptocurrencies between different blockchains, lost close to $200 million to a security exploit in 2022. Blockchain data cited by security firm PeckShield suggests the hacker swapped $39.75 million worth of DAI, a stablecoin, to buy 16,892 Ether tokens just as the selloff picked up pace.
The hacker then moved a total of 2,400 Ether tokens in batches of 100 to Tornado Cash, a mixing service that has been used to launder cryptoassets.
The decline was Ether’s steepest since 2021 and drove the token as low as $2,116 while Bitcoin sank almost 17% — and briefly traded below $50,000 — in its worst drop since the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX empire in Nov. 2022. Cryptoassets appear to be caught up in the unwinding yen carry trade, as speculators adjust to higher interest rates in Japan. Other factors weighing on crypto markets include sales of tokens seized by governments, distributions from bankrupt digital-asset firms and outflows from US spot-Bitcoin ETFs.
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