Here’s what happened in crypto today
Today in crypto, at least 15 blockchain wallets suspected of insider trading have turned an initial $14,600 investment into over $20 million, the Bitcoin network’s hashrate hit a new all-time high above 1,000 exahashes per second, and phishing attacks were the most costly attack vector for the crypto industry in 2024, according to a new report from CertiK.Suspected insider wallets net $20 million on Solana’s Focai memecoin launchAt least 15 insider wallets made over $20 million in profit on the Focai.fun (FOCAI), a memecoin recently launched on Solana’s memecoin launchpad Pump.fun.The suspected insiders have made an over 136,000-fold return on their initial $14,600 investment, which bought them over 60.5% of the total token supply, according to onchain analytics firm Lookonchain. “They then sold all their $Focai for 94,175 $SOL($20.5M), netting 94,108 $SOL($20.48M).”The concentration of such a large share of tokens in a small number of wallets has drawn criticism from blockchain analysts. The situation highlights potential risks to decentralization, which is a key principle in cryptocurrency.The FOCAI token peaked at over $46 million in market capitalization at 4:45 am UTC. The token’s market capitalization fell nearly 14% to $39.6 million as of 11:55 am UTC, Pump.fun data shows.Bitcoin hashrate briefly hits all-time highOn Jan. 3, the Bitcoin network’s hashrate briefly reached a new all-time high as miners continued to add capacity. According to data from CoinWarz, Bitcoin’s hashrate peaked at over 1,000 exahashes per second (EH/s). It was more than double the 510 EH/s in January 2024. Following the intraday peak, the hashrate dipped back below 780 EH/s. Bitcoin’s hashrate rises as miners increase the amount of computational resources devoted to the blockchain. Miners are adding capacity despite Bitcoin’s April 2024 halving event, which reduced mining rewards to 3.125 BTC from 6.25 BTC.In 2024, mining companies “acquired other miners with turn-key facilities to increase near-term hashrate and increase their power pipeline,” according to a December report by JPMorgan.JPMorgan also raised the price target of four Bitcoin mining stocks to reflect the growing value of their BTC holdings.Phishing scams top crypto security threat of 2024 — CertiKBlockchain security firm CertiK has issued a warning to crypto investors about the rising threat of phishing scams, which emerged as the most significant security threat of 2024.Crypto phishing attacks involve hackers sharing fraudulent links with victims to steal sensitive information, such as crypto wallet private keys.Phishing attacks were the most costly attack vector for the crypto industry in 2024, netting attackers over $1 billion worth of stolen digital assets across 296 incidents, according to CertiK’s annual Web3 security report published on Jan. 2.“Phishing was the most costly attack vector last year,” a CertiK spokesperson told Cointelegraph. “Our figures are conservative, the actual figure is higher when you consider unreported incidents and other types of phishing scams like pig butchering.”Out of the 296 phishing incidents in 2024, at least three resulted in losses exceeding $100 million, highlighting the scale of damage possible.Private key compromises were the second-largest threat after phishing scams, resulting in over $855 million worth of stolen crypto across 65 incidents in 2024.