Bitcoin News

Story: 4,000 Bitcoin Vanish from Liquid Network as Mystery Hackers Claim Responsibility

By Julie Binoche

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How the Extraction Happened. The numbers are pretty striking. Liquid Network's federation wallet balance fell from roughly…

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Bitcoin ETFs Keep Pulling In Cash. Separate from the Liquid Network drama, US Bitcoin ETFs had a strong run.

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Stablecoins, El Salvador, and a Malware Warning. A consortium of 21 major financial institutions — Bank of America and Goldman Sachs among them —…

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Nearly 4,000 Bitcoin — worth around $319 million — got pulled out of the Liquid Network sidechain over the weekend.

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The twist: whoever did it might not be a thief. An unverified OP_RETURN message left on-chain claimed the people behind the extraction were white hat hackers.

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Under normal conditions, Bitcoin on the sidechain gets burned before any withdrawal can happen, and the process needs an 11-of-15 multisig approval to go through.

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Analysts watching the situation think the coins are probably still unspent on the Bitcoin main chain. That lines up with a white hat scenario more than an outright theft.

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The breach raises hard questions about the multisignature and whitelist systems the Liquid Network relies on. Those mechanisms exist specifically to block unauthorized withdrawals.

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Separate from the Liquid Network drama, US Bitcoin ETFs had a strong run. Over three weeks, these funds pulled in $3.8 billion total. The week ending Friday alone brought in $986.

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Bitcoin was trading near $80,000 during the period. It hasn't cleared the 50-week moving average yet — that's still a key level traders are watching.

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See also: Blockstreams Liquid Network Suspended as 4,000 Bitcoin Bug Exposed, Draining $320 Million

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Not all altcoins had a good week. PONS jumped 140% and broke into the top 100 coins. Arbitrum gained 116%. Dash was up 66%. On the other side, Pump.fun dropped 13.

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A consortium of 21 major financial institutions — Bank of America and Goldman Sachs among them — said they want to build a US dollar-denominated stablecoin.

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The G20 also weighed in this week, issuing a statement backing crypto's role in economic growth while calling for regulatory and supervisory measures.

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El Salvador's Bitcoin strategy came up again. Reports suggested the country's recent Bitcoin accumulation didn't involve public funds — the IMF noted that private donations drove…

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