Ethereum dips after founder Vitalik Buterin’s Twitter account gets hacked

• In the guise of an NFT promotion, a hacker attached a phishing link to the tweet.
• It was estimated that the hacker managed to steal funds exceeding $100,000 through this attack. 

In a recent turn of events, Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum [ETH], fell victim to a hacking incident involving his Twitter account. This breach of security raised concerns within the cryptocurrency community and could potentially impact the sentiment surrounding Ethereum.

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What the hack

The hacking incident involved the unauthorized use of Vitalik Buterin’s Twitter account. The attacker, in the guise of promoting an NFT collection associated with the firm ConsenSys, attached a phishing link in the tweet.

Source: X/twitter

The hacker’s activities on Vitalik’s account immediately raised alarms, prompting a warning from PeckhieldInc, a cybersecurity company specializing in the crypto sector.

Is your twitter account hacked? @VitalikButerin https://t.co/L3EQyF9N7A

— PeckShield Inc. (@peckshield) September 9, 2023

However, it’s worth noting that the swift response of the crypto community and cybersecurity experts resulted in the removal of the malicious tweets from Vitalik’s account. At the time of writing, it appeared that Vitalik’s Twitter account was back in safe hands.

The financial implications of this security breach were substantial. It is estimated that the hacker managed to steal funds exceeding $100,000 through this attack. An examination of the wallet’s holdings revealed a balance of $397,138.21 at the time of discovery.

You can trace the activity of the @VitalikButerin hacker here on @ArkhamIntel:https://t.co/3rsPFJsK3T

So far more than $100,000 in stolen funds.

The more you spread awareness messages, the less victims there will be.

Hacker address:
0x4eF6f0d3f94fF609ACef88068b1FC66a1184b3f3 https://t.co/VOnD6HcQov

— Yazan (@YazanXBT) September 9, 2023

The majority of assets held by the hacker in the compromised wallet are in ETH, followed by other tokens like ATOR, wrapped ETH, USDC, and BNB.

Source: Arkham Intelligence

Apparently, the hacker gained access to Vitalik Buterin’s Twitter account by a technique known as SIM swap. This technique involves transferring a phone number from one SIM card to another, often accomplished through cooperation or fraud with mobile carriers.

Unauthorized SIM swaps can lead to identity theft and unauthorized access to online accounts, posing severe risks to individuals’ assets and personal information.

How is ETH doing?

This breach of safety could impact the sentiment around ETH as well. According to Santiment’s data, the weighted sentiment around ETH declined materially over the last few days.

Realistic or not, here’s ETH’s market cap in BTC terms

Additionally, Ethereum’s price experienced a decline as well. At the time of writing, Ethereum was trading at $1623, signaling a drop in value.

However, despite the price downturn, the number of Ethereum addresses holding non-zero balances continued to grow. Glassnode data revealed that the number of non-zero addresses reached an all-time high of 105,721,874.

Source: Santiment