The Shiba Inu price has lagged behind recently despite Bitcoin and the crypto market seeing some recovery. This decline is linked to a number of developments that have rocked the meme coin price, and as a result, causing its price to drop around 10% to test a new support level.
WazirX Hack Triggers Shiba Inu Decline
Earlier this week, Indian crypto exchange, WazirX, was hacked for around $235 million. In the hack, a number of notable cryptocurrencies were stolen, ranging from market leaders such as Polygon and Ethereum. However, the Shiba Inu coins that were taken were the highest of the bunch.
While the Ethereum tokens stolen amounted to $52.6 million and Polygon tokens were $11 million, the Shiba Inu tokens stolen by the bad actors was a whopping $96.7 million. This was no surprise, given that Shiba Inu has consistently been the most traded cryptocurrency on the exchange.
This same popularity of the SHIB token on the WazirX exchange is also the reason the Shiba Inu price was greatly affected. Given that WazirX has become one of the most notable exchanges for trading SHIB, the hack sparked fear in the hearts of investors, who dreaded what the bad actors would do in the wake of the attack.
In response to the hack, the crypto market saw some decline but quickly recovered. However, Shiba Inu had already succumbed to the bearish pressure and had lost around 10% of its value by the time the crypto market rebound began once again.
Hacker Begins Selling SHIB Tokens
Even though the crypto market seems to be moving on from the WazirX hack, the Shiba Inu price continues to remain under immense pressure. This is because the WazirX hacker(s) had began to convert the spoils of their exploit into Ethereum.
So far, most of the Shiba Inu tokens stolen in the hack have been sold off and converted to Ethereum. According to the on-chain data tracking platform Spot On Chain, the hacker(s) has converted $90.2 million wroth of SHIB to ETH, alongside $10.2 million in MATIC and $7.5 million in PEPE.
So far, around $150 million has been converted to ETH, putting enormous pressure on the Shiba Inu price. The exploiter account now holds 59,087 ETH worth $201 million, with smaller balances across altcoins such as CHR, CELR, and OOKI.
As for the Shiba Inu price, it is currently looking to retest the $0.000017 support. However, this level has held steady so far, despite the 1.03% decline recorded in the last 24 hours.
Featured image created with Dall.E, chart from Tradingview.com
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