MARA - Bitcoin Stocks Tumble After Authorities Recover Ransom Paid by Colonial Pipeline
About a month ago, Colonial Pipeline was attacked with ransomware by a group we now know is called DarkSide. The fuel-supply chain for the Eastern U.S. faced disruption, so the company reportedly elected to pay the nearly $5 million ransom in popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) to quickly return to normal operations.
But the general public lamented the loss. There was no hope of catching the bad guys because Bitcoin is completely untraceable. Or is it?
According to a press release from the Department of Justice yesterday, U.S. federal authorities have recovered 63.7 bitcoins, worth over $2 million, and this appears to have caused a sell-off in the cryptocurrency market. According to CoinDesk, the price of Bitcoin has plummeted roughly 12% over the past 24 hours. And Bitcoin stocks like Marathon Digital Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA) , Riot Blockchain (NASDAQ: RIOT) , Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTC: GBTC) , and Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund (OTC: GDLC) are all down as a result. As of noon EDT, these were down 8%, 7%, 11%, and 13%, respectively.
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Bitcoin Stocks Tumble After Authorities Recover Ransom Paid by Colonial Pipeline