From CryptoPotato · By Dimitar Dzhondzhorov
The cryptocurrency market saw major volatility over the past week, with one altcoin hitting a brief record high before dropping sharply. The frog-themed meme coin PEPE also grabbed headlines, posting strong gains despite the broader market downturn, but the spotlight eventually shifted to Binance.
The biggest crypto exchange suffered a $6.3 billion hack, undermining the digital asset sector’s reputation and sparking panic across the community. Prior to that, the company said it would delist numerous trading pairs.
Q’s Pump and Dump
Earlier this week, Quack AI (Q) suddenly exploded to a new all-time high of $0.24, while its market capitalization surged to nearly $1 billion, making it one of the top 100 biggest cryptocurrencies. Nonetheless, the token quickly gave up its gains, collapsing back to around $0.06 and nearly returning to its pre-rally level.
While it remained unclear what triggered the classic “pump-and-dump” move, some savvy traders took advantage of the price action, sparking speculation that they had inside information.
Trader 0xF1fE profited almost $1 million mainly by opening long positions on Q as the price rose, while Crypto with Haris ₿ said he made over $17,000 after catching “the perfect top” to short Q.
The AI-related altcoin remained highly volatile in the following days and currently trades around $0.04, up 15% on a daily scale and down 60% on a weekly basis.
PEPE’s Solid Performance
The popular meme coin has jumped by 6% over the past week and, as of this writing, is worth around $0.0000052. It boasts a market capitalization of around $2.2 billion, making it the 46th-biggest cryptocurrency.
The main reason for its strong performance is a recent move by TRON’s Justin Sun. Earlier this week, several sources reported that the Chinese businessman increased his PEPE holdings to 11.85 trillion coins, becoming the token’s largest individual holder. In fact, only Binance, Robinhood, and Coinbase own more PEPE than he does.
Analysts like Altcoin Sherpa and Sweep assumed that the meme coin’s uptrend isn’t over yet, while the X account BSCN recently revealed that one “legendary” whale has purchased more than 45 billion PEPE for roughly $206,000.
The Binance Drama and Updates
Undoubtedly, the top news of the week, and perhaps of the year so far, is the $6.3 billion hack that Binance suffered. Some suspect that the perpetrators are the North Korea-associated group TraderTraitor, which also stood behind the $1.5 billion attack on Bybit last year. If you are willing to learn more about the incident, take a look at our dedicated article here.
The hack negatively impacted the crypto sector and triggered about $1.5 billion in liquidations, most of which were long positions. In the aftermath, the industry’s total market capitalization dropped 3.6% over the past 24 hours to around $2.68 trillion.