Crypto

North Korean hacking group Lazarus is suspected to be behind a recent breach of around 45 billion won (US$30.6 million) worth of cryptocurrency from South Korea’s largest crypto exchange Upbit, sources said Friday.

According to government and business sources, authorities plan to carry out an on-site investigation at the crypto exchange with a belief that Lazarus was behind the hacking.

Dunamu, which operates Upbit, said Thursday it confirmed the transfer of 44.5 billion won worth of Solana-affiliated assets to an unauthorized wallet address and plans to cover the full amount with assets the company owns.

The hacking group had been suspected of stealing 58 billion won worth of Ethereum from Upbit in 2019.

Authorities said the methods used in the latest incident resembled those of the 2019 theft.

“Instead of attacking the server, it is possible that hackers compromised administrators’ accounts or posed as administrators to make the transfer,” a government official said.

Experts note the hacking incident came while Pyongyang is seeking to raise money amid a shortage of foreign currency.

“It is the tactic of Lazarus to transfer crypto to wallets at other exchanges and attempt money laundering,” a security official said, noting such methods make it impossible to track the transaction.

Others said hackers may have intentionally chosen Thursday for their attack, as Naver Corp., South Korea’s top search engine operator, announced its decision on the previous day to acquire Dunamu as a wholly owned subsidiary of Naver Financial through a share-swap deal.

“Hackers have a strong tendency toward self-display,” another security official said.

Global stocks rose on Thursday after strong Nvidia results eased concerns of a market crash, linked to the perceived overvaluation of AI firms.

Bitcoin, the world’s most established cryptocurrency, also enjoyed a modest lift — rising 0.73% by early afternoon in Europe.

This comes after a hard few months for the token. On Monday it briefly slipped below the $90,000 mark for the first time in seven months before rising to around $91,800 on Thursday.

A turning point in crypto’s trajectory can be traced back to 10 October, when a meltdown wiped out more than $1 trillion in market value across all tokens. More than $19 billion of leveraged crypto positions were offloaded, notably after US President Donald Trump threatened new tariffs on China.

“There have been several catalysts (of the recent price drop), but it seems as if the biggest drivers are long-term selling by ‘OGs’, an uncertain economic climate, and a mass deleveraging event on the 10th October,” Nic Puckrin, CEO of Coin Bureau, told Euronews.

“OGs are the term used to describe older Bitcoin holders with massive amounts of Bitcoin. They have been selling for several weeks which has led to a flood of supply hitting the market,” he added.

Analysts note that the US economy is in a period of deep uncertainty at the moment, partly as a government shutdown has prevented the publication of key data releases, with the uncertainty driving crypto lower.

The outcome of the Federal Reserve’s next interest rate decision, due in December, is hanging in the balance — with investors now paring back expectations of a cut.

Transcripts released this week from the Fed’s October meeting show the policy-setting committee deeply divided over whether to reduce the benchmark interest rate.

“Bitcoin is increasingly driven by macro moves,” Puckrin argued.

Analysts fear that as crypto grows more interconnected with mainstream financial markets, contagion will make both crypto assets and stock markets more volatile.

‘A football match with no referee’

Bitcoin reached its price high in October thanks to increased institutional acceptance, expectations of Fed rate cuts, and support from the Trump administration.

For Carol Alexander, crypto expert and finance professor at Sussex University, Bitcoin’s volatility must nonetheless be associated with aggressive trading techniques — rather than simply pointing to the macro environment.

“Bitcoin’s price is determined primarily by the behaviour of professional traders operating on offshore, unregulated trading platforms. These are not hobbyist investors; they are major hedge funds and specialised trading firms,” she told Euronews.

“On these offshore crypto exchanges, professional traders can deploy aggressive order-book strategies — sometimes labelled spoofing or laddering … Their business model relies on generating sharp volatility. They do not care whether the price rises or falls; they care only that it moves quickly.”

In other words, these traders make money from price swings by buying in the dip and selling when crypto rebounds, meaning they aren’t focused on long-term holdings.

The losers in this scenario are often non-professional traders, who can sometimes take on enormous leverage — borrowing money to increase the size of their investments. When the market moves against these investors, they are often forced to sell, losing everything.

“When too many of these non-professional traders have been wiped out, liquidity dries up, and the pros step back,” said Alexander. “At that point, the price often rebounds sharply, encouraging new entrants to join. The whole system behaves like a football match played in a stadium with no referee.”

Puckrin also predicted that crypto is set for a rebound, forecasting that it won’t fall much below current levels.

“I still think it’s a bright future despite the price action. Crypto has been through multiple cycles and it always emerges stronger. We are also seeing the mainstreaming and institutionalisation of the industry. This means more people can use the technology in their daily lives.”

The dip comes amid doubts about future US interest rate cuts and a risk-averse mood in broader markets.

Bitcoin fell below $90,000 for the first time in seven months in the latest sign that investor appetite for risk is drying up across financial markets.

The cryptocurrency began to rebound as United States markets opened on Tuesday. However, Monday’s steep drop in the risk-sensitive asset had already wiped out all of its gains for the year.

It is now nearly 30 percent below its peak of $126,000 in October.

It was down 0.5 percent at $91,338.47 during European trading hours, after slipping as low as $89,286.75.

About $1.2 trillion has been wiped off the total market value of all cryptocurrencies in the past six weeks, according to market tracker CoinGecko.

Market participants said that a combination of doubts around future interest rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve and the risk-averse mood in broader markets, which have wobbled after a long rally, was dragging down crypto.

“The cascading selloff is amplified by listed companies and institutions exiting their positions after piling in during the rally, compounding contagion risks across the market,” said Joshua Chu, co-chair of the Hong Kong Web3 Association.

“When support thins and macro uncertainty rises, confidence can erode with remarkable speed.”

Speculators who had put money into crypto in the hopes of supportive US regulation have started to pull back, causing steady outflows from exchange traded funds (ETFs) and similar instruments in recent weeks, said Joseph Edwards at Enigma Securities.

“The sell pressure here isn’t extraordinary, but it’s coming at a relative weak point on the buy side … a lot of retail buyers were stung during the flash crash last month,” he said, referring to an October crash in which there were $19bn in liquidations across leveraged positions.

Crypto stockpilers such as Strategy, miners such Riot Platforms and Mara Holdings, and exchange Coinbase have all slid with the souring mood.

‘Underwater’

There has been a boom in public crypto treasury companies this year, with small companies in unrelated sectors becoming crypto proxies by announcing plans to buy and hold cryptocurrencies on their balance sheets.

But Standard Chartered has estimated that a drop below $90,000 for Bitcoin could leave half of these companies’ Bitcoin holdings “underwater” – a term that typically refers to assets worth less than what was paid for them.

Listed companies collectively hold 4 percent of all the Bitcoin in circulation, and 3.1 percent of the ether, Standard Chartered said.

The cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH) has also been under pressure for months, and has lost nearly 40 percent of its value from an August peak above $4,955.

“All in all, sentiment is pretty low in crypto and has been since the leverage wipeout of October,” said Matthew Dibb, chief investment officer at Astronaut Capital.

Published on
18/11/2025 – 12:10 GMT+1

The world’s first, largest, and most expensive cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, has slid below $92,000 (€79,000) a coin, wiping more than 25% off its value since it hit record highs above $126,000 (€108,700) last month.

The dramatic decline is almost a textbook example of what it looks like to enter a bear market phase. That’s an industry term for when an asset falls so sharply it resembles the downward claw swipe of a bear.

Within the past 24 hours alone, Bitcoin traded as low as $89,471 (€77,210) or almost 30% below its late October peak, with the market recovering slightly in early trading on Tuesday.

“Bitcoin is extending losses, trading at around $90k, shedding around 2%, fuelled by concerns about overvaluations in the tech sector and broader risk-off sentiment that is causing a ripple effect across global markets,” explained Victoria Scholar, head of investment at the Interactive investor.

Despite a blistering rally into early October, all of Bitcoin’s gains this year have been erased and it is now trading below where it started in January.

“Bitcoin has now turned negative for 2025…fears of an AI bubble and concerns about the market’s heavy dependence on a handful of tech giants have caused investors to dial back their exposure to speculative assets such as Bitcoin,” Scholar explained.

The fall comes despite the presence of a crypto-friendly president in the White House, a less enforcement-minded chair at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a new stablecoin — crypto tied to currency — legislation on the books.

The risks of a decentralised currency

Blockchain currencies such as Bitcoin are built on a digital ledger rather than a physical system tied to a central bank or government, and this ledger records every transaction across a large network of computers. Thousands of these machines or nodes hold copies of the ledger and update it together.

Transactions are grouped into “blocks” — hence “blockchain” — and checked using cryptography before being added to the chain in a permanent, tamper-resistant sequence. This design makes the system transparent and very hard to alter, because changing any record would mean rewriting the entire chain on most of the participating computers.

All of this means that investors who are already on edge due to wider market volatility are quick to dump volatile assets like Bitcoin at the first sign of bad news in order to reduce their exposure.

“There’s a general sense of nervousness that has captured the market mood lately and Bitcoin appears to be in the firing line… riskier non-yielding assets like Bitcoin look less attractive in a higher interest rate environment,” Scholar explained.

Bitcoin’s defenders, such as billionaire investor Michael Saylor, have nonetheless welcomed the drop. Some claim it will flush out wealthy investors who do not understand or appreciate Bitcoin’s culture of long-term commitment and active engagement.

“Volatility is a gift to the faithful. It scares away the tourist, it scares away the lazy, it scares away the people that are already conventionally rich that have all the money,” Saylor said in a statement following the recent numbers.

Saylor and other die-hard Bitcoin believers say that those who are willing to study the market, stay invested through volatility, and participate in the daily ebb and flow of trading should be the ones benefitting the most from it — and not the casual spectators.

Saylor’s Strategy Inc., formerly MicroStrategy, bought 8,178 additional coins of Bitcoin between 10-16 November 2025 at an average price of around $102,171 or €88,000 each, spending roughly $835.6 million (€721.15mn) in total.

Sabrina Carpenter brought her latest world tour in for a landing Sunday night at Crypto.com Arena, where the pop star will play half a dozen sold-out dates through Nov. 23 to wrap up her year-long road show behind 2024’s “Short n’ Sweet.”

I was at Crypto when Carpenter played the arena last November, just after “Short n’ Sweet” was nominated for six Grammys. (It went on to win prizes for pop vocal album and pop solo performance.) But since then she’s released a speedy follow-up LP, “Man’s Best Friend,” which itself earned another six Grammy nods this month, including album, record and song of the year.

So it seemed worth checking in on the tour again as Carpenter, 26, gets close to stepping offstage. At least for a moment, that is: Come April, she’ll be back in the spotlight to headline Coachella along with Karol G and Justin Bieber. Here are the seven best moments from Sunday’s concert:

1. Turns out that earlier visit to the Lakers’ home wasn’t quite as cheery as it seemed then. “This time last year, when I played this show, I was going through it,” Carpenter told the crowd Sunday night. “I was not in a good headspace, and thankfully because of that I was able to write a whole new album for you guys this year.”

“Man’s Best Friend” follows Carpenter’s breakup with the Irish actor Barry Keoghan, whom she seems to refer to in her song “Go Go Juice” when she threatens to drunk-dial an ex named Larry. “So thank you for Crypto last year,” she added, “’cause you really inspired ‘Man’s Best Friend’ and what was to come after that.”

2. Carpenter didn’t sing “Go Go Juice” on Sunday, though she did throw a few tunes from “Man’s Best Friend” into a set list still dominated by material from “Short n’ Sweet.” (“Short n’ Sweet” is the better of the two albums, so this was fine.)

For the lightly country-fied “Manchild,” the singer and her dancers did a cute little line dance, and Carpenter’s live band powered “Tears” with some appealingly skanky disco-funk energy. The evening’s surprise song — the product of a regular bit in which Carpenter selects a tune via spin the bottle — was the new album’s “Nobody’s Son,” which emulates Ace of Base’s Nordic reggae more precisely than anyone else has in the past 30 years.

3. In one of the show’s other recurring bits, Carpenter pretended to arrest one of her opening acts, Amber Mark, with a pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs before singing the very horny “Juno.” That song features Carpenter simulating a different sexual position every night; here, well, you can look it up on TikTok.

4. Shout out to Carpenter’s guitar player, Caleb Nelson, whose ripping solo in “Juno” made the tune sound just like the theme from “Beverly Hills, 90210.”

5. “I’m gonna give you a little bit of history that you didn’t ask for,” Carpenter said about halfway through the concert, which ended up being a selective rundown of gigs she’s played in L.A. since she was a teenager on the Disney Channel.

“I played the Roxy when I was 16, and then I think played the Wiltern,” she said. “Then I played the Fonda and then the Wiltern again. And then I went to the … the Greek! Went to the Greek, of course — that was the best night ever.”

6. It says something about Carpenter’s commitment to the concept of her show, which takes place in the various rooms of a late-’60s/early-’70s-style bachelorette pad, that after dozens of tour dates she’s still performing one of her most emotionally cutting songs, “Sharpest Tool,” while sitting on a toilet.

7. Carpenter closed, as she always does, with “Espresso,” and if you’d assumed that by now this breezy electro-pop bop would inevitably have lost some of its fizz, think again. “I’m working late ’cause I’m a singer,” she sang as she strutted down a runway jutting onto the arena floor. It’s a task she’s still up to.

South Carolina guard Ta’niya Latson drove into the paint in the third quarter. As she went up for the layup, she was met by USC guard Kennedy Smith, who rose up and swatted the ball so hard into the stands that it knocked the hat off a fan sitting a couple rows deep in the Crypto.com Arena crowd.

That ended up being the highlight of the Trojans’ second half.

They had been in this situation before. In their most recent game at No. 9 North Carolina State, USC trailed by eight with 9:48 left to play before pulling off a comeback victory. And on Saturday night, the Trojans found themselves here again: down 10 to South Carolina, the No. 2 team in the country, heading into the final frame.

No. 8 USC didn’t make it easy on South Carolina. They forced turnovers. They made their free throws. But it wasn’t enough as South Carolina did just enough of the little things to escape with a 69-52 win at Crypto.com Arena.

Smith led USC in scoring with 12 points to go along with three assists. Kara Dunn was the only other Trojan in double figures with 10 points and three rebounds. South Carolina had four starters score in double figures, led by Joyce Edwards (15 points).

The Gamecocks came out sloppy with six first half turnovers and shooting just 33% from the floor, but the Trojans couldn’t capitalize. Their shooting percentage (36%) was almost as bad through the first two quarters and they were out-rebounded 27-20 as South Carolina scored nine second chance points on nine first-half offensive boards.

USC guard Jazzy Davidson loses the ball while driving to the basket against South Carolina on Saturday night.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

The cracks started to show in the second half, when South Carolina opened with a 10-2 run to give USC a double-digit deficit. The Gamecocks outscored the Trojans 23-15 in the third.

South Carolina built on every advantage they had from the first half. Their plus-seven in rebounds ballooned to plus-24. They went from nine offensive rebounds to 21, and while they still finished the game with 16 turnovers, they forced with 16 points off USC’s 13 turnovers.

Police seized 61,000 Bitcoin from Zhimin Qian, 47, as part of a years-long money laundering investigation.

The United Kingdom has sentenced a Chinese woman to 11 years and eight months in prison for a years-long scheme to launder investment scam proceeds into Bitcoin, luxury property, and other assets now worth about 4.8 billion British pounds ($6.3bn).

Zhimin Qian, 47, was sentenced by the Southwark Crown Court in London on Tuesday, in a case that saw UK police seize a record-breaking 61,000 Bitcoin as part of their investigation.

Qian, who is also known by the alias Yadi Zhang, was found guilty of money laundering and possessing illegally obtained cryptocurrency.

Will Lyne, the Metropolitan Police’s head of Economic and Cybercrime Command, described the case as “one of the largest and most complex economic crime investigations ever undertaken by the Met”.

“This is currently the largest cryptocurrency seizure by law enforcement in the UK and is the largest money laundering case in UK history by value,” he said in a statement.

UK authorities allege that Qian helped mastermind an investment scam in China between 2014 and 2017 that defrauded 128,000 people out of roughly £4.6bn, according to sentencing remarks from Judge Sally-Ann Hales.

Much of the funds were later recovered by police in China, but Hales said that a “sizeable amount was siphoned off and used by” Qian, and transferred into 70,000 Bitcoin stored on a laptop wallet.

Qian fled China in 2017, spending the next seven years on the run, and travelling between the UK and other countries without an extradition agreement with China.

Qian and an accomplice, who has since been sentenced, came to the attention of UK authorities in 2018, when Qian tried to buy three London properties worth 40.5 million pounds ($53.2m) but failed “know your customer” regulations, according to the Crown Prosecution Service.

Qian disappeared from the UK in 2020, but not before police seized items from a safe deposit box, including a laptop smuggled from China.

Hales said that documents found during the search “give an indication of the level of the defendant’s monthly expenditure, and the grandiose ambitions she held for her future using the proceeds of her criminal conduct”.

Qian returned to police attention last year, when she began to use a dormant wallet with the help of a second accomplice, Senghok Ling, 47, a Malaysian national based in the UK.

When police arrested Ling and Qian in April 2024, the pair was living a “lavish” lifestyle in the UK, according to Hales. At the time, Qian was found in possession of 62 million pounds ($81.4m) worth of cryptocurrency, a large quantity of cash, and two false passports.

Ling was separately sentenced to four years and 11 months in prison.

Richard Hermer, Attorney General for the UK and Wales, on Tuesday praised the sentencing of “two prolific fraudsters”, who together “caused misery upon thousands of victims to fund their lavish lifestyles”.

As companies focused on buying bitcoin and major cryptocurrencies face challenges from market oversaturation and negative sentiment, new players are exploring less popular, riskier tokens, raising concerns about volatility. Following U. S. President Donald Trump’s supportive stance on cryptocurrencies and the success of Michael Saylor’s investment strategy, the number of public companies investing in cryptocurrencies has surged. By September, there were over 200 digital asset treasury (DAT) companies, primarily invested in bitcoin, with a total value of around $150 billion, tripling from the previous year according to DLA Piper.

Many new companies, often penny stocks looking for profit increases, are emerging daily. As bitcoin prices decline, these companies are turning to more volatile tokens to enhance returns, with firms like Greenlane, OceanPal, and Tharimmune announcing plans to invest in assets such as BERA, NEAR, and Canton Coin. This shift indicates a growing connection between the cryptocurrency market and traditional sectors, which could pose risks for investors. Moody’s analyst Cristiano Ventricelli warns that the move toward less stable cryptocurrencies could lead to higher risks, especially when markets decline.

Since April, many DAT companies have raised funds for token purchases through private placements (PIPEs), selling shares to private investors at discounted prices. Between April and November, more than 40 DATs collectively raised over $15 billion through these PIPEs, with only a handful focusing on bitcoin. Bitcoin itself saw its first monthly loss since 2018 in October. Notable crypto investors involved in these deals include Winklevoss Capital and Kraken. While some institutional investors can directly buy tokens, DATs provide regulated exposure to cryptocurrencies for more cautious investors. However, reliance on PIPEs can cause stock price fluctuations, particularly during market downturns.

This vulnerability was highlighted on October 10, when tensions between the U. S. and China caused market declines, leading to significant drops in share prices for companies like BitMine and Forward Industries. Peter Chung from Presto Research noted that while initial hype around DATs has decreased, there is potential for a rebound. Some companies, such as OceanPal, are promoting their token acquisitions for their technological advantages, while Greenlane chose not to comment.

Earlier this year, many DAT companies traded at higher prices than their crypto holdings, as investors believed they could leverage credit for more purchases. However, as bitcoin prices have diminished and competition from similar strategies has risen, some companies are struggling, with at least 15 trading below their assets’ net value. Retail investors incurred losses of about $17 billion from investments in these companies, while others face pressure to repurchase shares to support stock prices.

Overall, DATs hold 4% of all bitcoin, 3.1% of all ether, and 0.8% of all solana, which could significantly influence coin values. Analysts project further consolidation in the sector. Company executives emphasize the importance of making prudent investment choices to ensure long-term success. Companies like SUI Group are also diversifying by launching stablecoins to boost shareholder value, warning that merely acquiring tokens without strategic actions could lead to failures in the long run.

With information from Reuters