The crypto market started August 3 under pressure: Bitcoin and Ethereum went negative, an old bug surfaced around Coldcard hardware wallets, stablecoins continued to flow out of South Korea to foreign platforms, and BNB Chain is preparing a legal dispute with a former employee over the Asteroid Shiba memecoin.
How the Crypto Market Works: In Brief
The crypto market is a market for digital assets where users buy, sell, store, and transfer cryptocurrencies. Trading takes place on crypto exchanges and other platforms, and prices change under the influence of supply, demand, news, liquidity, and actions of market participants.
The main types of cryptocurrencies are usually divided into several groups:
- Bitcoin — the largest cryptocurrency and the main benchmark for the entire market.
- Altcoins — other coins, including Ethereum, BNB, Cardano, and Hyperliquid.
- Stablecoins — tokens often used for settlements between platforms, such as Tether.
- Tokens — assets issued within specific networks, projects, or services.
The best investment choice depends not on the coin’s name, but on a combination of factors: capitalization, liquidity, volatility, technological base, availability on exchanges, regulation, and the asset’s role in your personal strategy.
It is possible to make money on cryptocurrency, but income is not guaranteed: the higher the potential profit, the higher the risk. Popular approaches include long-term holding, active trading, staking, mining, and working with DeFi products.
The price of cryptocurrency is formed in trading: buyers and sellers place orders, and the market finds a balance between supply and demand. Market capitalization is calculated as the price of a coin multiplied by the number of coins in circulation.
Security starts with buying on trusted platforms, carefully checking addresses, and securely storing your seed phrase. You can store cryptocurrency on exchanges, in hardware wallets, or with paper wallets, but each method has its own risks.
The main risks include volatility, technical errors, regulatory changes, phishing, scam projects, and hacks. Therefore, it is important to evaluate not only profitability, but also how funds are protected and what rules apply to the chosen asset.
Regulation depends on the country: authorities set rules for exchanges, tokens, and investor protection. In Russia and other markets, such requirements affect access to services, listings, liquidity, and participant behavior.
For up-to-date market snapshots, sources of market data and on-chain analytics are used: TradingView, CoinMarketCap, and Lookonchain. Forecasts for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other major coins are usually built around price, capitalization, liquidity, news, macro signals, and network updates.
The Largest Cryptocurrencies Started the Day Down
According to TradingView, Bitcoin started the morning with a dip. At 07:35 Moscow time, the cryptocurrency was trading around $62,917. In rubles, one token was valued at about ₽4,999,774. Over the past 24 hours, the minimum for BTC dropped to $62,732, and the maximum reached $63,714.
Bitcoin price chart. Source: TradingView.
Ethereum also started the day in the red. At the time of this review, the coin was trading around $1,860, which was about ₽147,803 per token.
Ethereum price chart. Source: TradingView.
Key movements among the largest coins looked like this:
- BNB: -0.19% in 24 hours, .74% for the week.
- Ethereum: -0.92% in 24 hours — the most notable drop in the top 10.
- Hyperliquid: -12.89% for the week — the worst weekly result among the top 10.
Top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Source: CoinMarketCap.
Among the top 100 cryptocurrencies, leaders and outsiders were distributed as follows:
- MemeCore: +11.78% in 24 hours — the best daily result.
- Cardano: +11.96% for the week — the leader of the week.
- 币安人生: -8.56% in 24 hours — the largest daily decline.
- Stable: -16.87% for the week — the worst weekly dynamic.
The Coldcard Bug Raised Questions About Hardware Wallet Checks
An old error in seed phrase generation in Coldcard hardware wallets has drawn attention to how manufacturers test devices for storing cryptocurrencies. Kraken’s Chief Security Officer Nick Percoco called this case a wake-up call for the entire industry.
The vulnerability existed since March 2021. Coinkite revealed that when switching to a new cryptographic library, wallet creation mistakenly relied on a weaker MicroPython generator instead of the intended mechanism.
For hardware wallet users, such errors are especially sensitive: the seed phrase essentially provides access to funds.
When an error affects the seed phrase, it puts not only the user’s wallet at risk, but also trust in hardware storage of cryptocurrencies.
Stablecoins Have Been Flowing Out of South Korea for 18 Months in a Row
In June, 560.3 billion won, or about $367 million, in stablecoins left South Korea for foreign crypto exchanges. According to the Financial Supervisory Service, the outflow has continued for the 18th consecutive month.
The main outflow came from the five largest local platforms, which together sent 2.7 trillion won worth of stablecoins abroad, equivalent to about $1.81 billion:
- Upbit
- Bithumb
- Coinone
- Korbit
- Gopax
The reverse flow from foreign exchanges amounted to 2.2 trillion won, or about $1.44 billion.
Market participants link the movement of funds to demand for instruments that are limited or unavailable on Korean exchanges:
- foreign derivatives;
- tokenized real assets;
- DeFi products;
- staking;
- large stablecoins, such as Tether, which are often used for settlements between platforms.
The outflow coincided with the preparation of a general law on digital assets in South Korea. For investors, such changes are as important as price movements: a cryptocurrency, stock, or other financial instrument depends on regulation, liquidity, and market access.
Regulation affects the crypto market as noticeably as liquidity and access to exchange infrastructure.
BNB Chain Files Lawsuit Over Asteroid Shiba Memecoin
BNB Chain is initiating legal proceedings with a former employee. The ecosystem team claims that he retained unauthorized access to a service wallet and used it to launch a memecoin.
According to BNB Chain, the wallet was created for a tutorial video about launching tokens on the network. After dismissal, the employee, whose name is not disclosed, allegedly kept access to the seed phrase and later used the address to create a new token.
The analytics platform Lookonchain linked this episode to the deployment of the Asteroid Shiba memecoin, ticker ASTEROID. For BNB Chain, the story became not only an internal incident but also a reason to take the dispute to the legal field.
What These Events Mean for the Market
The morning news shows that pressure on the crypto market is coming from several directions at once. The prices of the largest coins are falling, security issues are once again coming to the forefront, and the movement of stablecoins highlights users’ interest in foreign infrastructure.
In traditional markets, similar sentiments are often shaped by macro factors: statistics, regulatory decisions, and signals from the Federal Reserve System and the authorities of the United States of America. In the crypto industry, these are joined by unique risks — from wallet errors to conflicts within blockchain teams.
Against the backdrop of a growing number of instruments, including DeFi, tokenized products, and services using artificial intelligence, it is increasingly important for investors to assess not only the coin’s price. Crypto market dynamics are influenced by news, macroeconomic events, technological network updates, actions of major players, liquidity, and regulatory decisions. The significance lies in storage security, legal risks, and how each asset is factored into personal capital management strategies.
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