Following apparent faults on their respective platforms on Tuesday, popular data provider CoinMarketCap and crypto exchange Coinbase briefly displayed dramatically inflated cryptocurrency prices, prompting some users to assume they made significant gains off their holdings on December 14.
The price of Bitcoin (BTC) displayed on coinmarketcap.com on Tuesday evening was a whopping $789,432,690,634, whereas Ethereum (ETH) was shown to be at $38,884,629,258, according to NDTV.com.
On both the platforms, crypto values appeared to be back to normal on Thursday, with Bitcoin trading around $48,750.91.
CoinMarketCap users were perplexed by this strange occurrence, and the subject became one of the most talked-about topics on Twitter, with numerous people speculating that CoinMarketCap had been hacked, various media reports stated.
A recent report on DarkWebLink revealed that cryptocurrency-related crimes in 2020 have amounted to around $10.52 billion, which has led to the fears of rising cases of hacking, NDTV reported.
Soon after, CoinMarketCap followers opened floodgates of “I am a millionaire” jokes and hack attack conspiracy theories on Twitter. A bunch of hashtags including #CoinMarketCap, #CoinMarketCapGlitch, and #CoinMarketCapHacked has been trending on Twitter since.
Coinmarketcap.com addressed the situation on Twitter with a funny angle and tweeted, "How did it feel to be a trillionaire for a couple of hours?"
However, coinmarketcap.com was concerned about this issue and tweeted, "Our website is currently undergoing price issues. The engineering team is aware of the incorrect price information appearing on (the website). We are currently investigating and will update this status when we have more information."
Later, the data provider made it clear that the "problem has been resolved”, although it did not say whether its servers had detected any kind of breach attempt.
In addition, CEO of Crypto.com Kris Marszalek blamed CoinMarketCap.com and said it was working to remove the “unreliable price feed” from its site. Coinbase Global Inc. president and chief operating officer Emilie Choi also mentioned bad pricing data from CoinMarketCap.com, which is owned by rival exchange Binance, Bloomberg reported.
While giving the interview at the Bloomberg Technology Summit on Wednesday, Choi said that the incident was “indicative of an emerging industry".
