January 10th, 11 PM UTC. Someone lost $282M in Bitcoin and Litecoin through a hardware wallet social engineering scam.
1,459 BTC and 2.05 million LTC were stolen in a single attack.
usere's why this matters for price action over the next few days.
The attacker is already moving funds aggressively.
Converting stolen LTC and BTC to Monero through multiple instant exchanges.
That selling pressure spiked $XMR prices temporarily as they absorbed massive buy orders.
They're also bridging BTC to Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin via Thorchain.
Diversifying across chains to make tracking harder and prepare for exit liquidity.
This isn't someone holding stolen coins long-term.
This is an active conversion and distribution happening right now.
$282M in selling pressure doesn't just disappear.
Even if they're converting through DEXs and instant exchanges, that creates downward pressure on BTC as they dump into liquidity pools and OTC desks.
The problem is timing.
Markets are already fragile with the Supreme Court tariff ruling and Fed speakers.
Now add nearly $300M in potentially forced selling from a hacker trying to exit positions before exchanges freeze wallets.
Bitcoin could see downward pressure for the next few days as this plays out.
Not because of fundamentals or macro. Just pure supply hitting the market from someone who needs to convert stolen assets fast.
Hackers don't wait for optimal prices. They sell into whatever liquidity is available because time is their enemy.
Every hour that passes is another hour for exchanges to blacklist addresses and freeze funds.
This means the market sells, not limit orders. Aggressive dumping into bid side to exit quickly.
$282M isn't economy-moving, but it's enough to impact price action short-term, especially in already volatile conditions.
If you're positioned long, just be aware this selling pressure exists and could show up randomly over next 48-72 hours as the attacker continues converting and moving funds.
Not predicting a crash.
Just flagging that nearly $300M in likely selling pressure from a motivated seller is overhead supply that wasn't there last week
