The Bitcoin market this week has been volatile, shifting a total of $43.39 between this week’s peak of $293 and low of $250. We saw the market retest territory and for a little while it seemed like we would break $300, with volumes exceeding $50,000,000 at some points.
Also Read: Last Weeks Market Wrap Up
The massive fall drop in the bitcoin price — amounting to approximately 15%– may be due to the fact that the Evolution drug market closed after a staffer alleged that admins had scammed its huge user base. Bigger than the original Silk Road or its descendant Silk Road 2, Evolution was able to amass 20,000 drug sales shortly after its launch on January 14th of 2015.
The theft was executed through exploiting the market’s escrow service, as the owners of the site, held two of the three signatures required in a multi-signature transaction.
The theft, estimated to be around $15 million USD worth of bitcoin, showed all early warning signs. Delayed withdrawal, administration giving dodgy answers, and the market’s forum also went down.
Evolution’s PR representative went by the name “NSWGreat,” who stated that he or she was able to see the back-end of the website, and saw some strange things. According to NSWGreat, automatic withdrawals were disabled, with not a single withdrawal going through in over a week. Shiny Flakes, a popular vendor on the marketplace, last left a message on his or her profile on March 11th, stating, “DO NOT BUY HERE. VENDORS RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.”
Bitcoin has since recovered, jumping up 3.5% on Sunday, yet again testing the waters in $270 territory. With volume slowly crawling upweards as well, there seems to be a significant backing to this recovery.
Darkcoin Analysis
The Darkcoin price rose approximately 50% this week, going from $3 to $4.60 as of press time. Darkcoin announced earlier this week that it was going through a rebrand, to Digital Cash, with the ticker symbol as DASH.
The announcement was soon followed by a shakeout to accumulate some sub $3 Darkcoin, and shortly after shot to a peak around $4.70. It then leveled off, with volume dropping from nearly $1 million to roughly a third of that at around $338,000.
While the rebrand has not completed yet, Darkcoin is price is remaining optimistic and still trending upward.
Photo Source: Bitcoin Chart, CMC
Who will replace Evolution as the Dark Net’s largest marketplace? Let s know in the comments below!