Bitcoin made the news across the world on Wednesday last week. In a massive attack, twitter accounts of some of the powerful men in the world were hacked. However, instead of using it for some lethal purpose, hackers just used the opportunity to steal some bitcoins. Resultantly, the first of the crypto grabbed attention on and off social media.

The accounts compromised during the hack belonged to Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Joe Biden, and former US Presiden Barack Obama. Tweets coming out of these accounts read:

” I have decided to give back to my community, all Bitcoin sent to my address below will be sent back doubled….”

It was like many other giveaway scams. The wallet address under every tweet was the same one. Nevertheless, many gullible individuals sent their hard-earned BTC to the address. As a result, scammers bagged over a hundred thousand dollars worth of bitcoin.

After this exercise, all twitter became crypto twitter. It was excellent for the publicity of bitcoin. All the mainstream channels were talking bitcoin for the next two days. One news outlet gave the news that Americans were searching ‘Bitcoin’ in the middle of the night. So, isn’t bitcoin news a great thing? Well, sort of but some people disagree.

What does twitter hack mean for bitcoin?

Let’s break down the impact of twitter hack into two parts. First, we will see how the ‘bitcoin news’ brought crypto for discussion in the mainstream. Secondly, we will assess the negative limelight effects.

Bitcoin News:

For crypto holders, it might be a surprise that many people around the world don’t even know what bitcoin is. Yes, you heard it right. Blockchain is still like an alternative magic universe from harry potter. People are oblivious of its existence.

The crypto exchanges and investors want the laymen to know bitcoin. Because when the number of investors increases the liquidity of market also surges. Additionally, the pipe dream of crypto enthusiasts is to have crypto replace fiat. For this, features and importance of ‘new gold aka bitcoin’ have to be known.

The twitter hack gave fresh impetus to the talk of bitcoin. Every other person on twitter was wondering why BTC was so important to hackers. National Televisions around the globe gave air time to bitcoin. At this stage, all press is good press for crypto. Therefore, this incident was in one sense for crypto rather than against it

The second aspect of this bitcoin news which crypto advocates are highlighting is that a centralized system ‘Twitter’ got hacked, not bitcoin. So, this is twitter’s problem. Bitcoin never showed any sort of vulnerability, thanks to decentralized blockchain. Hence it proves that the world needs decentralized systems of communication as well.

Hackers had to make people send them bitcoins. They didn’t force anyone or break into any wallet. Evidently, this suggests that your bitcoins are secure as long as you have them. The breach can only happen once a third party has access to your assets. otherwise, confounding blockchain is near to impossible.

Negative limelight:

Crypto’s adoption is still very far. With innovation and ease of understanding, crypto is trying to catch up with fiat. However, it is the decentralized feature and anonymity of crypto indut=stry that makes it a target of governments. Many law governing bodies think of crypto as a safe haven for stashing illegitimate money. The incidents of frequent crypto hacks are further bringing negative reputation.

After twitter hacked, many were quick to blame bitcoin. In view of these people, crypto has always been used by criminals and hackers to gain advantage. This is true to some extent. In the starting years of blockchain, the t use of bitcoin by scammers for illegal transactions was very common. Additionally, money launderers also benefitted from this system.

But, things have changed now. Crypto exchanges try best to keep their operations transparent. Furthermore, the account verification and security of clients is also a priority in the crypto industry. Hence blaming crypto is of no use. It is a form of currency with a slightly uncertain future.

Conclusion:

The Twitter hack was an unfortunate incident. It is going to have repercussions on twitter’s reputation for a long time. Many sources are claiming that hackers exploited twitter’s administrative privileges. However, things aren’t clear yet. Twitter is itself investigating into the matter. Hopefully, the finding will be disclosed to the public.