How Did Bybit’s $1.5B Hack Affect the Crypto Market? An In-Depth Analysis

Lower than two months in the past, the crypto trade Bybit fell sufferer to one of many largest assaults within the crypto sector’s historical past, dropping about $1.5 billion in ether (ETH) to cyber criminals. Whereas the main buying and selling platform has recovered considerably from the results of the assault, market consultants have analyzed knowledge that confirmed the way it navigated the incident.

A postmortem report obtained by the crypto institutional-grade analysis agency BlockScholes reveals how deeply the hack affected the broader crypto market, bid-ask spreads, and the position of Bybit’s new Retail Worth Enchancment (RPI) orders within the platform’s restoration.

How Bybit’s Hack Affected the Market

Recall that the assault targeted certainly one of Bybit’s Ethereum chilly wallets. BlockScholes disclosed that the sell-off that adopted the incident was not distinctive to crypto as a result of the market was already witnessing a big de-risking throughout crypto property as a result of a number of macro occasions, together with tariff tensions and the launch of DeepSeek’s synthetic intelligence (AI) mannequin.

Analyzing the hack’s influence on spot buying and selling volumes, analysts famous a short-lived spike within the hourly commerce quantity of all Tether (USDT) pairs away from the imply. After the spike, there was a big drop in bitcoin (BTC) and altcoin buying and selling volumes throughout the following days.

Bybit’s share within the spot buying and selling quantity market dropped from 11% to 4%, and the proportion of BTC traded fell from 50% to under 20%, whereas ETH volumes remained comparatively secure. Though these volumes are but to return to the excessive ranges seen firstly of the 12 months, there was a big restoration. The general spot buying and selling share has risen by a couple of factors to 6-7%.

Regardless of the plunge in buying and selling volumes, bid-ask spreads remained tight. This metric measures the distinction between the bottom ask worth and the best bid worth. A tighter unfold signifies increased liquidity and decrease execution danger.

Swift Restoration

After the hack on February 21, solely Pepe (PEPE) and Official Trump (TRUMP) witnessed a big change so as e book depth; BTC and even ETH, the asset stolen through the assault, noticed the bottom spreads, recording negligible modifications after the incident. Nevertheless, the order e book depth of Bitcoin and Ethereum swiftly recovered inside per week, a growth attributed to Bybit’s RPI orders.

RPI orders purpose to reinforce liquidity solely for retail merchants. The function is a singular subset of orders positioned by market makers or institutional contributors that’s open to solely retail merchants who manually work together with Bybit’s consumer interface.

Bybit launched RPI orders on February 17, a couple of days earlier than the hack. So, whereas the market tried to get better from the incident, there was a superb depth of order books, deep liquidity swimming pools, and tighter bid-ask spreads for retailers on Bybit.