Bitcoin pauses near $84k with focus on rate jitters, Bitget hack

On Friday, Bitcoin hovered around $84,000 as it faced pressure from surging Treasury yields. Meanwhile, cryptocurrency markets kept a close eye on the aftermath of a significant hack targeting exchange Bitget. The world's largest crypto fell by 0.1% to $83,999.6 by 02:42 ET (06:41 GMT) and was up 3.4% for the week. Other major crypto prices remained relatively stagnant, but also experienced gains for the week as favorable U.S. regulations fueled an extended rally in the sector.

Bitget revealed on late Thursday that it experienced a security breach, resulting in a loss of around $351.6 million in digital assets. The exchange immediately halted withdrawals but continued to allow deposits and trading. CEO Gracy Chen revealed that the breach was traced to a North Korean hacking group, though the perpetrators were not identified immediately.

The company discovered unauthorized transfers from certain wallets on Thursday afternoon, encompassing assets like ether, XRP, USDT, and USDC. Both hot and cold wallets were impacted by the breach. The hacking incident was the largest crypto breach in terms of value in 2026. Bitget assured that the losses were fully covered by its user protection fund, which exceeded $464 million.

Bitcoin had initiated the week on a robust note, but its gains were curtailed significantly due to a surge in government bond yields. U.S. 10-year Treasuries surged to levels last seen in 2007 during the week, heightening concerns about rising interest rates and tightening liquidity conditions. Global bond yields followed suit, rising in response to the hawkish warnings from Federal Reserve officials.

These officials indicated that persistent inflation would likely prompt additional rate hikes by the Fed, following the 25 basis point increase last week. Higher interest rates were considered unfavorable for crypto, as they diminished the appeal of investing in volatile, speculative assets without a fixed yield. On Friday, broader crypto prices performed marginally better than Bitcoin, trading up for the week.

Second-ranked cryptocurrency Ether dropped by 0.4% to $2,674.36, while XRP declined by 1.8%. Solana, Cardano, and BNB experienced minor increases, ranging from 0.1% to 2.5%. Among meme coins, Dogecoin rose by 0.6%, and $TRUMP gained 2%.