Charlie Lee on CNBC: Charlie Lee, founder of Litecoin (LTC), chatted with CNBC[1] about the recent Bithumb hack, Bitcoin price, and the Lightning Network.
Charlie Lee on CNBC: Bithumb Hack
The South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb was hacked earlier this week[2], with a total of USD $30 million in crypto being stolen. It was enough to shift the exchange from its sixth-place ranking for daily trading volume down to seventh. Along with the loss of crypto from the exchange, many cryptocurrencies’ prices plummeted from the resulting panic, including Bitcoin (BTC).
Lee explained that the price drop was to be expected. “It happens all the time,” he said. Crypto is stolen, people get scared, and so people sell, causing crypto prices to drop.
However, Lee argued that Bithumb being hacked – really, any exchange hack – doesn’t change Bitcoin’s core fundamentals. He likened this to a bank robbery:
“It’s like if a bank gets broken in and gold gets stolen, does this affect the price of gold? It shouldn’t. Same with Bitcoin. If the exchange doesn’t protect their coin well enough and gets hacked, it doesn’t really change the fundamentals of the coin that they’re protecting.”
His reasoning comes down to the fact that an exchange hack has more to do with the security of the exchange than it does with the crypto stolen.
Charlie Lee on CNBC: Bitcoin Price
Bitcoin may be dropping since the start of this year, but Lee is adamant that the coin is still “going really well.” He explains that Bitcoin’s network is becoming stronger and that the price of BTC is probably “disjointed from the actual development of Bitcoin.”
He
