Breaking News: Circle CEO Confirms Hack on Employee Account

Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of Circle, said that a hacker got into the Twitter account of one of the company’s top executives, who had promised a USDC airdrop.

Circle CEO Confirms Hack on Employee Account

Following the de-peg of the stablecoin earlier this month, Dante Disparte, who joined Circle in April 2021 to serve as its chief strategy officer and head of global policy, stated in a Twitter thread that USDC holders will get a bonus. This claim was made in a context that sparked suspicion.

According to the stolen account, customers of USDC would receive their “one-time bonus” in the form of an airdrop.

Despite this, Allaire moved quickly to alert the cryptocurrency community that the account had been compromised.

The official Twitter account of Circle verified, in addition, that the Twitter account belonging to Disparte had been compromised. According to the company:

“A con artist is currently using this Twitter account (@ddisparte), which he has taken over. All links that lead to offers should be avoided. We have opened an investigation into the matter and will respond in accordance with the findings.”

Significantly, before the official notifications were issued, a number of people in the cryptocurrency community had already recognized the phishing attempt made by a hacker and had taken the initiative to distribute information in order to protect potential victims from falling for the hoax.

USDC in the Spotlight After De-Pegging

In the wake of the failure of Silicons Valley Bank, which resulted in the de-pegging of the stablecoin, the USDC issued by Circle has been at the center of much discussion over the past couple of weeks.

After experiencing a bank run on March 10, Silicon Valley Bank, which was one of the most well-liked lenders to Silicon Valley tech and growth businesses, went out of business and failed.

The failure caused shockwaves to travel throughout the financial markets and even had an effect on a number of cryptocurrency companies that had exposure to the bank.

For the first time, Circle, the issuer of the world’s second-largest stablecoin USDC, disclosed the amount of money that it has in an account that is managed by the bank.

As the information was made public, there was a rush of redemptions for USDC, which led to the loss of the stablecoin’s peg as investors became increasingly concerned about the coin’s reserves.

According to information provided by CoinMarketCap, the price of USDC, which is meant to be fixed at $1, reached a new all-time low of approximately $0.8774 on March 11.

On the other hand, following an influx of positive news, the value of the stablecoin started to recover steadily.

In particular, shortly after the collapse, regulators in the United States issued a wide range of emergency actions.

The Federal Reserve, Treasury Departments, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) of the United States declared that they would utilize the FDIC’s insurance funds to prevent depositors from losing their money, thereby restoring the bank to its previous state.

According to statistics provided by CoinMarketCap, the price of USDC at the moment is $0.9989.

Particularly noteworthy is the fact that Circle continues to uphold its commitment to backing each USDC with exactly one dollar in US currency.

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