Bitcoin Holds Firm Above $16K After Tracking Stocks Up
Good morning. Here’s what happens:
Prices: Bitcoin regained its grip above 16K after sinking to a two-year low earlier in the week.
Insight: Changpeng Zhao and Elon Musk have been singled out in recent comments about FTX and the rapidly growing fallout. Did they go too far?
Prices
CoinDesk Market Index (CMI)
814.88
+15.8 ▲ 2.0%
Bitcoin (BTC)
$16,187
+399.0 ▲ 2.5%
Ethereum (ETH)
$1129
+28.9 ▲ 2.6%
S&P 500 daily close
4,003.58
+53.6 ▲ 1.4%
Gold
$1741
+3.2 ▲ 0.2%
Treasury Yield 10 years
3.76%
▼ 0.1
BTC/ETH prices per CoinDesk indices; gold is the COMEX spot price. Prices from approximately 4:00 PM ET
Bitcoin recovered from its Monday hibernation
By James Rubin
Bitcoin awoke from an early week’s slumber to rest close above its previous support of $16,000.
The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization recently traded around $16,200, up 2.5% as crypto markets returned to tracking stocks, which rose on renewed hopes that the US Federal Reserve’s hawkish monetary policy was taming inflation and that it would soon be able to to withdraw from its currency. recent diet of 75 basis point rate hikes.
“Wall Street is largely green today, and that has given crypto a small boost,” wrote Edward Moya, senior market analyst for forex market maker Oanda.
BTC sank to a two-year low on Monday amid fears over the fate of Genesis Global, a once-powerful crypto trading and lending firm, which is reportedly in talks to raise new capital after it halted withdrawals last week. Genesis is the latest victim of the fallout from the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange, and despite Tuesday’s bitcoin recovery, investors remained jittery.
“Bitcoin is back above the $16,000 level, but still remains at risk as everyone waits for the next crypto domino to fall,” Moya wrote. “It seems that crypto traders are already pricing in a bankruptcy for crypto lender Genesis. Contagion for FTX will affect many, but it seems that a new catalyst is needed for sellers to take control.”
Ether recently changed hands at around $1,120, up more than 2%. Other major cryptos were mostly in the green with LINK gaining almost 7%. The CoinDesk Market Index (CDI), an index that measures crypto’s performance, was roughly flat.
Tech-heavy Nasdaq, the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) each jumped a percentage point after Cleveland Federal Reserve President Loretta Mester said the Fed was moving into “a restrictive policy.”
At that point, I think it makes sense that we could slow down a little bit … the pace of the increases,” she said. “We are still going to raise the funds rate, but we are at a reasonable point now where we can be very deliberate in setting monetary policy.”
Meanwhile, in crypto news, a well-known crypto trader linked to last month’s $114 million Mango Markets exploit failed to find a similar vulnerability. The trader, identified on Twitter and labeled by blockchain analysts as Avraham Eisenberg, borrowed 40 million curve (CRV) tokens (worth $20 million at the time) using the decentralized lending platform Aave, then transferred them to the OKEx crypto exchange.
But after a series of wild swings in the CRV price, Eisenberg’s position appears to have been liquidated. According to blockchain analytics firm Arkham, Eisenberg borrowed the majority of CRV tokens on Aave by pledging $40 million USDC stablecoin as collateral. Blockchain speculators on Twitter speculated that he appeared to be build up a CRV short position – that is, to profit from a price drop.
Oandas Moya was less than happy about crypto prices in the weeks ahead. “Bitcoin has support ahead of the $15,500 level, but if that doesn’t hold, technical selling could send prices towards the $13,500 region,” he wrote. ?
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Insight
Did Changpeng Zhao and Elon go too far?
By James Rubin
What are billionaires and multi-millionaires saying about crypto?
Anything they want.
On Tuesday, crypto exchange Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao added his voice to the chorus of crypto-watchers who doubt that Grayscale, the operator of the largest bitcoin trust, has as much BTC as it says, but quickly back down.
Zhao first tweeted figures that, if true, would have undermined a position by Grayscale and its partner, crypto exchange Coinbase, that such concerns were unwarranted. But he deleted his tweet after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong appeared to respond soon after on Twitter.
“If you see FUD out there – remember our finances are public (we are a public company),” Armstrong wrote, referring to crypto-language for fear, uncertainty and doubt. (Binance is a privately held company that does not disclose financial information.)
Zhao appeared remorseful: “Brian Armstrong just told me” that the numbers “are wrong,” he wrote, adding: “Let’s work together to improve transparency in the industry.”
The Twitter interaction between CZ and Armstrong preceded a story by Semafor, a recent publication founded by Bloomberg and New York Times veterans, that Elon Musk was not always as down on the disgraced founder of troubled crypto exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried as he is. been in the last comments.
On November 12, a day after FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Musk said in a Twitter Spaces event: “To be honest, I had never heard of him,” Musk said. “But then I got loads of people telling me [that] he has, you know, huge amounts of money that he wants to invest in the Twitter deal. And I talked to him for about half an hour. And I know my bulls**t meter was red. It was like this guy is bulls**t – that was my impression.”
But shortly after announcing his $44 billion purchase of social media platform Twitter, Musk had invited Bankman-Fried to drop a $100 million stake he owned in the formerly publicly traded company. And as Semafor reported, the two even had a phone call in the late spring weeks before the deal closed about Bankman-Fried possibly joining a bid for Twitter. Bankman-Fried chose not to participate, but contributed its $100 million in stock to a now privately held company. An FTX balance sheet prepared after Musk closed the deal and circulated to investors earlier this month listed Twitter stock as an “illiquid” asset.
“The best pitchers have a short-term memory and a bulletproof confidence,” Hall of Fame Major League Baseball pitcher Greg Maddux once said.
Important events.
16:30 HKT/SGT (8:30 UTC) Europe S&P Global Composite PMI (Nov.)
21:30 HKT/SGT (13:30 UTC) US durable goods orders (Oct)
03:00 HKT/SGT (19:00 UTC) Federal Open Market Committee Minutes
CoinDesk TV
In case you missed it, here’s the latest episode of “First Mover” on CoinDesk TV:
Bitcoin flirts with $16,000 amid renewed fears of crypto contagion
Bitcoin flirts with $16,000 as crypto traders speculate on the future of Genesis Global, a victim of the fallout from the recent collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange. CoinFund President Chris Perkins and Nansen Research Analyst Niklas Polk shared their insights. Additionally, CoinDesk’s Jodie Gunzberg broke down crypto market performance by industry sector.
Headings
On-Chain Data shows close ties between FTX and Alameda were there from the start, reports Nansen: Niklas Polk, a research analyst at the research firm, discusses his latest report, and what on-chain data reveals about the wallets used by FTX and Alameda.
Lawyers describe the ‘abrupt and difficult’ collapse of FTX in the first bankruptcy hearing: FTX’s lawyers say former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried ran the exchange as his own “personal fiefdom,” allowing executives to use client funds to buy luxury real estate.
Saudi Arabia’s NFT collection rises after unexpected football win against Argentina: Argentina’s fan token, on the other hand, fell 21% after the team’s loss on Monday.
Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev will remain in prison until at least late February: Pertsev, a Russian citizen living in the Netherlands, has been accused of facilitating money laundering by developing the now-sanctioned app
The Curves CRV token becomes volatile when the exchange’s balance hits a record high: The token sank to a two-year low of 40 cents early Tuesday before quickly bouncing back to 53 cents.
