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Ethereum Founder Buterin Says ‘Something Important Is About To Happen’ In Cryptic Tweet

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has published a cryptic tweet, which at first glance could cause further uncertainty in the crypto community.

Referring to rumors of a possible bankruptcy of Genesis Trading and its parent company Digital Currency Group (DCG), Buterin wrote that “I’m hearing through the grapevine that something important is about to happen.”

Buterin did not go into further detail, going on to say, “please recognize the fact that my elite social connections to people who are early to know things make me cool, and please help me validate my self-image of coolness.”

Is Ethereum Founder Buterin Just Trolling?

At first glance, Buterin caused a lot of confusion with his tweet. But, calm down! Buterin is not the next FUD spreader warning of a collapse of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) in the wake of the Genesis / DCG rumors.

The probability that Buterin indeed wanted to ring the alarm bell with this tweet seems rather low. Apparently, Buterin is just trolling Paul Graham, who in turn was scattering rumors, citing a supposed source.

Graham, who sold his company Viaweb to Yahoo in 1998 and then got richer by investing the money in other startups through his company Y Combinator, tweeted about a trusted source.

The anonymous source said he is convinced that the cryptocurrency industry will experience “systemic risk” in the near future. Graham tweeted:

A person I have known for more than ten years, who I consider trustworthy, is convinced the cryptocurrency economy will shortly experience a systemic risk. I don’t know anything concrete, but if I were exposed, I would be concerned.

The Last Word Is Not Yet Spoken

As Bitcoinist reported today, there are currently numerous rumors circulating about a possible insolvency of Genesis Trading, which in turn could send industry giant DCG into bankruptcy. For all the doom and gloom, however, this is far from the last word.

Genesis is currently looking for capital, until today (Monday). Should it not be able to raise enough cash, DCG might have to step in and sell a large part of its liquid funds and assets from its portfolio. However, only if all other efforts and options fail, DCG is likely to liquidate its golden goose, Grayscale.

Nevertheless, a possible liquidation of the Bitcoin and Ethereum Trust by Grayscale hovers over the crypto market like a sword of Damocles. Grayscale holds over 635,000 BTC worth over $10 billion and 3.1 million Ethereum worth $3.7 billion.

A liquidation of both funds would mean a gigantic selling pressure that could drag down the prices of BTC and ETH.

At press time, the Ethereum (ETH) price plunged to $1,125, bouncing of the major support level of $1,100.

Ethereum ETH USD

Ethereum price bouncing off the major support at $1,100, 1-hour-chart. Source: TradingView
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Multicoin Expects FTX Contagion To Hold Industry In Its Grips For Weeks To Come

In a letter to its investors, one of the industry’s most notable crypto venture firms, Multcoin Capital, has revealed its thesis for the coming weeks.

Managing partners Kyle Samani and Tushar Jain write in a 3,400-word letter that the FTX fiasco does not spell doom for the crypto industry, as critics like Peter Schiff and Nassim Taleb recently did.

“Just as Lehman Brothers didn’t kill banking and Enron wasn’t the death of energy companies, FTX won’t be the end of the crypto industry,” the venture capital firm said.

At the same time, the firm warns its investors that FTX’s collapse will cause more fallouts. Samani and Tushar wrote:

We expect to see contagion fallout from FTX/Alameda over the next few weeks.

Many trading firms will be wiped out and shut down, which will put pressure on liquidity and volume throughout the crypto ecosystem. We have seen several announcements already on this front, but expect to see more.

According to Multicoin, leverage must first be removed from the system before there will be “green shoots next year.”

Multicoin Trusted FTX

Samani’s company also acknowledged its own mistakes, though. Thus, it had placed “too much trust” in FTX. As a result, Multicoin lost 15.6% of its total fund assets on FTX.

The venture firm was only able to recover about a quarter of its funds that were deposited on the exchange. Although waiting to see how the bankruptcy proceedings progress, the company expects to write down its investment in FTX to zero.

In doing so, Multicoin follows the fate of other investors in FTX, such as Temasek, Sequoia Capital and Softbank.

Due to the loss of confidence, Multicoin said it is only trading on two other exchanges, Coinbase and Binance. For now, however, the company only relies on Coinbase custody and self-managed cold wallets, it said.

The Future Of Solana (SOL)

By its own account, Multicoin has invested a large amount in Solana (SOL). The token was one of the biggest sufferers in the FTX collapse, as SOL was one of FTX’s largest positions along with FTT.

On November 05, SOL was still trading at a price of $38.71 on Binance before the steep crash to currently $13.53 took place.

SOL USD 2022-11-18

SOL saw an unprecedented drop following the first FTX rumors. Source: TradingView

Despite the heavy losses, Multicoin officially still believes in Solana’s long-term potential, according to its letter to investors. The venture firm said it’s holding its position and still expects a bright future for Solana, because the cryptocurrency has “one of the most vibrant developer communities.”

Based on our experience in 2018 and 2020, we learned that it’s not prudent to sell an asset during a short-lived crisis if the core thesis is not impaired,” the letter states.

However, there is a juicy (unconfirmed) rumor circulating that Samani and Jain handled his personal funds differently. Allegedly, the general partners sold their personal SOL stashes near the top.

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Grayscale Liquidation Could Unleash A Bitcoin Armageddon

The FTX Contagion effects do not even stop at the largest institutional Bitcoin product on the market, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). As a result of the bankruptcy of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange, the discount to the NAV of Grayscale’s GBTC fund has fallen to around -40%.

As recently as the end of 2020, GBTC was trading at a premium of +40%. However, in January 2021, the trend reversal occurred when Grayscale’s Bitcoin fund traded at a discount for the first time. Since then, GBTC has been on a downward slide.

Bitcoin gbtc premuim

Bitcoin GBTC. Source: CNN Business

GBTC’s largest owners include Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest (0.85%), Horizon Kinetics (0.34%), Simplify Asset Management (0.06%) Systelligence (0.04%), Parkwood (0.04%), Emerald Mutual Fund (0.03%) and Rothschild Investment (0.01%), according to CNN Business.

Doomsday for Bitcoin

Recent events have led Grayscale Bitcoin Trust to become potentially the single biggest risk to the Bitcoin market. As NewsBTC reported, Genesis Global had to pause all withdrawals for its lending business on Wednesday due to “unprecedented market turmoil.”

This is concerning for the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust in that Genesis Global served as the liquidity provider for the trust. Genesis Global’s parent company is Digital Currency Group (DCG). This in turn is also the parent company of Grayscale.

Shortly after the Genesis announcement, Digital Currency Group clarified that the matter would have no impact on its own business. DCG stated that Genesis is not a service provider “for any” Grayscale product.

Furthermore, the company asserted that it does not lend, borrow, or pledge Bitcoin, and that its custodian – Coinbase – is prohibited from engaging in such activities. In addition, SEC and OTC markets reports and audited financial statements are filed.

Grayscale products continue to operate business as usual, and recent events have had no impact on product operations.

The assets underlying $GBTC and all Grayscale products remain safe and secure, held in segregated wallets in deep cold storage by our custodian Coinbase .

Still, the community is bellyaching. A dissolution of GBTC could mean Armageddon for Bitcoin. The collapse of Terra Luna, on the other hand, would have been fun.

The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust currently holds 634,000 BTC. The Terra Luna Foundation “only” liquidated 80,000 Bitcoins, and still managed to crash the BTC price from $40,000 to $20,000.

As Ryan Selkis reported, DCG is in a liquidity squeeze. “Appears holding company’s (DCG) liquid assets are below liabilities. As a result, it looks like DCG is looking to raise outside funding”. However, this tweet is now deleted.

The Bitcoin community is now demanding proof that Grayscale actually holds roughly 634,000 BTC in reserve at Brian Armstrong’s Coinbase. However, neither Grayscale nor Coinbase have shown any reaction so far.

All that is currently available is a CSV file that is updated daily. As analyst Dylan LeClair explained, it should be relatively feasible to produce a proof of reserves if all BTCs are held at Coinbase.

But criticism also heads towards the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. If chairman Gary Gensler had approved the conversion of GBTC into an ETF, the Armageddon scenario would not even exist.

Instead, Gensler preferred to reject spot Bitcoin ETFs and flood the market with paper BTC. The FTX fiasco may also contribute to the lack of approval for a spot ETF in the near future.

Meanwhile, Chris Burniske, partner at Placeholder and former crypto chief at ARKinvest, tweeted that fears surrounding the unwinding of GBTC and ETHE are unfounded, an example of hysteria.

He retweeted Bob Loukas who wrote that the trust will not go away as it is a money printing machine.

They generate like $700m in fees and investors can’t stop it. […] They could borrow billions against that cash flow.

Also, You’re not killing the goose to save Genesis. They’re fire-walled.

At press time, Bitcoin investors seemed to agree with Chris Burniske. BTC remains in a wait-and-see mode.

BTC USD

Bitcoin price does not move much in the 1-day chart. Source: TradingView
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Consultancy Uncovers Best Altcoins To Profit From FTX Collapse

Eight, a cryptocurrency consultancy founded by Michaël van de Poppe in 2018, has uncovered the best altcoins that can benefit from FTX’s demise. According to analysts, recent events are promoting a narrative that is strongly associated with decentralization.

Following the FTX news, leading hardware wallet manufacturer Trezor and Ledger reported skyrocketing and record-breaking sales. This was also accompanied by the trend of massive amounts of Bitcoin (BTC) and ETH (ETH) being withdrawn from exchanges.

As Glassnode reported, Bitcoin investors have withdrawn a historic 106,000 BTC/month to self-custody following the collapse of FTX. This only compares to only three other times: April 2020, November 2020, and June-July 2022.

Which Altcoins May Benefit From FTX Collapse?

The altcoin market is often dominated by narratives or special trends. For example, in recent months and years, “Ethereum killers” and layer 2 solutions for Ethereum have been strong trends that have given investors above-average profits.

According to Eight, the new trend for the next few months could be decentralization.

In that sense, Eight’s first pick is GMX, a decentralized spot and perpetual exchange that supports low swap fees and trading without price impact.

As the analysts note, the advantage of decentralized exchanges is that traders do not have to deposit their coins on an exchange and are therefore not exposed to the security risks of a centralized exchange.

The GMX token is ranked 87th among all cryptocurrencies and has recorded a strong price increase of about 20% over the last seven days.

In a similar vein is the second recommendation, DYDX. The platform is also a decentralized exchange platform for cryptocurrency margin trading for assets such as BTC, ETH, SOL, DOT and more.

The DYDX token currently ranks 144th by market cap and is even posting a gain of about 30% over the past seven days.

With UNI, Eight lists another decentralized exchange token that it is far from being an insider’s tip anymore. The decentralized exchange made headlines in recent days as the daily trading volume of the ETH/USD pair on Uniswap was 500 million higher than on Coinbase. Uniswap came in 2nd behind Binance.

Another interesting decentralized exchange is PancakeSwap, which is based on the BNB chain and aims to provide a faster and cheaper alternative to Ethereum. CAKE currently ranks 66th, but unlike the others, it has recorded a slight loss over the last seven days.

What Else?

Lastly, Eight recommends not only decentralized exchanges, but also decentralized wallets. Specifically, we are talking about the Trust Wallet and the SafePal app. The former acts as an intermediary, connecting different blockchains through the use of its nodes.

It has a robust mechanism for sending, receiving and storing multiple cryptocurrencies, and currently supports over a thousand crypto coins.

The TWT token was trading at $1.15 a week ago and has skyrocketed over the past week. At press time, TWT was trading at $2.14.

In conclusion, the analysts said:

These are just some of the projects that represent alternatives to trading and custody services offered by centralized exchanges and witnessed increased rate of attention and user adoption after the bankruptcy of FTX. Therefore, we suggest that you add them on your watchlist!

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FTX New CEO John Ray Reveals More Scandals In Court Filing

The new CEO of collapsed crypto exchange FTX, John Ray III, has filed an initial statement with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, making a scathing judgment of Sam Bankman-Fried and his companies.

Ray was appointed CEO of FTX less than a week ago when founder Bankman-Fried filed for bankruptcy protection for FTX, Alameda and more than 130 related companies and stepped down as CEO.

The new CEO has taken the lead role in several of the largest corporate collapses in history, exposing criminal activity and malfeasance such as in the Enron case. So the man has experience with scandal and mismanagement. Yet, in his first court filing, he states:

Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here.

“From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented,” Ray said.

The new CEO also made it known that the Antigua and Bahamas-based FTX Group companies, in particular, did not have adequate corporate governance and many had never held a board meeting. FTX, FTX US and Alameda had virtually “no accounting department”.

In addition, the bankruptcy trustee chalks up the lack of an accurate list of bank accounts and authorized signatories, as well as insufficient creditworthiness of bank partners.

New FTX CEO Reveals Deep Swamp Of Bankman-Fried

What else is Ray revealing? The bankruptcy trustee also stated, among other things, that the “fair value” of all cryptocurrencies held by FTX internationally is only $659!

Further, Ray estimates the total of all consolidated assets to be around $2.56 billion. Only recently, SBF estimated the value at $5.5 billion on Twitter.

Moreover, Ray also discloses the use of company funds to pay for houses and other items for employees. Literally users paid for SBF’s luxury mansion:

I understand that FTX Group corporate funds have been used in the Bahamas to purchase homes and other personal property for employees and consultants. I understand that there appear to be no loan records for some of these transactions and that certain properties have been recorded in the Bahamian records in the personal names of these employees and consultants.

In addition, it is alleged that there may “be very substantial transfers of Debtor property in the days, weeks and months prior to the Petition Date”.

If this weren’t scandalous enough, Ray reveals that Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund has loaned $2.3 billion to… Sam Bankman-Fried himself, to his Paper Bird company.

Want another scandal? The bankruptcy documents also disclose that FTX coded its liquidation protocol in such a way that Alameda was excluded from liquidation. Insane!

But that’s far from all. Thus, under Bankman-Fried, FTX did not include customer liabilities in FTX’s financial statements. “I do not believe it appropriate for stakeholders or the Court to rely on the audited financial statements as a reliable indication,” Ray asserted.

Ray also cannot answer the question of who was on Bankman-Fried’s company payroll. “The Debtors have been unable to prepare a complete list of who worked for the FTX Group as of the Petition Date.”

Island Bay Ventures, the company that holds FTX’s stake in Scaramucci’s SkyBridge, is another major issue. Ray can’t find the company’s financials.

The document also indicates that FTX loaned FTT token worth $250 million to BlockFi. Why? Possibly to prop up BockFi….

But there is also good news. The document reveals that SBF’s role in the bankruptcy is to be investigated.

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FTX New CEO John Ray Reveals More Scandals In Court Filing

The new CEO of collapsed crypto exchange FTX, John Ray III, has filed an initial statement with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, making a scathing judgment of Sam Bankman-Fried and his companies.

Ray was appointed CEO of FTX less than a week ago when founder Bankman-Fried filed for bankruptcy protection for FTX, Alameda and more than 130 related companies and stepped down as CEO.

The new CEO has taken the lead role in several of the largest corporate collapses in history, exposing criminal activity and malfeasance such as in the Enron case. So the man has experience with scandal and mismanagement. Yet, in his first court filing, he states:

Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here.

“From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented,” Ray said.

The new CEO also made it known that the Antigua and Bahamas-based FTX Group companies, in particular, did not have adequate corporate governance and many had never held a board meeting. FTX, FTX US and Alameda had virtually “no accounting department”.

In addition, the bankruptcy trustee chalks up the lack of an accurate list of bank accounts and authorized signatories, as well as insufficient creditworthiness of bank partners.

New FTX CEO Reveals Deep Swamp Of Bankman-Fried

What else is Ray revealing? The bankruptcy trustee also stated, among other things, that the “fair value” of all cryptocurrencies held by FTX internationally is only $659!

Further, Ray estimates the total of all consolidated assets to be around $2.56 billion. Only recently, SBF estimated the value at $5.5 billion on Twitter.

Moreover, Ray also discloses the use of company funds to pay for houses and other items for employees. Literally users paid for SBF’s luxury mansion:

I understand that FTX Group corporate funds have been used in the Bahamas to purchase homes and other personal property for employees and consultants. I understand that there appear to be no loan records for some of these transactions and that certain properties have been recorded in the Bahamian records in the personal names of these employees and consultants.

In addition, it is alleged that there may “be very substantial transfers of Debtor property in the days, weeks and months prior to the Petition Date”.

If this weren’t scandalous enough, Ray reveals that Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund has loaned $2.3 billion to… Sam Bankman-Fried himself, to his Paper Bird company.

Want another scandal? The bankruptcy documents also disclose that FTX coded its liquidation protocol in such a way that Alameda was excluded from liquidation. Insane!

But that’s far from all. Thus, under Bankman-Fried, FTX did not include customer liabilities in FTX’s financial statements. “I do not believe it appropriate for stakeholders or the Court to rely on the audited financial statements as a reliable indication,” Ray asserted.

Ray also cannot answer the question of who was on Bankman-Fried’s company payroll. “The Debtors have been unable to prepare a complete list of who worked for the FTX Group as of the Petition Date.”

Island Bay Ventures, the company that holds FTX’s stake in Scaramucci’s SkyBridge, is another major issue. Ray can’t find the company’s financials.

The document also indicates that FTX loaned FTT token worth $250 million to BlockFi. Why? Possibly to prop up BockFi….

But there is also good news. The document reveals that SBF’s role in the bankruptcy is to be investigated.

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FBI Plans To Extradite FTX Bankman-Fried From Bahamas As Contagion Spills To Genesis?

As Daily Mail reports, FTX’s former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried could be facing extradition. After more and more shocking details about FTX, Alameda and their leaders came to light in recent days, Bankman-Fried is facing extradition by the FBI, according to the latest reports.

Already on Monday, it was revealed that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has teamed up with officials from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to investigate FTX’s business practices.

Specifically, the regulators’ focus is on how FTX handled customer funds while trying to prop up its sister firm, Alameda Research.

In order to interrogate Bankman-Fried in this regard, U.S. and Bahamian authorities are currently discussing the possibility of bringing the FTX founder to the United States, according to Bloomberg News, citing three people familiar with the matter.

Is FTX Contagion Taking Hold Of Genesis Trading Today?

Several crypto firms have already disclosed their exposure to FTX and Alameda. While some are simply writing off the losses to zero, other firms have been hit harder. BlockFi has halted all withdrawals and is preparing for bankruptcy unless it recovers its funds from SBF.

However, things could also look critical for Genesis Trading. The broker had made public that its derivatives business had $175 million stashed in an FTX trading account, which is now gone.

As a result, the industry giant and Genesis’ parent company, Digital Currency Group, has reportedly promised a $140 million capital infusion to bolster its balance sheet. An email from Genesis to its customers states:

While the operation of our lending and trading businesses has not been impacted by recent market events, Genesis has taken steps to strengthen its balance sheet with an additional equity infusion of $140M from our parent company, Digital Currency Group.

However, Autism Capital, a Twitter channel that has received strong attention in the wake of the FTX collapse due to its proximity to the events, is warning of another hard blow to the crypto industry.

The Twitter user reports, citing “semi credible rumors” that Genesis may have solvency problems.

They are having a call with their creditors tomorrow at 8 AM EST to explain the situation. If true, they may possibly be dissolving ETHE and GBTC to pay back their lenders. We will know more tomorrow.

We are aware that Grayscale controls GBTC and ETHE, not Genesis. DCG (the parent company of Genesis and Grayscale) is backstopping Genesis, and dissolving the trusts may be necessary if there is a solvency issue, and if it is big enough.

At presstime, the Bitcoin seemed unfazed by the rumors and was trading at $16.596. Levels of importance for Bitcoin are $17.3K and $18K to the upside as well as $14K and $16.5k to the downside.

BTC USD

Bitcoin price in wait and see mode ,4-hour-chart. Source: TradingView

[Update:] Genesis is halting withdrawals for the time being.

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XRP Price Drops While 2 Bullish Events Are Kicking Off

The XRP price cannot escape the broader market sentiment at the moment and was trading at $0.3781 at press time. With this, XRP was unable to defend yesterday’s gains of over 9%, and continues to show itself trapped in a price channel between $0.32 and $0.40.

The channel was established when XRP price fell from above $0.50 to near the 1-month low at around $0.32 on November 09 as a result of the FTX collapse. In the 1-hour chart, XRP is currently trading above the 50 and 100 Simple Moving Average (SMA), but below the 200 SMA.

To signal an uptrend, XRP price needs to climb above $0.40, and could then meet the first notable resistance at around $0.43, before facing major resistance at $0.50. To avoid another downside move, XRP should not fall below $0.3650.

XRP price XRP/USD

XRP ranging, 1-hour-hour. Source: TradingView

Good News Incoming For Ripple And The XRP Price

In a recent tweet, Ripple announced an expanded strategic partnership with MFS Africa.

The fintech company has the largest mobile money presence in Africa with over 400 million connected users and over 800 payment corridors across the continent and growing. The blockchain company tweeted:

We’re thrilled to announce that our On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) solution is expanding via our partnership with MFS Africa ! Africa holds 70% of the world’s $1T mobile money value, and ODL will further enhance digital payment rails across the continent.

The new partnership is designed to optimize real-time mobile payments for their customers in 35 countries. Notably, the XRP-based payment On-Demand Liquidity Solution (ODL) will play a role.

The goal with this is to bypass friction and bottlenecks associated with sending money across borders via traditional payment systems. On the potential, Ripple writes:

While mobile money users in Africa have grown exponentially in recent years, the number of users worldwide is expected to reach 70% of the global population.

Another event XRP that could impact the XRP price massively is “Swell Global”. The annual event will take place in London this year, from Nov. 16-17.

Notable speakers will include Brad Garlinghouse (Ripple CEO), Eowyn Chen (Trust Wallet CEO), Jorn Lambert (Mastercard, Chief Digital Officer), Emma Joyce (GBBC Digital Finance, CEO), Alex Manson (SC Ventures) and Derrick Walton (Bank of America, Head of GTS Emerging Payments and Innovation).

Among others, James Wallis, head of RippleX, will discuss “Strategy and Best Practices For Central Bank Digital Currencies”. In addition, Wallis will announce the winners of the “CBDC Innovate Global Hackathon”.

On the second day, Derrick Walton of Bank of America will participate in a discussion panel on the role of commercial banks in the adoption of CBDCs. Mastercards Lambert will talk about the question: “Is Cryptocurrency The Next Internet?”.

A major news could give new life to the XRP price.

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FTX Hacker Becomes 35th Largest Ethereum (ETH) Whale – Dump Incoming?

Last Friday, the FTX drama took a new turn when it became known that some of the remaining customer funds were stolen by a hacker. According to current knowledge, it must have been an inexperienced insider who gained access to FTX’s wallets.

Hacken CEO and co-founder Dyma Budorin stated that the hacker was able to steal more than $450 million from FTX hot wallets. However, he made a fatal mistake by using his verified personal account on crypto exchange Kraken to send some of the stolen funds in Tether (USDT) on the Tron blockchain.

Kraken has already traced the person’s identity, after which Tether and Paxos blacklisted some of the assets. “We know the identity of the user,” Kraken CSO Nick Percoco said on Friday.

Ryne Miller, general counsel for FTX’s U.S. subsidiary, confirmed Saturday on Twitter that FTX US and FTX.com had moved all of their digital assets to cold storage, where they are better protected from attack, following Friday’s bankruptcy.

“Process was expedited this evening – to mitigate damage upon observing unauthorized transactions,” Miller said.

In a statement, FTX Chief Restructuring Officer and CEO John Ray said that in response to the hack, “an active fact review and mitigation exercise was initiated immediately in response.  We have been in contact with, and are coordinating with law enforcement and relevant regulators.”

FTX Hacker Becomes A Ethereum Whale

While prosecutions have already been initiated, the hacker nevertheless began swapping large amounts of his stolen crypto in the European morning hours today.

As reported by the security company PeckShield Alert, several addresses associated with the hacker have made massive movements today. Thus, the hacker made the following transactions:

  • Swapped 7,420 BNB on BSC into 1,500 ETH.
  • Converted $48 million in DAI into 37,000 ETH
  • Exchanged 3,500 BNB for 962,071.43 BSC USD
  • Exchanged 3,500 BNB for 958,560.13 BSC-USD
  • Traded 15,000 BNB for 3,899,020.38 BSC-USD

Subsequently, the hacker bridged around 3.9 million exchanged BSC-USD to Ethereum via the Celer Network, to cBridge and Stargate Finance, and exchanged them for 5,564.83 ETH.  In total, the hacker is now said to own 217,000 ETH, making him the 35th largest Ethereum (ETH) owner.

In his latest move, the hacker has withdrawn 25.000 ETH, about $31.6 million from Aave Protocol V2.

At press time, ETH was unfazed by the news. ETH was trading at $1266, above the 50 and 100 SMA on the 1-hour chart.

In order to initiate a further uptrend, the resistance at $1289 needs to be surpassed. If Ethereum fails to break above this level, it perhaps could see a further decline. An important support is located at the $1170 mark.

Ethereum ETH USD 2022-11-15

Ethereum price, 1-hour-chart. Source: TradingView
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Amid FTX Rumors Tether’s USDT Peg Of $1 Wobbles – What’s Going On?

The crypto market still seems to be in the grasps of FTX and Alameda. Currently, rumors are circulating that Tether’s stablecoin USDT might be more affected by the downfall of FTX than it would like to admit.

Moreover, there currently seems to be an attack on USDT as a result of which Tether (USDT) briefly lost its usual peg to $1. The largest stablecoin by market cap was trading below $0.9400 temporarily at Kraken, other exchanges saw minor deviations.

FTX FUD leads to Tether depeg

FTX FUD leads to Tether depeg, Kraken, 1-day-chart. Source: TradingView

Sam Bankman-Fried company Alameda, which borrowed $250,000 USDT from Aave and exchanged it on Curve this morning, may be behind the attack. The address is clearly attributable to Alameda.

Speculation on Twitter has it that Alameda is trying to initiate a USDT depeg with his on-chain visible transaction to trigger fear. He could sell USDT short, though it is not clear at this time what the company’s total trading position is.

Some voices in the crypto community suspect that the strategy is multi-layered and a huge attempt to get everything back in a single trading attempt. Anonymous trader “Hsaka” provided the following thesis on Twitter:

The 250k usdt short is not the most important move imo, more about the second order effect re usdt perps and related positioning around that

Especially assuming it is the ~$300m ftx withdrawal entity that still holds $100m+ usdt. I still don’t know anything about CEX activity.

FUD Is Nothing New For Tether

At the same time, voices are increasing that the aggressor specifically wants to spread FUD in order to trigger a similar run on Tether (USDT) as on FTX and its FTT tokens. However, a short-term decoupling from the dollar peg is nothing new for Tether and was always a reason for haters spreading rumors.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino was quick to dismiss any rumors. Already yesterday, Tether released a statement in which it assured that it had no exposure to FTX.

After the LUNA crash, Tether briefly grazed $0.90 and restored its peg within a couple of hours. Due to the removal of Alameda/FTX as the main USDT market maker and minter, there may be temporary major deviations.

People are not taking any chances and selling USDT for USDC or BUSD, just in case. Alistair Milne, CIO of Altana Digital Currency Fund, commented:

Tether has been FUD’ed and attacked longer than FTX has existed. They endured a bigger bank run than FTX and passed with flying colours. Perhaps there’s a different reason they get so much attention while FTX got a pass?

Other voices believe that the rumors will not lead to a full, prolonged depeg if Tether is indeed hedged 1:1, as evidenced by the reserves. Even Vitalik Buterin spoke up and defended Tether.

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JP Morgan Predicts Bitcoin Crash To $13.000 Due To Cascade Of Margin Calls

Amidst the drama surrounding the busted deal between FTX and Binance, banking giant JP Morgan has commented on the current state of Bitcoin and the broader crypto market. If FTX does file for bankruptcy, the contagion could be massive.

As Bitcoinist reported today, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried confirmed in a call with his investors shortly before Binance dismissed his bailout that the hole in the balance sheet is $8 billion.

An anonymous source leaked that the troubled exchange is seeking bailout funding in the form of debt, equity or a combination of both. With Singaporean state-owned Temasak and TRON founder Justin Sun, there are currently at least two small sparks of hope.

JP Morgan Forecasts Gloomy Times For Bitcoin

The looming insolvency of FTX continues to weigh heavily on the Bitcoin price at the moment. At press time, Bitcoin was trading at $17,767, down 9% over the last 24 hours and down 19% over the last seven days.

Exactly one year ago, on November 10, 2021, BTC reached its previous all-time high of $69,045.00, which represents a price drop of around 75% at the current rate.

Bitcoin chart BTC USD

Bitcoin bouncing off its new low at $15,700, 1-day-chart. Source: TradingView

However, according to the latest report from JP Morgan, it could go even lower as the market faces a “cascade of margin calls.” According to JPMorgan strategists led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, the Bitcoin price could fall as low as $13,000.

Moreover, the analysts warn in the report that the cascade effect could be amplified due to the current conditions of the market:

What makes this new phase of crypto deleveraging induced by the apparent collapse of Alameda Research and FTX more problematic is that the number of entities with stronger balance sheets able to rescue those with low capital and high leverage is shrinking” in the crypto sphere.

According to JP Morgan, a renewed miner capitulation deems a major risk factor. In particular, the U.S. banking giant believes Bitcoin could fall below its production cost, currently averaging around $15,000.

At the moment, this production cost stands at $15,000, but it is likely to revisit the $13,000 low seen over the summer months.

As a result, more miners like Core Scientific recently may be forced to sell their Bitcoin holdings, putting additional selling pressure on the market.

Riot Blockchain, one of the largest publicly traded Bitcoin miners, recently released its latest quarterly report, revealing the state of its finances and operations.

As Jaran Mellerud of Hashrate Index discussed, nothing is more important in a bear market than a healthy balance sheet. Riot has a solid balance sheet with minimal debt, which is reflected in their low debt-to-equity ratio. The majority of the top 10 listed Bitcoin miners boast similarly good or even better numbers.

However, with Hive, Spere 3D, DMG and CryptoStar, there are also four miners that have higher debt-to-equity ratios.

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Singapore’s State Investor Temasek Engaging With FTX For Bailout

There could be a surprising twist in the drama surrounding Sam Bankman-Fried’s insolvent crypto exchange FTX. As reported by The Straits Times, a possible government takeover by Singaporean state investor Temasek could be on the table. The group is one of FTX’s many investors.

FTX’s other investors include BlackRock, Sequoia Capital, Circle, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Paradigm, Tiger Global, SoftBank, , Ribbit Capital, Alan Howard, Multicoin Capital and VanEck.

Is Temasek Going To Bail Out FTX?

According to the report, Temasek, in its role as a shareholder of FTX contacted SBF after Binance announced its bailout plans. The report goes on to say that a takeover by CZ would mean such a power shift that “would make Binance reign supreme in the crypto world”.

For this reason, Temasek is in talks with FTX, according to a spokesperson:

We are aware of the developments between FTX and Binance, and are engaging FTX in our capacity as a shareholder

At the same time, Temasek’s spokesperson clarified that no details about the talks can be disclosed at the moment. “[G]iven the ongoing discussions between both companies, it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to comment beyond that”, The Straits Times reports.

Temasek invested in FTX’s Series B and Series C funding rounds, which raised $900 million and $400 million, respectively. However, FTX is not the only crypto exchange that Temasek has invested in the past. Temasek, through Vertex Ventures, also invested in Binance when the Singapore exchange launched operations.

Temasek is a Singapore government holding company with approximately $484.4 billion in net assets under management in 2021. The company is an investor that says it is guided by four key structural trends in building its long-term portfolio. These are: digitization, sustainable living, the future of consumption and longer life expectancy.

The anonymous trader “degentrading” reacted to the news on Twitter. He commented that in his opinion a bailout of Temasek is unlikely, as their current exposure to Temasek is “only” $1 billion.

Aside from the fact that Temasek is an FTX investor, the nature of the discussions between Temasek and the crypto exchange are unclear at press time.

As Bitcoinist reported earlier today, there are big question marks behind the deal between Binance and FTX. The hole in FTX’s balance sheet could be much bigger than expected. Adam Cochran tweeted that some of his sources tend to believe that Binance could pull out of the deal at the last moment.

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Which Coins Will FTX And Alameda Dump Next? Red Flag for Solana (SOL)

Following the FTT token, Solana (SOL) in particular is currently suffering a massive price slump. As a report revealed last week, the SOL token is one of the major assets on FTX’s balance sheet.

If Binance pulls out of the FTX deal, it could mean a massive sell-off in SOL. Amid concerns about this scenario, the market already seems to be front-running. Over the past 24 hours, Solana (SOL) is down 36% and has slipped out of the top 10 by market capitalization.

At press time, the SOL price recovered above the the major support at $18.53 which was established between April and June last year. However, SOL fell as low as $16.20 today, to a level not seen since March 2021.

Solana SOL USD

Solana plunging as low as $16.12 in the 4-hour-chart on Binance. Source: TradingView

FTX holds about $1.2 billion in SOL tokens – $292 million in “unlocked SOL,” $863 million in “locked SOL,” and $41 million in “SOL collateral.”

As some analysts warn, however, this impending doom could get even worse. A total of 18,775,348 SOL, the equivalent of about $330 million, will hit the market tomorrow. The reason for this is that in epoch 370 a total of those 18.77 million SOL can be de-staked and presumably dumped on the market.

The analysis service “Look On Chain” has compiled an overview of which whales will stop staking SOL.

As the former host of CNBC Crypto Trader and founder of Crypto Banter, Ran Neuner, explained, there is also other big trouble on the horizon for Solana.

“Market realizing that CZ now owns 10% of the tokens and that he would rather support BNB chain than SOL. Also Solana just lost all the support and investment that FTX and SBF were making in the ecosystem”, Neuner forecasted.

Other Altcoins Which Could Be Doomed By Alameda

But it’s not just Solana (SOL) that seems to be in big trouble. Analysts have compiled a list of all Alameda ERC20 tokens that could see a potential sell-off in the coming days.

Since Binance CEO “CZ” will only bail out FTX if the deal goes through, all Alameda assets could pose a threat to their respective markets.

The analysis service estimates that Alameda’s net worth is $222.4 million. In total, they found 56 addresses associated with Alameda that begin with “0x.” In addition, the analysts also analyzed Alameda’s assets and liabilities on Defi.

Among the 56 addresses are 19 addresses with net assets over $100,000, and 13 addresses with net assets over $1 million. “Excluding stablecoins, ETH, BIT and FTT are worth more than $1M. You need to focus on these tokens, she may sell at any time.”, the analysts say.

In addition, they are warning of a dump of SRM, OP, MATIC, MASK, SAND and FTM.

In the DeFi space, the focus could again be on FTT, but also on SUSHI. Alameda delivered 6,953,001 FTT, about $35.65 million on Abracadabra. In addition, the company put 4,606,611 SUSHI, about $6.11 million, on SushiSwap, which they can withdraw and sell at any time.

Alameda’s debt in DeFi space is $3.64 million. The largest item of this is 1,088,181 NEAR worth about $2.75 million that has not yet been repaid.

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Chainlink (LINK) Rejected At $9.20 But Picks Up Steam – Levels To Watch

While the broader crypto market is currently trying to recover from the shock surrounding FTX and the accompanying fears of a contagion effect, Chainlink has recorded the highest price increase within the top-100 by market cap within the last 24 hours.

At press time, the LINK price was up 6.2% from the previous day, trading at $8.71. Over the past seven days, Chainlink has even posting a whopping plus of around 13%. Trading volume has grown to $1.435 billion in the last 24 hours, up 161% from the previous day.

According to on-chain analysis service Santiment, the LINK price has risen to just above $9.20 for the first time since August 13, a 3-month high despite very volatile markets. The data aggregator believes the reason for the surge is the large volume of active LINK addresses for the past 5 weeks.

Chainlink active adresses

Chainlink active addresses surging for the last five weeks. Source: Santiment

Chainlink (LINK) Showing Strength

Back on October 30, Santiment wrote that whales “got pretty active this weekend” after the LINK price cracked the $8 mark a couple of times. Santiment wrote:

Saturday saw 33 different $LINK transactions exceeding a value of $1 million. This was the highest whale activity day since June 27th.

By the end of October, the number of wallets with more than 100,000 LINK aka whales has increased to 459. This is the highest level since 2017.

A look at the 1-day chart reveals that Chainlink (LINK) stopped just shy of the important $9.53 level today. LINK broke through this level to the downside on May 09. In the 1-day chart, the price bounced off this mark for the third time over the last six months.

At the current level, LINK is trading well above the 100- and 200-day simple moving average (SMA). In addition, the LINK/USD pair is about to form a golden cross, which is often a bullish technical sign. It is formed whenever the chart’s 50-day moving average line crosses the 200-day moving average line from the bottom to the top.

The RSI is neutral at 63. If LINK manages to punch through the key $9.53 level in the next few days, the next major resistance could be in the $12.30 region.

Chainlink LINK USD

Chainlink rejected at the $9.50 region. Source: TradingView

Anonymous trader Kaleo with 500,000 followers noted, “The accumulation base for the $LINK USD chart is so clean – though I attribute the HTF resistance breakout to BTC moving more than anything else, I still wouldn’t fade it. Those type of moves are typically the precursors to the BTC pair outpacing.”

The popular analyst also says that LINK/BTC has bounced back off higher time frame support, suggesting that LINK will outperform Bitcoin over the upcoming weeks.

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VeChain (VET) Climbs 10% In Last 7 Days – What’s Going On?

The VeChain (VET) price has been able to build on its bullish momentum over the past week and is currently bucking the current market trend.

As Bitcoinist reported, the entire crypto market is currently facing a major fear of a contagion effect triggered by the perceived troubles of the US exchange FTX.

Within the top 100 by market cap, there are currently only a handful of altcoins besides VeChain, including Chainlink (LINK) and Toncoin (TON), that are showing price gains within the last 24 hours despite the turmoil. VET is thus showing its fundamental strength for the moment.

Within the last 24 hours, the price has risen by around 3%. Over the last seven days, there is even a gain of 10%. At the time of writing, VET was trading at $0.02610.

Over the last 24 hours, VET’s trading volume was $274 million, up 228% from the previous day. At the current level, the VeChain price is facing major resistance. For the moment, VET was rejected at the 200-day simple moving average (SMA) in the 1-day-chart, while maintaining its stance above the 100-day SMA.

The MACD indicator is also showing bullish signs. The MACD (Moving Average Convergence/Divergence) is a momentum indicator that shows the relationship between two moving averages of the price of a security. VET investors should therefore keep an eye on the indicator for any trend changes.

The RSI is neutral. The next big levels for VET are residing at the $0.035 and $0.043 mark.

VET USD VeChain

VeChain (VET) showing strength amid market turmoil in the 1-day-chart. Source: TradingView

What Is Fueling the VeChain (VET) Rally?

In addition to numerous partnerships that have been made public in recent weeks, VeChain is looking ahead to an extremely important event. The announcement for this took place yesterday.

The VeChain Foundation said the final phase of Proof of Authority 2.0 (POA2.0), the integration of finality with VIP-220, with block height 13,815,000, is expected to go live on Nov. 17, 8:10 a.m. UTC+0.

Key advances will include resolving the trade-off between the Nakamoto and Byzantine fault tolerance consensus, significant security improvements, data quality guarantees with finality, and enabling global sustainability goals, according to the VeChain Foundation.

This release enables the hard fork called Finality on the mainnet. It implements the VIP-220 finality with one bit (FOB), which allows nodes to check the finality of blocks.

Via Twitter, the foundation stated:

With this implementation, #VeChain takes a big leap towards our goal of facilitating global #MassAdoption of our #blockchain technologies, our objectives to become the de-facto platform for #Sustainability & spearhead economic #DigitalTransformation.

For VET holders, the hard fork on November 17 will basically be without impact. However, exchanges may temporarily suspend trade, deposits and withdrawals around the date and time of the upgrade.

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Solana Plunges 12% – Is FTX Selling Its SOL To Defend FTT?

Amidst the turmoil surrounding crypto exchange FTX, there is currently one big loser, Solana (SOL). While the FTT token is at the center of discussions for many market observers after Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced to sell all FTT tokens, SOL is seeing a massive -12% drop in price over the last 24 hours.

Even the FTT token is currently posting a loss of just under -3%. So what is driving the SOL sell-off ? Just a few days ago, SOL experienced a massive price spike after Google announced the launch of a Solana validator.

Early Monday morning, SOL fell from its one-month high of $38.78, which it reached on Saturday, to $30.74 on Binance. At press time, the SOL token was trading at $31.34. Today’s sell-off has thus wiped out all gains following the Google news and is now trading -8% on a weekly basis.

SOL USD Solana

Solana plummeting on the 4-hour-chart under $31. Source: TradingView

Solana A Victim Of The FTX Drama?

The Ethereum community, most notably Eric Conner, core dev of Ethereum and co-founder of EthHub were quick to denounce the supposed “Ethereum killer”. Conner stated via Twitter that it’s “funny as hell” to see the alleged “FTX/Alamada/Solana scam” unfold after two years.

But words of warning for Solana investors are not only coming from the ETH community. User are wondering if an possible impending FTX implosion will have a cascading effect on SOL.

It was recently revealed that Solana (SOL) tokens are among the more significant assets on FTX’s balance sheet. Bankman-Fried was an early investor in Solana and has drummed up support for Solana several times in the past.

The exchange owns about $3.37 billion in cryptocurrencies, with a large amount being SOL tokens: $292 million in “unlocked SOL”, $863 million in “locked SOL,” and $41 million in “SOL collateral”.

The total of about $1.2 billion in SOL tokens could be a means for FTX to get liquidity and defend the price of the FTT token, which is also the main pillar on FTX’s balance sheet. However, little is currently known about putative SOL selling by FTX. However, the sole relationship between FTX and Solana could be a major drag on the SOL price at the moment.

Thus, pure speculation could also be behind the current SOL dilemma. Backdrop is, as described at the beginning, that FTX has a deep connection with SOL. If there is a prolonged bank run, there is at least a very high probability that the Solana token will also take a big hit.

But, if Bankman-Fried is dumping SOL, it’s definitely not the only altcoin. As on-chain analysts note, other tokens are also affected of the selling pressure by FTX. These coins include CHZ, LOOM, SHIB, LINK, and DYDX.

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These Events Will Be Key For Bitcoin And Crypto This Week

The Bitcoin and crypto market is kicking off what could be an extremely important week. While the market is currently overwhelmed by the news surrounding the battle between Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (“CZ”) and FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (“SBF”), the midterm elections and the release of the CPI data in the US are two major events that could be of crucial importance for the market.

As Bitcoinist reports, CZ had announced on Sunday that Binance will sell all of its FTT tokens after a report surfaced that FTX’s books are in trouble. Even though FTX and Alameda have denied the rumors, a lot of selling pressure is currently building on FTT.

According to some analysts, this “FUD” could have a significant impact on the markets. As of press time, the Bitcoin price broke below the important $21,000, a mark which was breached last Friday and has been crossed for the first time since mid-September.

BTC USD Bitcoin

4-hour-chart of Bitcoin dropping below $21,000. Source: TradingView

Bitcoin Ahead Of Midterm Elections

Tomorrow, Tuesday, the midterm elections will take place in the U.S., deciding how Congress will be composed soon. As Bloomberg reports, the stakes are high for the Bitcoin and crypto community.

While the crypto industry waited for clear regulation in 2022, several bills were introduced that could have moved the industry forward. However, political disputes between lawmakers and lobbyists, as well as time pressure, prevented passage.

Experts believe the debate will now drag into 2023, unless a crypto bill is attached to a government funding package or another bill that absolutely must pass. “That makes the midterm elections more important than ever,” Bloomberg reports.

Current predictions forecast that Republicans could take back both the House and Senate, which could benefit the crypto industry. In Cynthia Lummis and Tom Emmer, Republicans provide two of the crypto industry’s biggest supporters. Bloomberg also estimates:

A Republican-controlled Congress would also likely put pressure on agencies, like the SEC — which the industry has charged with regulating through enforcement — to ease their aggressive posture against crypto firms.

CPI Data Release On Thursday

Whether there will be a positive impact on the market in the short term remains to be seen, but it is rather unlikely. Instead, all eyes are likely to be on Thursday, November 10.

On this day, the new consumer price index (CPI) will be released. During the last FOMC meeting of the U.S. central bank, Jerome Powell emphasized conspicuously often that the data must be awaited in order to determine the next steps in interest rate policy. In this respect, Thursday could be a crucial day for financial markets.

If inflation comes in higher as expected, the markets could react with a risk-sell-off. Conversely, if a significant drop in inflation is reported, the start of a new recovery rally could be triggered in anticipation of a slowing pace of rate hikes by the FED.

Even more important than CPI this time could be the core CPI, which measures the change in the cost of goods and services excluding the food and energy sectors. Provided the core CPI falls for the first time after a three-month rise and producer prices (PPI) also fall on November 15, this could be a powerful bullish sign for the markets.

In previous crises, such as in the 1970s and 1980s and also in 2008, the PPI was always a leading indicator of flattening inflation, which ultimately led to the FED’s pivot on interest rates. Thus, a falling CPI and core CPI could be the beginning of a near shift for the Bitcoin and crypto market.

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Cardano (ADA) Investors Watch For Nov. 18, Hoskinson Teases Announcement

Cardano (ADA) has fallen short of many investors’ expectations in recent weeks. Unlike numerous other altcoins, ADA is currently in a prolonged downtrend. In the 1-day chart, the price is currently below both the 100 and 200-day moving averages.

ADAUSD Cardano

Cardano trending to the downside. Source: TradingView

However, IOG CEO Charles Hoskinson might have given ADA investors hope with a new tweet. The Cardano founder was responding to a Twitter user’s question about when the announcement promised for November would be revealed.

Hoskinson didn’t mince words, saying, “I’ll announce it at the Edinburgh event.” Another Twitter user questioned whether the long-awaited announcement was about the algorithmic stablecoin Djed.

Djed has been under development by IOG and the COTI network for quite some time now. An announcement about it would not justify all the hype, according to the user. Hoskinson, however, disagreed, saying, “Not djed. Been working on it for 4 years”.

Therefore, it remains to be seen what is behind the mysterious announcement. In this respect, investors should be eagerly awaiting November 18 and 19, when IOG celebrates its Scotfest in Edinburgh.

What’s Behind The Mysterious Announcement For Cardano?

The event is expected to kick off the fifth phase of Cardano’s development, called Voltaire. Currently, the blockchain is still in its 4th era, Basho, which has scaling as its focus.

In this regard, the Cardano community is still eagerly awaiting “Hydra“. Simulations of the scaling solution developed by IOG have shown that each “Hydra head” can currently process about 1,000 transactions per second (TPS).

With 1,000 stacking pools, each processing 1,000 TPS, Cardano could achieve a throughput of up to one million transactions per second. Whether Hydra’s implementation will be the announcement in Edinburgh nevertheless remains to be seen.

Currently, Hydra remains in development. Already in March, IOG’s programmers unveiled the Hydra Heads protocol as part of a public testnet.

Another thing that speaks against the assumption that the announcement is about Hydra is that the IO Scotfest is supposed to celebrate the era of Voltaire. More than 20 keynotes are planned, with Hoskinson delivering the most important speech.

How the ADA price will behave remains to be seen. Previous “announcements of announcements” by Hoskinson, however, have usually generated some hype and price volatility in advance. Ultimately, the significance of the announcement will determine whether the event will be a “buy the rumor, sell the news” event.

Djed Stablecoin Entering The Home Stretch

Preparations for the launch of the Cardano stablecoin Djed are in full swing. As the founder of the COTI network revealed in mid-October, the final audit is currently taking place before the stablecoin is scheduled to go live at the end of November.

Djed is a stablecoin based on an algorithmic design. It uses smart contracts to guarantee and ensure price stabilization. For this, Djed works with a reserve of base coins and mints and burns stablecoins and reserve coins.

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Polygon (MATIC) Price Rallies As Whales Supply The Fuel

Polygon (MATIC) is one of the biggest winners in the crypto market today, with a 15% price increase over the last 24 hours. As NewsBTC reported yesterday, MATIC gave a golden cross signal on the daily chart a few days ago.

The last time MATICUSD posted this significant trading signal on the daily chart, the altcoin recorded a massive rally of more than 13,000%.

MATIC had been trading in a sideways channel since mid-July. After the golden cross formed on October 20, MATIC showed small strength. However, the explosive breakout from the sideways channel was triggered by fundamentals and probably whales scooping up MATIC.

Polygon MATIC USD

MATIC breaking out. Source: TradingView

After the announcement that META will use Polygon for Instagram NFTs, the price soared by more than 20% within one day and was able to overcome the 4-month high at $1.06.

Unsurprisingly, after Polygon’s explosive move (MATIC), the RSI is currently at 75 and thus in the overbought zone. A retest of the $1.06 level would thus be healthy for the market before the rally may find a continuation.

Meanwhile, on-chain analysis firm Sanitment has released data showing that whales have front-runned the pump. In an analysis, Santiment said that “a mid-October spike in Polygon holdings by 10m+ $MATIC whales may have foreshadowed this”.

Regarding the recent move, Santiment said that yesterday “marked the highest amount of $100k+ whale transactions since February for the 11th”.

Polygon MATIC

Whales frontrunning the rally. Source: Santiment

Fundamentals of Polygon Backing A Continuation Of The MATIC Rallye

Most notably, recent announcements from Instagram and JPMorgan have turned the spotlight on Polygon (MATIC). However, Polygon’s list of high-profile partners has been growing fast recently. In particular, Meta’s announcement caused a stir, as Polygon will be the very first partner in the NFT space for Instagram, as Bitcoinist reported.

No less sensational, however, was JP Morgan’s announcement of its first live trade worth about $71,000 on a public blockchain using Polygon.

In addition, Polygon recently set a new record with 6 million active wallets. Especially the partnership with Reddit has played a significant role in this success.

However, the list of renowned Polygon partners is much longer. They include Robinhood, Starbucks, Walt Disney Co, Stripe, eBay, NFL, Circle, Tether, Adidas, Prada, Adobe, Liverpool FC, Telefonica, Sequoia Capital, ApeCoin, Givenchy, Bulgari, SportFive, ShoppingIO, Mercedes-Benz Group, BitPay, Axelar and many more.

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Time To Buy SushiSwap (SUSHI)? Here Are The Levels To Watch

Besides the current market darling Dogecoin (DOGE), Polygon (MATIC) and Arweave (AR), driven by the Meta announcement, are attracting the most interest today. Flying somewhat under the radar at the moment is SushiSwap (SUSHI), which should be no less interesting in the coming weeks.

As Will Clemente, Co-Founder of Reflexivity Research recently tweeted, SUSHI is currently “the cleanest trading sh*tcoin I’ve ever played. Whoever is market making this, 10/10 job.”

As the respected analyst stated, he prefers the $1.50 to $1.55 level for a buy, as there is a confluence with large bids on Binance and liquidity levels for late longs.

The hourly chart currently reveals that the SushiSwap token has broken the important $1.65 level on the downside in the 1-hour chart., making it vulnerable for further downside.

SUSHI USD

SUSHI breaches $1.65. Source: TradingView

However, on the daily chart, the SUSHI price is still in an ascending channel. If the trend holds and a bounce occurs in the $1.55 area, the next big target could be the 5-month high at $2.00. If SUSHI manages to retake this mark as well, all eyes could be on $2.75.

SUSHI USD

Source: TradingView

Fundamentals Backing The Case For SUSHI

The fundamentals support the thesis of a continued upward trend for SUSHI. Thus, the decentralized crypto exchange SushiSwap has recently approved a restructuring. The Sushi DAO community has approved the plan of establishing 3 companies for a new DAO.

This was necessary after the Ooki DAO was targeted by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on September 22 for alleged violations of US investment laws. As a result, SUSHI’s price fell below $1.50.

The restructuring thus removed the regulatory uncertainty that had burdened the price.

Very bullish in early October was also the news that asset manager GoldenTree took a $5.3 million stake in SushiSwap. Subsequently, the SUSHI token soared by 13%.

As Clemente explained after the announcement at the time, SushiSwap has made a positive turnaround after some negative news. First, a new chief executive, Jared Grey, was hired.

Next, $50B asset manager GoldenTree placed its bet on SUSDHI and expressed their commitment with a post on the Sushi forum. Clemente therefore believes:

Aside from the assumption that the brilliant Avi Felman and Goldentree will do everything in their power to not let their first major public crypto position go bust, I think this offers an interesting asymmetric opportunity for Sushi.

If Goldentree orchestrates 1 positive change, the market will extrapolate that they’ll make several more. Make 2 changes and the market will extrapolate out even further.

This could create a reflexive effect for the Sushi turnaround narrative.