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Summary Of The Contagion Event That Brought On The Bear Market

Are we in a bear market? Opinions vary, but it certainly feels like one. Markets across the board and across the world are in the red, and the bitcoin and crypto ones are no exception. If you’ve been paying attention, you know how all of this happened, but a refresher course wouldn’t hurt. Using ARK Invest’s latest Bitcoin Monthly report as a guide, let’s go through the tragic sequence of events and evaluate the bitcoin market as it stands.

According to ARK, the road to the bear market went like this: 

“Beginning with the Terra collapse in early May, contagion spread to major crypto lenders including Blockfi, Celsius, Babel, Voyager, CoinFlex, contributing to the insolvency of the once highly-respected hedge fund, Three Arrows Capital (3AC). Since Terra’s collapse, total crypto market capitalization has dropped ~$640 billion.”

Nevertheless, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. “Promisingly, however, recent fallout (Babel, Voyager, CoinFlex, Finblox) appears lower in magnitude compared to Terra, Celsius, and 3AC.” That doesn’t mean the end of the bear market is near, nor that capitulation is already over. Especially if the Mt. Gox victims receive the rumored 150K BTC.

First, let’s follow ARK as they analyze two of the main players in this drama. Then, let’s check the stats of the bitcoin market to see if we can find signs and clues that point out to the end of the capitulation stage. SPOILER ALERT: The jury is still out on that one. Some signs point to an early end, others to further downside. Aren’t bear markets fun?

Celsius And The Bear Market

When Terra fell, the earth trembled. The Luna Foundation Guard sold nearly all of their 80K BTC reserve trying to defend the UST peg to the dollar. This event could’ve been the catalyst for the bear market. The worst was yet to come, though. Several once-respected institutions were heavily exposed to Terra through its Anchor protocol, and the UST collapse sent them all into a still ongoing death spiral. 

According to ARK, “Celsius froze withdrawals on June 12th in response to significant outflows. Its DeFi debt outstanding is $631 million but the magnitude of its nonDeFi exposure is unclear.” There was still hope for its clients, as the company paid several loans. However, Celsius filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, leaving them all high and dry.

The Chief Commercial Officer at Choise.com, Andrey Diyakonov, analyzed the situation for NewsBTC:

“To put things into perspective, we need to turn it upside down, and ask, how much of the recent price action on the markets was influenced by or outright created by Celsius’ actions? What goes around always comes around. It’s so much more ironic given those credible reports that Celsius withdrawals were among those that sent UST and Terra position down the rabbit hole to find out where the bottom is.”

Our team covered that particular claim and the company’s response.

Three Arrows Capital And The Death Spiral

Then, there was “Three Arrows Capital (3AC), a highly regarded crypto hedge fund reportedly managing $18 billion at its peak, appears to be insolvent after taking on too much leverage.” That’s according to ARK, who also says, “Seemingly, 3AC took on excess leverage to try and recover the losses. Its creditors included major players in the industry like Genesis, BlockFi, Voyager, and FTX.”

All of those companies except FTX seem to be counting down to extinction. 

BTC price chart for 07/15/2022 on Velocity | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
Is The Bear Market Just Beginning Or About To End?

Is the bottom in? Opinions vary. In a section titled “Market Contagion Sets Bitcoin Into Capitulation,” ARK analyzes all of the indicators and can’t reach a final conclusion. The numbers are extremely interesting, though.

  • “Down 70% from its all-time high, bitcoin is trading at or below some of its most important levels: its 200-week moving average, the general cost basis of the market (realized price), the cost bases of long-term (LTH) and short-term holders (STH), and its 2017 peak.”

This “suggests extremely oversold conditions,” which is a great sign. However…

  • “Historically, global bottoms occur when the MVRV of short-term holders exceeds the MVRV of long-term holders. That condition has not been met, suggesting the potential for more downside.”

The “condition has not been met,” but it’s close. Very close.

  • “This month, miners generated revenues only 45% of that for the last twelve months, breaching a threshold that usually correlates with market bottoms.”

Miners who didn’t practice proper risk management have been selling at the present low levels. Miners who know what they’re doing will keep holding until we come out of the bear market. The question is, how many companies are in the first group and haven’t sold just yet? 

  • “Net realized losses in bitcoin recently reached a 2-year low, breaching 0.5% for only the fourth time since 2013.”

Historically, this suggests capitulation is over. Or is it?

  • “Bitcoin’s net unrealized loss has hit a 3-year low, highlighting that its current market value is nearly 17% lower than that of its aggregate cost basis. Historically, global bottoms have formed when losses hit 25%+.”

If we’re going to reach 25%, that means there’s still a long way to go.

Is the bear market just beginning or about to end? The data is unclear. But capitulation seems to be nearing its end, which would be the first step in the right direction.

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ARK: Now Decoupled From Terra, “Bitcoin’s Selling Pressure Should Subside”

The Terra / Luna / UST collapse keeps on generating headlines. This time, we’ll use the data in ARK’s “The Bitcoin Monthly” report to establish its impact on the bitcoin ecosystem. Remember that the non-profit organization LFG, AKA as the Luna Foundation Guard, was accumulating BTC to defend UST’s peg to the dollar. In a then-delated May interview, Terra’s Do Kwon said that they were trying to get to $1B in BTC so that “besides Satoshi, we will be the largest single holder of Bitcoin in the world.” He also proclaimed, “within the crypto industry, the failure of UST is equivalent to the failure of crypto itself.”

Related Reading | Terra Beats Tesla As Second-Largest Corporate Bitcoin Holder After $1.5B Purchase

At one point, it appeared that BTC and UST destinies were inextricably linked, but the bitcoin network absorbed the collapse nearly unscathed. Let’s look at ARK’s numbers and try to figure out how it did it. 

Terra, The Largest L-1 Blockchain Failure Ever

At this point, everybody knows what happened with Terra. Nobody knows how it happened, though. Was it a coordinated attack or did the natural market’s forces trigger the death spiral event? We wouldn’t know, but the fact of the matter is that the UST de-pegged from the dollar causing a bank run in the Anchor protocol, and the eventual demise of the algorithmic stablecoin and its twin, LUNA.

How big was the collapse? According to ARK’s report:

“In addition to causing the crash in UST and Luna, we believe Terra is the largest layer-1 blockchain failure in crypto history, wiping out a combined $60 billion of market capitalization between UST and Luna.”

Huge in size by any metric, but, how does it compare to previous crypto collapses? The only comparable collapse was “the Mt. Gox hack that stole 5.7% of total crypto market cap in 2014, Terra’s collapse destroyed roughly 2.7% of crypto’s total market capitalization.” The Mt. Gox hack almost destroyed the bitcoin network at a time when it was more vulnerable. The Terra collapse felt like a breeze in comparison, but, as the numbers show, it wasn’t. 

BTC price chart for 06/07/2022 on Eightcap | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
How Did The Terra Collapse Affect BTC?

Besides the LFG foundation reportedly selling its 80K BTC, the collapse created extreme selling pressure on bitcoin. According to the report, “exchanges recorded net inflows of 52,000 bitcoin, the largest daily inflow in BTC terms since November 2017 and the largest inflow ever in USD terms.” These are notable numbers. 

Bitcoin Net Flows To and From Exchanges | Source: ARK’s “The Bitcoin Monthly”

According to the bitcoin blockchain, the account associated with “LFG currently holds 313 BTC, down from 80,934 BTC held prior to Terra’s unraveling”. Did they sell the rest, though? Nobody knows for sure. Back to the report: 

“To backstop UST’s peg, The Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) reportedly sold most of its ~80,000-bitcoin reserves, contributing to this record inflow.”

Surprising even hardcore bitcoiners, the network resisted this massive sell-off without breaking a sweat. Sure, bitcoin’s price suffered, but the blow wasn’t even close to being fatal. And ARK’s prediction reflects that fact, “now decoupled from the Terra blockchain, bitcoin’s selling pressure should subside, yet contagion in the crypto markets is still inconclusive.” Why? Because “bitcoin’s more secure and conservative blockchain should gain market share.”

Are Algorithmic Stablecoins Even Possible?

To answer this we’ll quote NYDIG’s report “On Impossible Things Before Breakfast,” which comes with the subtitle, “a post-mortem on Terra, a pre-mortem on DeFi, and a glimpse of the madness to come.” As the titles gave away, NYDIG believes that not algorithmic stablecoins nor DeFi as it currently stands are possible. Why? Well…

“No matter how well intentioned, all algorithmic stablecoins will fail and the vast majority – possibly all – of DeFi’s current versions will fail, where “fail” here means not gaining sufficient critical mass to matter, being hacked, blowing up, or being altered by regulation to the point of non-viability. In the end, the Terra project could control the supply of its money, but it couldn’t make its people value it. A printing press was the only (non)answer. Sound familiar? Lacking a lender of last resort, DeFi (re)creates the problems solved by central banks. Bitcoin solves the problems created by central banks.”

Related Reading | TerraLabs Sold Over 80,000 BTC To Rescue Its Stablecoin

As it usually happens, we could summarize this whole article with the old adage: “Bitcoin fixes this.”

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Mt Gox Gets Approval To Return 141,686 To Victims Affected In 2014 Hack

Mt Gox is set to return BTC lost by victims who were affected when its platform was hacked back in 2014. The Mt Gox hack has become somewhat of a legend in the crypto space, although it is very much real. It really kickstarted the “not your keys, not your coins” school of thought after thousands lost their crypto holdings when the crypto exchange succumbed to a hack that would see it shutter its doors forever.

The Mt Gox rehab plan was established after the hack, seeking to compensate those who lost their bitcoins to the hack six years ago. The rehab plan had been pending for a while but a trustee board has recently approved the plan. This means that compensation will soon begin for the victims of the hack who will finally get at least a portion of the assets they had lost in 2014.

Related Reading | Crypto Analyst Says Bitcoin Won’t Hit $100,000 This Year, When Will It Hit?

Redistributing 141,686 BTC

The total amount of bitcoin to be redistributed in the rehab plan is 141,686. It will go to those who are confirmed to have lost their bitcoin to the exchange hack and had subsequently voted to have the rehab plan approved. The Tokyo District Court had approved the reimbursement notice after the voting period was concluded, which would see the BTC redistributed back to the victims.

BTC on a downward trend | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com

Users affected by the hack have waited more than six years and now it looks like there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The date of redistribution is yet to be disclosed by the parties in charge. Mindao Yang, a creditor of Mt Gox, disclosed that the victims may in fact not see their compensation until 2023. This is because creditors will have to collect their funds gradually over time.

Redistribution Plan

A factor to consider when it comes to the redistribution of the BTC is the fact that the bitcoins are now worth a lot more than they used to. When the infamous Mt Gox hack occurred, the price of bitcoin was $500-$600 on average. Today, the digital asset’s value has ballooned to over $60,000. This has led to concerns as to whether the victims will get their original BTC holdings back or be paid out in fiat.

CoinDesk addressed this in a report from May as to how the redistribution could work. Claimants had received a letter in 2020 that notified them of how their holdings would be returned. The payouts would be made in both JPY and BTC or BCH. However, it is being made with the price of bitcoin pegged to about $7,000 per coin. This is a long way from the current trading price of over $60K but it is also much higher than the average price when the hack occurred.

Impact On Bitcoin Price

With approximately 150,000 BTC set to hit the market once the redistribution begins, there have been speculations of what this might mean for the digital asset. Some have predicted that the price of bitcoin will suffer greatly once these coins hit the market. This is not entirely true.

Related Reading | There Are More People Using Bitcoin Wallets Than Bank Accounts, Says El Salvador President

There is no doubt that some of the BTC being released will hit exchanges. However, it is important to bear in mind that the payouts will not happen in one fell swoop. The redistribution will be carried out over time to various creditors. This means that all of the 141,686 bitcoins will not hit the market at the same time. Rather, only a small amount at a time will be released, which will not have much impact on the price of the digital asset.

Featured image from Forbes, chart from TradingView.com

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Charlie Lee Sums Up Litecoin’s 10 Years History. Part Two: Exchanges + Betrayal

The creator of Litecoin, Charlie Lee, continues to guide us through memory lane. For part one, he took us through Litecoin’s fair launch. Considering the small number of projects that have managed to do this, it’s a pretty big achievement. Today, for part two, we’re going to cover the project’s relation with cryptocurrency exchanges. Charlie Lee wears his heart on his sleeve for this one, and tells a heartfelt story that ends up in betrayal. Can you feel the excitement in the air?

Related Reading | Charlie Lee Predicts Resurgence of Litecoin as Bitcoin Cash Falters

This part of the story is all about relationships, connections, and the long road to credibility. It’s also about Charlie Lee’s resistance and willpower.

Before we get into the meat and potatoes of the story, though, a light detail that shouldn’t go unnoticed.

Charlie Lee Gives Flowers To The Litecoin Logo Creators

There’s not much story to the logos, but it’s cool that Charlie Lee gives credit where credit is due. The first and the second one show evolution:

The second logo was designed by @mjbmetals. I still like that quite a lot. It looks well next to that Bitcoin logo.https://t.co/T5hzEldonI pic.twitter.com/Uy5qpl8JUP

— Charlie Lee (@SatoshiLite) October 7, 2021

And the final one is a simplification of the second one:

And the current logo is designed by Robbie Coleman (@robertfcoleman) and his team.

Of course being decentralized, there are many other logos that people have created and used. Some are pretty wacky. And people can use whatever logo they want and I can't do anything about it. 😂 pic.twitter.com/M7FgBcGPum

— Charlie Lee (@SatoshiLite) October 7, 2021

That being said, let’s get back to the story.

LTC price chart for 10/09/2021 on Coinbase | Source: LTC/USD on TradingView.com
Litecoin’s Long Hard Road To Exchange Listings

This contradicts the title, but, in 2011 Litecoin was immediately listed in the defunct BTC-e. The site was a pretty successful cryptocurrency exchange that fell into disgrace when the US Justice Department accused them of laundering funds from the Mt. Gox hack, but that’s another story. Regarding Litecoin, Charlie Lee tells us that the listing, “helped a lot as miners had access to liquidity pretty quickly. Litecoin quickly become one of the most popular coin on BTC-e.”

From 2011 to 2013, I spent a lot of time supporting Litecoin's early growth and pushed for adoption wherever I can. I pretty much talked to all the exchanges to support LTC. I realized that liquidity is super important for a coin. Without liquidity, you can't do anything.

— Charlie Lee (@SatoshiLite) October 7, 2021

However, even though Lee “pretty much talked to all the exchanges to support LTC,” it was two years later that the second one listed Litecoin. Bitfinex took a chance on the nascent project, “This was a huge deal for Litecoin. It’s the first major exchange to support LTC.”

At the Bitcoin 2013 conference, I remember attending a talk by Bitstamp Co-Founder and CEO Nejc Kodrič( @nejc_kodric). During the Q&A after the talk, I asked him if Bitstamp will add Litecoin. I think he just chuckled and went to the next question.

— Charlie Lee (@SatoshiLite) October 7, 2021

Then, Charlie Lee remember how he tried to get the CEO of Bitstamp to list them and he laughed him off. Only to list the coin in 2017. The same thing happened with BitPay, who ended up supporting Litecoin only this year. 

The Chinese exchanges, though, listed Litecoin from the beginning. “Sometime late 2012 to early 2013, 2 of the largest exchanges in China, Okcoin and Huobi, added support for LTC. That was huge.” A question arises, did Charlie Lee have to throw shade at those two exchanges this hard? “The trading volume was also pretty crazy, but unclear how much of that was fabricated.”

In 2013, I thought it was time for me to step away from Litecoin. I was very fortunate to find Warren Togami (@wtogami), Founder of the Fedora Project, to take over as Litecoin lead developer. Warren is amazing and we were very lucky to have him at the helm of development.

— Charlie Lee (@SatoshiLite) October 7, 2021

Charlie Lee And Coinbase, A Love Story

So, in 2013 Charlie Lee steps down as Litecoin’s lead developer and leaves the job to Warren Togami. At the same time, he leaves a high-paying job at Google because they weren’t interested in anything crypto-related. That’s when Coinbase gets into the picture. Lee contacts them to see if they’re interested in listing Litecoin and they end up hiring him instead.

I interviewed at Coinbase and on paper, it sounded like a horrible deal. I would have to commute to SF, which was an hour each way, take a 50% or so pay cut, work twice as hard, and miss out on all the Google perks. But it was a no-brainer for me.

— Charlie Lee (@SatoshiLite) October 8, 2021

According to Charlie Lee, “Coinbase was the hot startup and THE crypto company that is making Bitcoin easy to use. I knew that if Bitcoin didn’t succeed, Litecoin wasn’t going anywhere either.” A cold hard truth that all of the Altcoins have to live with to this day. Besides that, Lee wanted to eventually convince Coinbase to support Litecoin. How could he not?

But at least he created a cool banner for it. 😁https://t.co/7BToh7YNdX

After that, there were rumors of @MtGox finally adding its second coin, Litecoin. At the time MtGox had like 97% of the total Bitcoin trading volume. Support of LTC would be huge for Litecoin's liquidity. pic.twitter.com/rfBhA7z1Pm

— Charlie Lee (@SatoshiLite) October 8, 2021

The Chinese connection paid off and the BTC China, lead by Charlie Lee’s brother, listed the coin. “Although it was a huge news, what took him so long?!,” asks Lee hilariously. Also notice that the banner that he mentions plays on the fact that Charlie and Bobby are brothers. 

In 2015, there were rumors that the infamous Mt. Gox exchange was going to list Litecoin. At the time, this was THE place to be. Charlie Lee finally confirms the story, “The rumors were actually true. I was talking to the CEO, Mark Karpelès almost on a daily basis in mid 2015.” However, the Mt. Gox hack was exposed before they materialized those plans. And all hell broke loose. “In hindsight, it was a blessing in disguise.”

Then, as it happens, things turned sour in the Charlie Lee and Coinbase romance.

That changed though in 2016. The was when Litecoin trade volume exploded on Chinese exchanges and it was clear to me that Coinbase was leaving a lot of money on the table by not supporting altcoins. And it made business sense for Coinbase to add altcoins.

— Charlie Lee (@SatoshiLite) October 8, 2021

The Brian Armstrong tweet he refers to says: “Ripple, Stellar, and Altcoins are all a distraction. Bitcoin is way too far ahead. We should be focused on bitcoin and sidechains.” Wow. What would the Brian Armstrong of the present say about that statement?

Anyway, in 2016 Litecoin’s trading volume was exploding in the Chinese exchanges and Charlie Lee saw his opportunity. “This was also when Ethereum was starting to get big. So I put together a proposal to Brian and Fred Ehrsam to add both LTC and ETH to Coinbase.” The proposal’s thesis was that, since people in the US had no easy way to buy, store, and trade those coins, there was “a lot of unsatisfied demand.” And Coinbase could make a lot of money. 

There was a lot of unsatisfied demand. People in the US had no easy way to store and trade these coins. And Coinbase would steal a lion share of the demand if we added the 2 coins to start.

Both Brian and Fred like the idea but they crossed out LTC. They just want to do ETH.

— Charlie Lee (@SatoshiLite) October 8, 2021

Here it is: betrayal. The two Coinbase executives broke Charlie Lee’s heart by accepting the proposal, but only for Ethereum. “Although I went along with the plan, it kind of rubbed me the wrong way. Litecoin had a much higher global trade volume at the time and was the #2 coin in marketcap.” A little while later, Lee took three months of Coinbase to focus on his project.

Related Reading | CHARLIE LEE: AN UNCOMMON INTERVIEW

In the next episode, Litecoin’s story intertwines with Bitcoin’s and the controversial Segwit implementation. We’re going to discover that Charlie Lee and his team were instrumental in this. How? Tune in to find out. 

 

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