Winners & Losers of Market Contagion

Hi, Rebels! ⚡

As new updates trail the recent FTX crisis, contagion is spreading throughout the industry.

There are new threats which have prompted moves and countermoves from market participants who anticipate a tricky week.

Here’s how 👇

MARKET’S RESPONSE

Most cryptocurrencies were down earlier today as the global crypto market cap decreased 3.95% to $803.55 billion, over the last 24 hours. On the other hand, the total crypto market volume jumped 59.10% to $52.85 billion over the last 24 hours.

Currently, crypto prices have lost correlation with equity markets, an increasing occurrence in recent weeks. Major indexes closed slightly higher on Friday, two days after the Commerce Department's monthly retail report showed surprisingly resilient consumer spending. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was up 0.01%, while the S&P 500, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) climbed 0.48% and 0.59%, respectively.

In the last 48 hours, the FTX hackers have been extremely active after syphoning nearly $600 million worth of crypto from FTX on November 12. The hackers seem to be leveraging crypto bridges and decentralized pools to clean the exploited funds. Peckshiled alerts show that 1,990 $ETH worth $2.40 million were swapped for 140.03 renBTC worth $2.32 million. This move caused a lot of panic over the weekend, triggering a selloff that’s still unfolding at the time of writing!

What you should know

• hile the post-FTX contagion has been contained within crypto, it appears to be spreading within the industry.  Crypto lender BlockFi has halted withdrawals from its platform citing exposure to FTX, while another crypto lender Genesis Global Capital also halted withdrawals, and then Winklevoss-owned crypto exchange Gemini shut down its Gemini Earn program which offered yield to customers through the aforementioned Genesis.
• Speaking of Genesis, its exposure to FTX and Three Arrows Capital (both bankrupt) is pulling its parent Digital Currency Group (DCG) and Grayscale into the contagion. 

Now, Andrew Parish, co-founder of ArchPublic, has claimed that Barry Silbert’s DCG owes $1.1 billion to Genesis via a previously undisclosed promissory note hidden from potential investors. He believes hidden funds are the primary reason behind DCG and Genesis seeking $1 billion in emergency funding from investors - funds needed today in order to prevent the contagion spreading to DCG and Grayscale.

Some claim DCG fallout could have more ripple effects than FTX.

• The crypto market may be preparing for another knock this week as the U.S. Federal Reserve is set to release its next minutes this week Wednesday (November 23, 2022). The upcoming Federal Reserve minutes are expected to deliver a massive blow to the financial markets.

BITCOIN 

The current Bitcoin price is $16,018, and the 24-hour trading volume is $28 billion. Bitcoin has lost over 3% in the last 24 hours, with a live market cap of $309 billion, down from $352 billion.

Last week, BTC weathered the cascade of misadventures tied to crypto exchange FTX's collapse. However, it experienced a sell-off over the weekend as the hackers who stole roughly $600 million from the now-defunct FTX exchange decided to offload their holdings. While BTC crashed due to illiquid market conditions on the weekend, there are chances for a recovery bounce to occur.

Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele recently tweeted: “We are buying one #Bitcoin every day starting tomorrow.” That announcement has been followed by Tron founder Justin Sun who pledged to mimic Bukele’s accumulation strategy.

What you should know

From a trading perspective, the FTX hacker(s) could’ve used the weekend’s panic to their advantage by opening short positions before swapping ETH for BTC. They currently hold roughly 2444.55 BTC worth nearly $40 million.

The stolen funds could be swapped for different assets so that the exploiter can capture maximum price movement, aka profits. However, doing this on the weekdays is unlikely to help the hacker’s case as there is massive liquidity.

Therefore, traders need to be extra careful over the weekends and watch out for another sell-off.

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