Day: November 13, 2022

Weekly Crypto Market Performance Review Amid FTX Implosion

by Blockchain News

The digital currency ecosystem is trading with massive volatility that was engineered by the collapse and eventual bankruptcy of the FTX derivatives exchange over the past week. The combined crypto market cap has slumped to $837.47 billion, one of its lowest points over the past year.

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FTX Token (FTT) visibly induced the breakdown in prices dropping by over 92.33% in the trailing 7 days period to $1.78 according to data from CoinMarketCap. The coin’s collapse mimicked that of Terra (LUNA) which shed 12 months’ gains in just about a week when the TerraUSD (UST) algorithmic stablecoin collapsed earlier in May.

Investors in the industry have lost trust in FTX even before its bankruptcy filing, a move that stirred the withdrawals of funds that precipitated the trading platform’s liquidity crunch. Seeing the bleak future of the company, FTT holders had to sell off the coins on other exchanges also.

How the Top 10 Coins Performed for the Week

Every digital currency in the top 10 list has performed relatively poorly over the past week to date. Bitcoin is changing hands at $16,655.55, down 21.50% in the week-to-date period. Bitcoin even dropped as low as $15,682.69 in the course of the week, its lowest point in close to 2 years.

Ethereum (ETH) met a similar fate and slumped 23.63% over the week to $1,237.73. Binance Coin (BNB) is trading at $278.36 atop a 20.41% slump. XRP, Polygon (MATIC), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Cardano (ADA) also recorded more than a 20% drop over the week under review. 

Despite the onslaught that has been recorded thus far, the ecosystem is still not out of the woods as the ripple effect of the FTX collapse is bound to be revealed in the coming weeks. Investors will need to err on the side of caution until the coast is adjudged to be clear.

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Huobi Reveals its Holdings to be $3.5B in Hot and Cold Wallets

by Blockchain News

The tension that arose in the crypto space due to the fallout of the FTX exchange has brought about the need for crypto exchange platforms to become transparent as regards their financial position.

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Huobi, a crypto exchange based in Seychelles has revealed its assets in a bid to foster transparency with its customers. The report revealed Huobi’s total assets to be estimated at $3.5 billion with Bitcoin having an estimated reserve of 37,000, Ethereum 274,000, Tether (USDT) 820,000,000, and Tron (TRX) 9.7 billion.

Huobi also made a pledge to continue the disclosure of its assets going forward. According to the platform, this will be an avenue to show its commitment to prioritizing the interest of its customers and the protection of its assets.

The report also revealed that Huobi performed an audit known as the Merkle Tree Proof of Reserves when About Capital took over as the major shareholder in October in order to satisfy due diligence procedures. Huobi added that there are already plans in place to repeat the audit process using a third party within 30 days of this writing.

Huobi Group Expands Despite Challenges in the Crypto Ecosystem

Huobi announced in October that it is ready to sell the majority of its shares to About Capital, an investment company based in Hong Kong. About Capital will not have dealings with Huobi’s business operations and management according to the announcement.

The announcement was made shortly after speculations that Huobi’s founder, Leon Li was rumored to be looking for a buyer for his almost 60% interest in Huobi and was demanding at least $1 billion at the time.

Huobi has recently announced that it would be setting up its headquarters in the Caribbean as it plans to position itself globally. 

Justin Sun who was previously rumored to have bought Huobi, but was later appointed as a special adviser on Huobi’s board stated that he had a meeting with Dominica’s prime minister Roosevelt Skerrit. He believes the Caribbean is a crypto-friendly community and Huobi will also help to develop their crypto framework.

The transparency moves are all in a bid to wade off any threat to its global growth

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Kraken Freezes All FTX Group Linked Accounts

by Blockchain News

Kraken Exchange has announced that accounts belonging to FTX, Alameda Research, and their executives have been frozen after FTX filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States.

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According to a tweet from Kraken, it decided to freeze those accounts in order to safeguard creditors of FTX, Alameda Research and their executives after speaking with law enforcement agencies. 

Kraken further emphasized that other clients’ accounts are not included in those that have been locked and that the company currently has full reserves.

Kraken also added that its first concern has always been and will continue to be the protection of customers’ finances. The exchange hinted that its dedication to a higher standard of accountability and transparency in the cryptocurrency industry is evidenced by its ongoing Proof of Reserves audits.

The purpose of a Proof of Reserves (PoR) is to verify that a custodian actually has the assets it says it does on behalf of its clients. It is an independent audit carried out by a third party. This auditor gathers all stored balances into a Merkle tree, a privacy-friendly data structure that contains all client balances, after taking an anonymized snapshot of each balance.

Kraken’s Dealings with Regulators

The Kraken exchange reported in September that it has no intentions to delist tokens titled as securities from its platform, despite Coinbase being under investigation by the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) for listing coins designated as securities. According to Kraken CEO Dave Ripley, there is now no need to do so because Kraken does not offer securities.

In October, Kraken’s Blair Halliday, who formerly served as the U.K. Chief of Gemini, was named the new Managing Director of Kraken’s UK operations. Halliday will be in charge of managing Kraken’s 350 employees as well as its “commercial, regulatory, and political contacts in the UK,” according to the report.

The statement comes just after numerous executives changed their positions during the period of the crypto bear market, leaving many investors and shareholders unsure of what would happen next.

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Wrapped Tokens Issued by FTX or Alameda Slumps, No Longer Redeemable

by Blockchain News

Following the filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy from FTX, the wrapped tokens issued by the crypto exchange or its sister trading shop Alameda Research have now undergone a price decline.

According to data from Coingecko, Wrapped bitcoin on Sollet is down by over 60% in the past 24 hours, falling from its native bitcoin’s current $16,811. In contrast, Wrapped ETH on Sollet is also down but by only about 8% to $1,209 over the same 24 hours time frame. Native ETH is trading at $1,261, at the time of writing.

Notably, for both wrapped tokens, soETH and soBTC, Coingecko is displaying a warning notice on its website that reads: “soBTC tokens are wrapped BTC tokens issued by FTX or Alameda. Both these entities have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and the BTC tokens are no longer redeemable.”

Wrapping tokens, such as the one for Bitcoin or Ethereum, on Solana make these assets available for usage on the Solana blockchain so users can hold or trade them instead of the actual Bitcoin or Ethereum.

Founder of Roktiapp, an open source portfolio tracking app, commented on these wrapped assets saying since most Solana wrapped assets were custodied by the now collapsed crypto exchange FTX and Alameda research means the wrapped tokens are no longer redeemable and will probably go to 0.

Reactions concerning the wrapped assets were just individuals trying to warn others that the wrapped tokens were not real tokens. A tweep with the Pseudonymous meow tweeted,

“The worst case scenarios for soBTC came true – nothing is backing it, rogue devs have access to FTX accounts & no one takes any responsibility.”

So far, news concerning the collapse of FTX keeps getting worse.

Yesterday, Blockchain.News reported FTX is soon to have its European License suspended by Cyprus regulators. Meanwhile, on Nov 9, CySEC requested FTX Europe to “suspend its operations and to proceed immediately with a number of actions for the protection of the investors.”

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Mercedes F1 Team Terminates FTX Partnership

by Blockchain News

Mercedes formula one (F1) team suspended its sponsorship deal with troubled crypto exchange FTX.  

Therefore, starting with the Brazilian Grand Prix, the team’s cars will not bear FTX logos. Mercedes stated:

“As a first step, we have suspended our partnership agreement with FTX. This means the company will no longer appear on our race car and other branded assets from this weekend. We will continue to monitor the situation closely as it evolves.”

This decision was reached based on the fast-changing situation, given that FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy based on a liquidity crisis at the exchange. Moreover, the exchange’s CEO Sam Bankman-Fried resigned. 

The FTX saga unfolded several days ago after an 8 billion black hole emerged in its finances. Reportedly, this liquidity crisis surfaced after Sam Bankman-Fried transferred at least $4 billion to Alameda Research, FTX’s trading arm, with part of the funds being customer deposits. 

FTX’s downfall is also being linked to Bankman-Fried’s decision to save struggling crypto firms as the bear market continued to bite. 

Therefore, the bankruptcy route seemed inevitable, given that Binance halted its FTX acquisition plans, citing misappropriation of customer funds. 

The sponsorship deal between Mercedes F1 team and FTX was not all rosy, given that the latter called off this year’s Miami Grand Prix.

Meanwhile, earlier this year, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff acknowledged that cryptocurrencies could not be ignored because they were part of modern technology because 80% of racing teams in the 2022 F1 grid featured at least one crypto sponsor. 

“You can’t shut yourself down to modern technology. It is definitely an area that will grow. They have become a major player in the financial world and obviously seek exposure through Formula 1. We all benefit from it but also learn from it,” Wolff stated. 

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Bitcoin (BTC) $ 41,301.07 5.74%
Ethereum (ETH) $ 2,211.62 6.48%
Litecoin (LTC) $ 72.02 6.69%
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) $ 230.19 8.39%