Chain Reactions: Bitcoin on exchanges is at five-year lows; Most memecoins dump, but not ‘Milady’
Coinhead
Coinhead
While the price of Bitcoin appears completely stagnant today, still ranging in the mid US$27k zone, there is at least one metric that’s encouraging for HODLers.
And it’s a metric that reflects the behaviour of Bitcoin HODLers themselves.
Santiment, a widely used blockchain and cryptocurrencies analytics platform, has published new data that shows the amount of BTC held on crypto exchanges has recently dropped significantly.
In fact, it notes, it’s at its “lowest ratio” (below 6%) since December 2017, which was an extremely bullish time in the market (although it capitulated in January 2018).
📉 The amount of #Bitcoin on exchanges is now at its lowest ratio since December, 2017. The five and a half year low is a good sign of increased interest in self custody for traders, and less potentially at risk to be sold back to exchange wallets. 👍 https://t.co/U3n9McxcnH pic.twitter.com/8NjZLf0k2D
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) May 8, 2023
This a positive sign because when there are lower amounts of BTC on exchanges, it means less investors and traders are looking to sell. The assumption is that the BTC is instead being safely tucked away in cold storage somewhere.
Which, of course, is exactly where any good Bitcoin holder should be storing it – with private keys/passwords kept in an extremely safe place, naturally, and certainly not just on a file on a laptop, for instance.
(Or, even worse, as popular YouTuber Mr Beast recently admitted, in an online wallet on a laptop next to the Bitcoin private key written on a note headlined “Bitcoin private key”. )
Even Binance, which is still the global exchange with the highest amount of trading activity by volume, has seen a rise in Bitcoin leaving its platform recently.
An increasing lack of trust in centralised crypto platforms has been prevalent ever since the FTX exchange imploded in astounding circumstances late last year, sending shockwaves through the industry. Self-custody of crypto assets has been on the rise since that time.
Binance saw a huge surge in outflows a few days ago after the exchange suspended Bitcoin withdrawals for a couple of hours on May 7 amid a frenzy of Bitcoin network activity and congestion/pending transactions related to the buying of Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens.
Binance then made a similar temporary withdrawals-suspension move again on May 8.
With the overall crypto market cap at US$1.18 trillion, down about 0.3% since this time yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.
Not a lot that looks overly encouraging on that crypto majors chart at a first glance.
Santiment has posted a further positive message for Bitcoin and crypto investors today, however, citing the dip seen earlier this morning to US$27.1k as “panic selling”.
It also mentioned the fact crypto prices are showing recovery signs amid a rise in bearish sentiment populating the sphere right now, suggesting that “these moments generally are good buy opportunities”.
😨 #Crypto traders were panic selling today as #Bitcoin fell to $27.1K hours ago. But prices have shown recovery signs. Time & time again, we see prices rise when #FUD words like #sell & #bearish emerge. These moments generally are good buy opportunities. https://t.co/VUGfTICuff pic.twitter.com/ZymmDQV09z
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) May 10, 2023
A couple of memecoins.
• Milady Meme Coin (LADYS), (market cap: US$79 million) +9,500%
• Optimus AI (OPTI), (market cap: US$18 million) +39%
This Milady meme coin rise is utterly insane, but I guess nothing should surprise in crypto any more. The token, by the way, has little to do with the popular NFT collection Milady Maker, which was referenced by Elon Musk in a tweet last night (AEST), sending the price of both the NFTs and the coin skyrocketing.
The meme token is merely a non-utility “homage” to the anime-inspired NFT project, created by an artist called Charlotte Fang.
$LADYS (@miladymemecoin) is up 11,632% today after Elon Musk tweeted a meme featuring the Milady NFT.
👧: https://t.co/fWuNwBZbFD pic.twitter.com/F43usrgSAK
— CoinGecko (@coingecko) May 11, 2023
Pretty much every other prominent memecoin right now…
• Bob Token (BOB), (market cap: US$27 million) -35%
• ORDI (ORDI), (market cap: US$337 million) -26%
• Ben (BEN), (market cap: US$38 million) -25%
• Wojak (WOJAK), (market cap: US$18 million) -18%
• Turbo (TURBO), (market cap: US$61 million) -15%
• Pepe (PEPE), (market cap: US$732 million) -12%
Pepe, meanwhile, has been labelled an alt-right “hate symbol” by the exchange Coinbase in a description of the token sent out in an email to Coinbase customers – according to a Cointelegraph report.
The prominent Twitter account “borovik.eth” shared a snippet of the email, which you can read here…
Why is @coinbase sending out emails telling people that $pepe is an alt-right hate symbol?? pic.twitter.com/UNzClQlwwv
— borovik.eth (@3orovik) May 11, 2023
Some of the popular token’s prominent holders have taken umbrage with the description, however, suggesting the exchange is completely out of touch on this one.
I will be closing my personal and business accounts with @Coinbase and moving them to @Gemini.#PEPE IS NOT A SYMBOL OF HATE@brian_armstrong, the $PEPE community DEMANDS that you retract your vulgar statement about #PEPECOIN!!#DELETECOINBASE, SHORT $COIN 👎
— Kenobi (@OG_Kenobi_Hello) May 11, 2023
While it’s true that the Pepe the frog image was indeed weirdly adopted by alt-right groups a few years ago, it’s also well documented that the cartoon’s original creator, Matt Furie, has been on something of a campaign ever since to “reclaim” Pepe from such groups and re-instil it as nothing more than what it was originally intended – a laidback cartoon character.
The crypto world also adopted the image, sending it to peak meme territory in what’s widely regarded in the space as nothing more than anarchic fun.
Surely a misunderstanding @brian_armstrong your writer was ignorant of Pepe's story arc… the original artist @Matt_Furie's universal & innocent character which is loved around the world; got mis-used; was reclaimed.
Pls issue a correction. See Pepe doc "Feels Good Man" pic.twitter.com/vuDt3p8Mtd
— Daniel 🐸 PEPENOMICS (@Daniel4Pepe) May 11, 2023
In any case, Pepe holders are more than a little ticked off with Coinbase right now.
COINBASE VS PEPE ARMY pic.twitter.com/qHEY3Q7Wxa
— beeple (@beeple) May 11, 2023