Bitcoin took a dramatic dive down to US$25k earlier today before a just-as-sharp recovery saw it spike back up again just under US$26k. A reverse Bart Simpson. Huzzah for volatility, right?

What caused the dip, what caused the bounce back? Not everything can be explained by news and fundamentals, unfortunately. The dark arts of behind-the-scenes trading activity will definitely be at play here…

That said … here’s what we can quickly glean from the bearish and bullish sides of the analysis and news ledger today, and maybe a little from what lies in between, too…

 

FTX crypto sell-off worries remerge

There has been quite a bit of fear, uncertainty and doubt over the past handful of days surrounding the potential sale of old FTX crypto assets. And it might be this that’s weighing most heavily on the crypto market right at this moment.

Altcoins (basically every crypto token that isn’t Bitcoin and these days Ethereum) have been hammered on the back of this negative narrative. After recent strong performance, Solana (SOL) is leading the altcoin losses in the majors with a 7% dip over the past week.

Essentially the market is biting fingernails over the possibility of the FTX exchange (yes, it still exists as a bankrupt, liquidating firm) securing approval from the bankruptcy courts process to sell assets from its US$3.4bn worth of crypto holdings.

 

 

Singapore-based digital asset services provider Matrixport wrote in a Monday market report that “an altcoin crash is coming” as FTX might start selling tokens as soon as this week.

And the reason Solana is under pressure, as CoinDesk notes,  is because FTX still holds some US$1.16 billion worth of the token – nearly 16% of its outstanding supply. Yikes. 

 

But…

Is this all just, to some degree, baseless “FUD”, though? Can FTX just dump on the market all at once? 

Here’s a take from analyst Lark Davis, who reckons he’s debunked it, noting “these coins will not be market sold”, guessing that most of them will instead be traded OTC (over the counter) outside of exchanges and therefore not creating knock-on selling havoc on exchanges. 

He also adds that “those that aren’t will be sold slowly via market markers, IMO.” 

“And as for SOL – this is all locked with release of the coins happening over the next 4 years. When this is sold OTC, it will be someone buying FTX’s vesting contract,” he clarifies. “BTC & ETH – they have a good amount, but not billions. This is absorbable buy pressure…

“The FUD around this is worse than the actual event itself.”

 

 

Altcoins due a turnaround?

Another popular analyst avoiding the doom and gloom at the moment is Dutch trader Michaël van de Poppe, who tells his 666,000+ followers on X that altcoins are in their “depression phase” right now. In other words, they’re pretty much at rock bottom and are “ready to start trending upwards”.

You can grab a visual bead on where he thinks the crypto market is at in his tweet below, in which he references the good ol’ Wall Street Cheat Sheet.

 

 

“The interest in crypto is at the same levels as in 2020, while BTC pairs are slowly breaking out,” writes the van that goes Poppe, adding:

“The interest in the markets isn’t there, while we’ve got some important indicators in the meantime:

– Bitcoin spot ETF around the corner.
– Ethereum spot ETF applications.
– Ethereum futures ETF around the corner.

“The institutions are jumping in.”

 

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at US$1.06 trillion, down a fraction since this time yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

 

 

Uppers and downers

Some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time. (Stats accurate at time of publishing, based on CoinGecko.com data.)

PUMPERS (11-100 market cap position)

• Trust Wallet (TWT), (market cap: US$336 million) +9%

• Optimism (OP), (market cap: US$1.05 billion) +5%

• Kaspa (KAS), (market cap: US$844 million) +2%

 

SLUMPERS

• Rollbit Coin (RLB), (market cap: US$413 million) -11%

• Arbitrum (ARB), (market cap: US$983 million) -8%

• Klaytn (KLAY), (market cap: US$394 million) -6%

 

Around the blocks

Some pertinence and randomness that stuck with us on our morning moves through the Crypto Twitterverse.

 

 

 

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