Major crypto lending firm BlockFi has filed for bankruptcy, making it another crypto contagion casualty in the wake of the FTX implosion.

The firm has officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection according to a press release circulated overnight (AEDT). It encompasses Blockfi and eight of its affiliates.

BlockFi joins the growing list of major (and smaller) crypto firms affected by this year’s crypto contagion that began with the collapse of the Terra Luna blockchain and ecosystem in May. Some of these include Celsius, Voyager, Three Arrows Capital and, of course, FTX, with other large entities seemingly facing difficulties, notably Genesis Global Capital.

 

China spamming porn on Twitter… what?

The BlockFi news comes in a week when civil unrest is boiling over in China amid strict Covid policies, which has sent US stocks tumbling over potential, wider global economic implications. And that includes Apple (-2.63%) – for which there are concerns about a hit to its iPhone production.

Shares in publicly listed crypto and blockchain firms, including Coinbase, Riot Blockchain and Marathon Digital Holdings have fallen about 4 per cent since BlockFi made its announcement.

And here’s something… according to The Washington Post and other sources, Chinese Twitter accounts have been flooded with posts about porn and escorts in what seems to be an attempt to block or distract from news about the Chinese Covid protesting.

Yep, this is the world we live in.

So, how’s the cryptocurrency market faring, then? Let’s take a look.

 

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at US$854 billion, down 2.8% since this time yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

Considering the mayhem in the industry and beyond right now, this chart could be worse, we feel.

Dogecoin has backed off from the exuberance it showed yesterday based on speculation around Twitter payments integration (again), although it’s still holding onto some of the strong gains it made, reflected in its seven-day +22% figure.

Time for some Bitcoin/crypto market bottom speculation. Are we there yet? Over the past year Bitcoin and Ethereum are down more than 76% from all-time highs.

Previous bear markets have seen more than 80% drawdowns in these leading crypto assets, so based on this alone, there might be some more tanking to come. That said – simple maths tells us we’re a lot closer to the bottom than the top.

US crypto analyst and trader Justin Bennett believes there’s a bit more carnage in store, but believes in another bull market after “peak fear” is reached.

 

Uppers and downers: 11–100

Sweeping a market-cap range of about US$6 billion to about US$319 million in the rest of the top 100, let’s find some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time. (Stats accurate at time of publishing, based on CoinGecko.com data.)

DAILY PUMPERS

• ApeCoin (APE), (market cap: US$1.48 billion) +7%

• Fantom (FTM), (mc: US$513 million) +7%

• Bitcoin BSV (BSV), (mc: US$811 million) +5%

• Stacks (STX), (mc: US$341 million) +4%

• Chainlink (LINK), (mc: US$3.54 billion) +4%

 

DAILY SLUMPERS

• Huobi (HT), (market cap: US$829 million) -9%

• LEO Token (LEO), (market cap: US$3.55 billion) -9%

• GMX (GMX), (mc: US$355 million) -7%

• Curve DAO (CRV), (mc: US$419 million) -6%

• Aptos (APT), (mc: US$581 million) -6%

• Solana (SOL), (mc: US$4.85 billion) -5%

 

Around the blocks

A selection of rumour, randomness and pertinence that stuck with us on our morning moves through the Crypto Twitterverse…

Somewhat popular influencer bloke Gabriel Haines is now, like Ben “Bitboy” Armstrong, over in the Bahamas trying to rustle up FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried for some click-inducing content. Oh, and to get some answers.

Haines received US$10,000 in a crowd-funding effort to send him, and his family, over there.

Meanwhile, Bitboy says he has a Twitter spaces lined up with SBF within the next two weeks.

Righto, anyway, moving on…

Read MoreBitcoinCryptocurrencyEthereum

You might be interested in