Mooners and Shakers: Dogecoin surges, Bitcoin and Ethereum steady, influencers try to sniff out SBF

Do Bitcoin and the crypto market have a touch of FTX-debacle seller’s exhaustion? Price action has actually been reasonably positive over the past handful of days. Especially for Dogecoin.

Coinhead‘s minds were absorbed by the most excellent NFT Fest in Melbourne last week, and the generally positive vibes there were a welcome departure from the drama of the wider crypto market and FTX fallout stories.

But checking in with the latter, there is still ongoing concern about the potential collapse of Genesis Global Capital, part of which is a huge crypto lender financially tied to the FTX exchange’s fate.

The lending platform suspended withdrawals on November 16 due to “unprecedented market turmoil” and has been seeking emergency funding of at least US$500 million ever since. If the widely connected Genesis were to fall in a heap, the FTX crypto contagion (which is related to the Terra Luna contagion) could be about to get worse.

Meanwhile, crypto YouTuber Ben “Bitboy” Armstrong has been causing a stir with his mission to flush out FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (aka SBF) from his multi-million-dollar Bahamas condo. Will the self-proclaimed “Champion of the People” get the answers he says he refuses to leave the Bahamas without? Dunno. Good for clicks, though.

NO ONE ELSE IS HERE TRYING TO GET TO THE TRUTH

Only us.

People are terrified for my safety. I’m eating a Tuna Steak lol. I’m fine. Guys you have no idea. This is not what you think it is. It’s not dangerous here at all. It’s actually super welcoming.

— Bitboy Crypto (@Bitboy_Crypto) November 26, 2022

According to Twitter this is Sam’s Corolla. Complete with pills in the front seat. Maybe someone can identify what they are. And an MSI laptop in the back. @sbf_ftx look at your window bud. I just want to talk. Come tell your story. pic.twitter.com/WBEMMaKjN4

— Bitboy Crypto (@Bitboy_Crypto) November 26, 2022

Other influencers (e.g. Gabriel Haines.eth, see below) also seem to think it might be quite nice to visit the Bahamas and do the same thing – especially if it’s crowdfunded and covers expenses for family, too.

If you want me to go to Bali to investigate 3AC situation it is going to cost about $100,000

The funds will be used to cover flights, resort expenses, personal chef and a team of helpers https://t.co/zN5dSHclUV

— Frank Chaparro (@fintechfrank) November 27, 2022

Haines has now reportedly been successful in crowdfunding his trip, according to Decrypt, and is on his way to the Bahamas.

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at US$880 billion, up 0.7% since this time yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

Bitcoin has been walking the line around US$16,500 since Wednesday last week and Ethereum’s been doing something vaguely similar around its US$1,200 mark.

Dogecoin, though… the top-dog memecoin has exploded again. Those rumours of Elon Musk intending to add DOGE as a payments option are alive and well.

Slides from my Twitter company talk pic.twitter.com/8LLXrwylta

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 27, 2022

The payment section is missing. I think we’ll see $DOGE added in there.

I’m going based on all the comments Elon’s made in the past. pic.twitter.com/pTocwxdkMP

— David Gokhshtein (@davidgokhshtein) November 27, 2022

Prominent crypto podcaster and former Republican Congressional candidate David Gokhshtein (701.8k Twitter followers) also speculated that the Twitter and Tesla boss will join forces with Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin to upgrade Dogecoin.

“They won’t work on Bitcoin,” he wrote, “because Vitalik tried that in the past and was kicked and Elon is interested in turning something that started off as a joke into something serious.”

DOGE’s surge might also be attributed to Elon Musk’s reply to a podcaster in which he mentioned the possibility of making a smartphone. Dunno – guess DOGE fans think the token would be incorporated into that device, too.

I certainly hope it does not come to that, but, yes, if there is no other choice, I will make an alternative phone

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 25, 2022

One thing’s very likely for sure, if any of the above happens, DOGE will pump again. For how long is the question. It’s looking strong for now, though, having bounded ahead of Cardano (ADA) on the top 10 marketcap table.

Uppers and downers: 11–100

Sweeping a market-cap range of about US$6.35 billion to about US$330 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$1.39 billion) +9%

• Ethereum Name Service (ENS), (mc: US$357 million) +7%

• Theta Network (THETA), (mc: US$971 million) +6%

• Mina Protocol (MINA), (mc: US$435 million) +7%

• Shiba Inu (SHIB), (mc: US$5.58 billion) +5%

• The Sandbox (SAND), (mc: US$918 million) +4%

DAILY SLUMPERS

• Klaytn (KLAY), (market cap: US$540 million) -2%

• BinaryX (BNX), (market cap: US$386 million) -2%

• Chainlink (LINK), (mc: US$3.48 billion) -2%

• Curve DAO (CRV), (mc: US$458 million) -1%