updraftplus domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/aonyeani76/cryptocurrencypanther/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6131hustle domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/aonyeani76/cryptocurrencypanther/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6131wpforms-lite domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/aonyeani76/cryptocurrencypanther/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6131In its most recent research newsletter, crypto research firm Kaiko alluded to an ‘Alameda Gap,’ which has been massively impacting the Bitcoin and crypto market for some time now. However, that seems to be in the past, as Kaiko stated that the gap no longer exists.
According to the report, the ‘Alameda Gap’ is the gap in liquidity that existed after the collapse of the collapse of the defunct crypto exchange FTX and its sister company Alameda Research. Alameda was one of the most prominent market makers then and provided massive liquidity to the market.
Following Alameda’s collapse, this liquidity gap is said to have persisted as market makers “waited on the sidelines for sentiment and trading activity to recover.” Now, the market looks to have moved past this, as Kaiko revealed that, as of last week, the market depth has almost fully recovered and is back to its pre-FTX average.
The research firm added that the Bitcoin 2% market depth is up 40% year-to-date (YTD) and briefly surpassed its pre-FTX average of $470 million. This increase is said to have been mainly due to the surge in Bitcoin’s price, which has risen faster than the market liquidity since the SEC approved the Spot Bitcoin ETFs in January.
Bitcoin is up about 50% YTD and has already hit new highs since the beginning of the year, including a new all-time high (ATH) of $73,750. Meanwhile, the improvement in liquidity is also evident in the fact that the cost of trading has declined on the three major US crypto exchanges: Coinbase, Kraken, and Bitstamp.
Kaiko also highlighted in its report that the Bitcoin-to-Gold ratio, which measures both assets’ relative performance, is inching closer to its ATH, which it last hit in November 2021. Interestingly, this increase means that BTC is outperforming Gold, even though both assets have recorded ATHs these past few weeks.
Furthermore, funds linked to these assets show how Bitcoin has outperformed Gold. Kaiko noted that Bitcoin ETFs have attracted $11 billion since they launched in early January. Meanwhile, the largest physically-backed Gold ETFs (SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) and iShares Gold Trust (IAU) have registered outflows during the same period.
Kaiko suggested that this could mean that investors were moving towards Bitcoin as the “new global store of value.” Interestingly, the CEO of Jan3 and Bitcoiner, Samson Mow, while giving reasons why Bitcoin will hit $1 million, also mentioned that people will start demonetizing Gold and substitute it for BTC at some point.
BTC price falls to $62,700 | Source: BTCUSD on Tradingview.com
Featured image from Forkast News, chart from Tradingview.com
Disclaimer: The article is provided for educational purposes only. It does not represent the opinions of NewsBTC on whether to buy, sell or hold any investments and naturally investing carries risks. You are advised to conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. Use information provided on this website entirely at your own risk.
FTX’s sister trading firm Alameda has agreed to sell its interest in Sequoia Capital to a UAE-based entity.
Alameda Research appears set to sell its interest in Sequoia Capital to Abu Dhabi for $45 million. According to a recent report, the FTX sister trading firm agreed to sell the Sequoia stake to the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund in cash.
A March 8th United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware document detailed the sale agreement between Alameda and Abu Dhabi. Part of this filing read:
“[FTX] decided to enter into the Agreement with Purchaser based on its superior offer and ability to execute the Sale Transaction within a short time frame.”
The document also revealed that FTX/Alameda agreed to sell to Abu Dhabi after mulling over interest from four different parties. Furthermore, the court document stated that Alameda’s share buyer, Al Nawwar Investments RSC Limited, is owned by the government of Abu Dhabi. According to reports, the United Arab Emirates-based buyer is already an investor in Sequoia.
The $45 million all-cash deal could close by the end of this month. However, the sale remains subject to approval by the Delaware court bankruptcy judge John Dorsey.
FTX’s attempt to offload its remaining interest in Sequoia Capital is one of a few plans the fallen company hopes will help pay off creditors. The Sequoia interest sale development also reflects concerted efforts by the Alameda/FTX insolvency management to recover assets and funds owned by the exchange.
Dorsey has presided over aspects of FTX’s legal cases following the exchange’s collapse and subsequent bankruptcy filing last November. The Delaware bankruptcy judge granted Bahamian-based FTX permission to sell off some of its assets following its insolvency declaration.
Assets listed for sale included FTX’s stock-clearing platform Embed, and its derivatives platform LedgerX. In addition, the sunken crypto exchange also sought to sell its regional branches, FTX Europe and FTX Japan.
In a related case, court documents revealed that Dorsey mandated defunct crypto brokerage company Voyager Digital to set aside $445 million. This ruling came on the heels of a lawsuit by Alameda Research against the company regarding loan repayments.
In January, reports stated that FTX recovered more than $5 billion in cash and liquid crypto assets amid its bankruptcy case. The embattled exchange revealed plans to rebuild its transaction history at the time. In addition, FTX also said that it was still trying to ascertain the total amount of customer shortfall.
Earlier this week, FTX sued leading crypto asset management firm Grayscale Investments to access $9 billion of shareholder value. In the lawsuit, the once second-largest crypto exchange alleged that Grayscale had charged outrageous management fees. According to FTX:
“Grayscale has for years hidden behind contrived excuses to prevent shareholders from redeeming their shares. Grayscale’s actions have resulted in the Trust’s shares trading at approximately a 50% discount to Net Asset Value. If Grayscale reduced its fees and stopped improperly preventing redemptions, the FTX Debtors’ shares would be worth at least $550 million, approximately 90% more than the current value of the FTX Debtors’ shares today”.
However, Grayscale described FTX’s lawsuit as “misguided” and claimed transparency in obtaining regulatory approval to convert GBTC into an ETF.
Tolu is a cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiast based in Lagos. He likes to demystify crypto stories to the bare basics so that anyone anywhere can understand without too much background knowledge.
When he’s not neck-deep in crypto stories, Tolu enjoys music, loves to sing and is an avid movie lover.
Crypto wallets linked to Alameda Research, the quant trading arm of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, were massively active on Wednesday, on-chain data shows.
The Alameda addresses, as data shared online showed, actively sold several small cap cryptocurrencies, swapping these for Bitcoin and in some cases Ethereum.
According to details shared on Twitter by Martin Lee, a data journalist at blockchain analytics platform Nansen, there were multiple odd transactions that seemed to swap tokens in Alameda wallets for Ethereum and Tether stablecoin USDT.
The funds were then sent to new wallets via decentralised exchanges (DEXs), including ChangeNow and FixedFloat.
Elsewhere, on-chain data shared by blockchain research firm Arkham Intelligence pointed to Alameda wallets offloading over $1.7 million in various tokens.
In total, Alameda-related wallets have mixed:
270.5Eth through ChangeNOW (~$325k)
800k USDT through Fixedfloat
200k through Curve SynthSwap (to native BTC)
200k through Airswap
200k through other crypto-mixing servicesreaching a total of $1.7M that has been taken.
— Arkham | Crypto Intelligence (@ArkhamIntel) December 28, 2022
According to the platform, the sales happened on the open market – a scenario that likely was behind the sharp drop in prices for several tokens. The Ethereum-based cryptocurrencies the wallets sold include Ether (ETH), Curve (CRV), USD Coin (USDC), Dai (DAI), and convex (CVX).
The tokens were sent to two wallets, swapped for USDT and then converted into BTC, blockchain sleuth ZachXBT tweeted on Wednesday.
The Alameda wallets came alive after weeks of dormancy, with these transactions intensifying as former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried settled at home following released from jail on a $250 million bail. The sale of multiple tokens also coincided with a sharp price decline for Solana (SOL).
The biggest news in the cryptoverse for Dec. 15 includes SBF’s extradition to US approved, Deribit transferred 10k ETH to Alameda, Core Scientific files for Chapter 11 and more in this CryptoSlate Wrapped Daily.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried should be handed over to US authorities today, Dec. 21, as reports surfaced that he has agreed to the extradition. According to an affidavit, the former CEO of FTX consented to be extradited partly in the interest of making his customers whole.
Jerone Roberts, SBF’s attorney, requested immediate extradition which has been granted according to Bloomberg. He will return to the U.S. “accompanied by FBI agents on a non-commercial aircraft.” A video of SBF arriving at the courthouse in the Bahamas accompanied by FBI officials was also released by Bloomberg.
A group of FTX customers seeking priority repayment of roughly $1.6 billion locked in their custody wallet on the bankrupt FTX exchange, the Financial Times reported.
Counsel to Eversheds Sutherland Erin Broderick said:
“If the assets belong to the customer, there is no line. It’s just their assets.”
Broderick added that FTX’s terms of service support custody clients to gain access to their trapped funds.
Evershed Sutherland said it will proceed with the legal process from January 2023 and expects it to go smoothly.
Data from Etherscan showed that a Deribit 9-labeled address has transferred a total of 10,000 ETH to an address associated with Alameda Research. The address held a total of 12,812.6 ETH at press time.
The 10,000 ETH was broken into five transactions of 2,000 ETH, with the first one sent on Dec. 10. The Deribit address currently holds around 3,473 ETH and just over 766,351 USDC.
The nature of Deribit’s transfers to the Alameda-linked address is still unknown. The Panama-based exchange is yet to comment on the transfers.
Publicly traded crypto miner Core Scientific filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Dec. 21 at the Southern District of Texas bankruptcy court.
According to court documents, the miner has liabilities between $1 billion- $10 billion. It has over 1,000 creditors, with the largest unsecured claim owed to B. Riley Financial –the bankrupt firm owes the investment bank $42.36 million.
Core Scientific joins the growing list of capitulated crypto miners during the current bear market. In September, Compute North filed for bankruptcy.
Dogecoin is among one of the worst performers over the last 24-hours after Elon Musk confirmed he will resigned from the role of Twitter CEO.
On Dec. 5, DOGE recorded a local high of $0.11172, but mounting sell pressure since then has resulted in 37% losses that bottomed at $0.07003 on Dec. 19.
Rumors were, Dogecoin, Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency would benefit from a Twitter integration, triggering the buying frenzy.
Some seven weeks since Musk took over, there has been no confirmation of DOGE integration. What’s more, it is unclear whether Musk’s resignation could help or hinder such a proposal.
The cost of Bitcoin (BTC) is now cheaper than the cost of mining one Bitcoin, according to the Difficulty Regression Model.
As per data obtained from Glassnode, the current cost of mining one Bitcoin is $18.8k, whereas the cost of one Bitcoin is $16,5771.8.
Bitcoin Hashrate measures the amount of processing and computing power given to the Bitcoin network by miners. The Bitcoin hash rate currently stands at 246.062 EH/s, according to Trading View.
There is a possibility that a number of Bitcoin mining operations will be forced out of business if bitcoin prices do not rise or fall lower.
Justin Sun claims Hong Kong is a crypto policy testbed for China
Tron founder, Justin Sun, told Bloomberg that China is keeping an eye on the impact of Hong Kong crypto regulations. Speaking on Bloomberg TV, Sun commented,
“Right now they are using Hong Kong as an experiment base so they can see all the feedback, all the results, once they adopt crypto. That’s why I’m super bullish and looking forward to seeing the results of all the Hong Kong crypto policy.” “
Mainland China is currently closed to the crypto industry for the most part but Sun predicted “opening up overall crypto policy in China.”
The Alameda Research/FTX collapse has caused far-ranging consequences in the crypto industry, leaving nothing in its fiery wake. Prices are down across the board.
Not even the top 10 mainstays, Ripple (XRP) and Cardano (ADA), were able to weather the storm, as the industry lost over $2 trillion in market capitalization.
Nevertheless, opportunity always knocks on the market. Crypto experts tip Flasko to be THE can’t-miss presale event of 2022 and may outshine Cardano (ADA) and Ripple (XRP) in price performance in 2023. Let’s explore these three cryptocurrencies and determine which is best.
Cardano (ADA) was founded by Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Charles Hoskinson. Cardano (ADA) is a smart contract platform designed for efficiency and scalability to improve on Ethereum’s drawbacks. Cardano (ADA) drew plenty of attention shortly after it launched, especially as Cardano (ADA) prices soared to all-time highs. It is once the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
However, ever since hitting an ATH of $3.12, Cardano (ADA) has performed poorly, with not a lot of development activity compared to other newer chains. That’s something for Cardano (ADA) investors to think about before buying the dip.
Ripple (XRP) is known for being a cryptocurrency that facilitates cross-border payment processing services. Its speed and efficiency have led Ripple (XRP) to be adopted by key banking and financial institutions such as MoneyGram and American Express. However, Ripple (XRP) token prices seem to be suppressed amid litigation from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). According to the SEC, Ripple (XRP) may be classified as an unregistered security. Not surprisingly, Ripple (XRP) holders are getting anxious.
Several cryptocurrencies have delisted Ripple (XRP) in light of its lack of usage, leading prices to drop nearly 87% from all-time highs.
Scratch Ripple (XRP) and Cardano (ADA) from your Christmas crypto shopping lists in favor of a project with real legs to go parabolic – Flasko.
Flasko is building an alternative investment platform enabling individuals to invest in the rare champagne, wines, and whiskeys asset class that has performed substantially better than financial instruments over the past several decades.
On the Flasko platform, users will be able to invest in digital NFTs of bottles of rare wines, whiskeys, and champagnes backed by their physical equivalents and benefit from their appreciation in quality and price over time.
Better yet, Flasko NFT holders can trade them for their real bottles shipped straight to them from Flasko’s facilities to their homes.
More than its unique value proposition, Flasko’s appeal lies in its security. With a fully-passed audit done by Solid Proof, and platform liquidity locked in for 33 years, Flasko has gone above and beyond to secure the protocol’s future and prevent any chance of shenanigans from happening. It’s easy to see why crypto analysts are tipping Flasko to go on a 5,000% run from its current presale price of $0.111 to $5 by 2023.
Website: https://flasko.io
Presale: https://presale.flasko.io
Telegram: https://t.me/flaskoio
Twitter: https://twitter.com/flasko_io
Former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison will need all the help she can get from no other than a highly decorated former regulator of the US Securities and Exchange Commission when she faces grilling by federal prosecutors over the crash of crypto exchange FTX.
Stephanie Avakian, the head of the Securities and Financial Services department at law firm WilmerHale and a former top cryptocurrency regulator at the SEC, has been hired by Caroline Ellison, who is 28 years old.
Avakian was the chief of the Enforcement Division at the SEC, where she increased cryptocurrency compliance by bringing actions against Ripple Lab and Robinhood.
In addition, Avakian’s oversight encompassed a vast array of challenges, such as financial fraud, insider trading, audit and accounting irregularities, market structure and asset management anomalies.
Alameda Research is the corporate sibling and trading firm of the defunct FTX.
Stephanie Avakian. Image: Crowdfund Insider.
Based on court filings, before FTX’s bankruptcy filing in November, Alameda borrowed $3.3 billion from the cryptocurrency exchange and gave it to former FTX CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried and firms he oversaw in order to cover losses and make reckless bets.
In her capacity as director of the SEC enforcement division from 2016 to 2022, Akavian managed a staff that worked on a number of high-profile prosecutions against prominent organizations and renowned individuals.
A quick recap: FTX encountered a liquidity dilemma and sought rescue money. Binance, a competitor exchange, explored purchasing a share of the company, but swiftly changed its mind. On November 11, Bankman-Fried resigned and the company filed for bankruptcy protection.
Congress, regulators, and FTX’s own bankruptcy team are probing allegations that Alameda traded billions of dollars in consumer assets deposited at the cryptocurrency exchange.
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. Image: Spencer Heyfron.
The Bankman-Fried-led exchange and its subsidiaries are also being investigated by federal prosecutors from the Manhattan district of the U.S. attorney’s office and the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation.
Prosecutors have also initiated an inquiry into whether SBF was responsible for the demise of the Terra ecosystem. They are investigating whether SBF’s empire generated a deluge of “sell” orders on Terra’s stablecoin TerraUSD Classic on purpose. The New York Times reported that the majority of USTC sell orders originated from Alameda Research.
Meanwhile, Caroline Ellison has remained under the radar during FTX’s implosion, keeping mute and generally unavailable throughout the company’s disintegration.
Bloomberg also disclosed that while SBF has openly laid culpability on Alameda in many interviews, Ellison has remained silent. Some have theorized that she may be helping with law enforcement, as reported by New York magazine.
Crypto total market cap at $800 million on the daily chart | Featured image: Business Insider, Chart: TradingView.com