Mooners and Shakers: Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptos get some relief; BlockFi faces bankruptcy

Inflation in the US might be showing signs of turning a corner and the US Dollar Index has been selling off. The crypto market? Bitcoin, Ethereum and others have had a little bounce.

Little being the operative word, but we’ll take it. These are macro-related conditions that crypto chart watchers have been sweating on for months, and ordinarily the market might’ve seen a bit more of a boost – perhaps more like the Nasdaq 100 (+8.2% over the past five days) and the S&P 500 (+4.7%).

But, of course, the market has FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried and cronies to thank for an anaemic push, which otherwise might’ve been something closer to a classic crypto moon mission.

FTX crypto contagion – BlockFi going bankrupt?

BlockFi, one of the industry’s most prominent lenders (in the same vein as the crumbled Celsius and Voyager enterprises), is preparing a potential bankruptcy filing after halting withdrawals of customer deposits, according to reports including the Wall Street Journal.

The firm has cited its “significant exposure” to the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, according to the report.

BlockFi paused withdrawals from its platform late last week, expressing it was “shocked and dismayed” by the FTX bed-crapping turn of events.

The firm’s exposure to FTX might seem obvious in hindsight, however, given the fact it received a US$400 million revolving credit deal from Sam Bankman-Fried’s company earlier in the year when BlockFi had run into liquidity problems after the Terra Luna collapse.

Implosion has beget implosion.

Liquid Global and SALT lending platform halt withdrawals

And so the crypto contagion continues to spread. Two more crypto firms have now told their customers they’ve paused withdrawals, citing FTX exposure.

Fiat and crypto withdrawals have been suspended on Liquid Global in compliance with the requirements of voluntary Chapter 11 proceedings in the United States.

Until further notice we would suggest to not deposit either FIAT or Crypto

We will provide updates when available.

— Liquid Global Official (@Liquid_Global) November 15, 2022

Liquid Group was acquired by FTX Trading Ltd last May plus all of the company’s subsidiaries, which includes a company called Quoine, which has been no stranger to controversy in the past.

Who’s next in without a helmet or box, then? It’s another crypto lender – SALT.

Deposits and withdrawals on Salt Lending Platform have been paused. #Crypto #cryptocurrency #CryptoNews #FTXScandal #FTXCRASH #FTXUS #stockmarketcrash pic.twitter.com/9wKErY1NIa

— Torogi (@Khallever1) November 15, 2022

“The collapse of FTX has impacted our business,” SALT CEO Shawn Owen said in a message sent to consumers. “Until we are able to determine the extent of this impact with specific details that we feel confident are factually accurate, we have paused deposits and withdrawals on the SALT platform effective immediately.”

Meanwhile, Sam Bankman-Fried has concluded his bizarre Twitter thread that began with “What HAPPENED” across nine separate tweets, finishing with the following:

12) To the best of my knowledge, as of post-11/7, with the potential for errors:

a) Alameda had more assets than liabilities M2M (but not liquid!)
b) Alameda had margin position on FTX Intl
c) FTX US had enough to repay all customers

Not everyone necessarily agrees with this

— SBF (@SBF_FTX) November 15, 2022

.@elonmusk can we get this account deleted before these tweets are cited in court as evidence for how this fraudulent psychopathic liar tried to do “right by all the customers” till the last moment

— Hsaka (@HsakaTrades) November 15, 2022

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at US$883 billion, up 2% since this time yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

Bitcoin was trading back above US$17k a bit earlier, as at least some semblance of confidence appeared to return to the global macro outlook on the back of lower-than-anticipated producer price index (PPI) figures in the US and the cooling of the US dollar.

Ethereum, too, had spiked up on the good vibes from the inflation-related data – a little closer to US$1,300.

XRP is still up a decent amount over the past 24 hours, which probably has something to do with a potentially front run announcement (by Fox Business yesterday) of a settlement in the SEC vs Ripple lawsuit.

We say potentially. It might just have been a simple error, of course.

Uppers and downers: 11–100

Sweeping a market-cap range of about US$6.93 billion to about US$322 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

• Stacks (STX), (market cap: US$338 million) +12%

• Chiliz (CHZ), (mc: US$1.19 billion) +11%

• Quant (QNT), (mc: US$1.17 billion) +9%

• Algorand (ALGO), (mc: US$2 billion) +8%

• Lido DAO (LDO), (mc: US$910 million) +7%

DAILY SLUMPERS

• Trust Wallet (TWT), (market cap: US$814 million) -10%

• Tokenize Xchange (TKX), (mc: US$698 million) -6%

• Chain (XCN), (mc: US$1.01 million) -5%

• Klaytn (KLAY), (mc: US$518 million) -4%

• Synthetix Network (SNX), (mc: US$431 million) -4%

Around the blocks

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

FTX: ‘Big Short’ author spent 6 months interviewing Sam Bankman-Fried – a book is coming out.

Can’t wait for the movie… 👀

— Bitcoin Archive 🗄🚀🌔 (@BTC_Archive) November 15, 2022

“Told you so”

What the FTX failure means for Bitcoin, and why it may be the best thing to happen in 2022 as well as the catalyst for the next bull market.

🧵🧵🧵@BitcoinMagazine https://t.co/Pkf9OqLKq6

— Svetski.info (@SvetskiWrites) November 14, 2022

Unbelievable @kevinolearytv says he would back SBF again and he was a “great trader”.

Kevin, you do realize he was front-running and counter-trading his own customers and dumping accumulated tokens on his own customers?

You cannot be serious. pic.twitter.com/I6LOWIEvQm

— Will Clemente (@WClementeIII) November 15, 2022

Another big company enters the #web3 space!@Nike announced the launch of their new platform SWOOSH — the home of the #Nike‘s virtual creations.

The #Swoosh platform is working exclusively on @0xPolygon. Will they go to #Cardano and #Ethereum in the future? 🏃‍♂️

— Satoshi Club (@esatoshiclub) November 15, 2022

BREAKING: Sony just filed a patent for in-game nft infrastructure for their Playststion console 😳

Nfts are coming to gaming whether you like it or not 😍

— NFT POWER RANKINGS 💎 (@nftpowerranking) November 15, 2022