BTC is currently trading around $17,000 and ETH around $1,250. Notable gainers in the last 24 hours are KAVA, XRP, and SNX. The global crypto market cap is ~$887B, down ~0.3% over the last day. DeFi Total Value Locked is ~$44b and BTC dominance is around 40%.
Risk markets are rallying behind a better-than-expected US PPI reading that showed another positive signal toward decelerating inflation. Global equities are rallying, with riskier segments like the tech-heavy NASDAQ outperforming. Interest rate markets have also clearly responded, as markets were pricing a roughly even chance of a 50 bp and 75 bp hike one week ago, while markets are currently pricing an 80%/20% probability split favoring a 50 bp hike at the next Fed meeting in December. The meeting between President Biden and President Xi Jinping also exceeded expectations, helping support risk markets.
The New York Times interviewed FTX founder SBF, releasing a sharply criticized ‘puff piece’ focusing more on the quality of SBF’s sleep and overall decent spirits rather than the criminal activities at hand. The article’s headline emphasized that SBF “expanded too fast and failed to see warning signs,” framing the collapse as being driven by poor business decisions rather than outright fraud and deceit. SBF has captured universal disdain from the crypto ecosystem in the past days as his comments continue to make light of the situation, showing no signs of remorse, even going as far as writing cryptic statements via single-letter tweets while so many are still awaiting answers. The Wall Street Journal provided more insights into the debacle, citing a video meeting among Alameda employees recorded last Wednesday. In the recording, Alameda’s CEO Caroline Ellison stated that she, SBF, Gary Wang (FTX CTO), and Nishad Singh (FTX Director of Engineering) were aware of the decision to send FTX customer funds to Alameda. In the meeting, Ellison reportedly said that Alameda took out loans to fund illiquid venture investments, and FTX client deposits were subsequently tapped as Alameda’s capital became insufficient to pay the loans as markets turned.
Notable news includes: Ripple published proposed guidelines for UK regulators; Binance will partner with Vitalik Buterin to test a new Proof-of-Reserves protocol being designed to offer more transparency into an exchange’s assets and liabilities; a new Kaiko report details the decreased liquidity in crypto markets following Alameda’s collapse; FTX’s bankruptcy filing indicates it may have more than 1m distinct creditors; FTX-owned crypto exchange Liquid Global halted withdrawals; Bitget raised its protection fund to $300m after the FTX turmoil; Multicoin Capital revealed its third VC fund has more than $25m of exposure to FTX; crypto hedge fund Ikigai revealed the ‘large majority’ of its assets are stuck on FTX; Sino Global Capital revealed it had a mid-seven figures exposure to FTX; crypto investment manager Valkyrie laid off ~30% of its headcount, with cuts primarily in sales and marketing; Paxos froze $19m in PAXG tokens linked to the FTX hack; BlockFi denied that the majority of its asset are custodied at FTX despite having ‘significant exposure’; Michael Lewis is reportedly looking to sell the movie rights to his upcoming book on SBF already; 3AC co-founder Kyle Davies lashed out at FTX, claiming the exchange hunted their positions during the LUNA collapse; rumors indicate disgraced HF manager 3AC may be attempting to make a comeback and raise a new fund; Yuga Labs acquired NFT startup WENEW with co-founder Beeple joining Yuga as an advisor as part of the deal; Nike launched a new web3 NFT offering; and, the global population breached 8b people today.
Authors:
Matt Kunke, Junior Strategist | Twitter, Telegram, LinkedIn
Brian Rudick, Senior Strategist | Telegram, LinkedIn
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