Cryptocurrency prices haven’t seen much action this week, as the market continues to absorb the developments of what has inarguably been one of the darkest years in the history of cryptos.
At press time, Bitcoin, the largest crypto by market capitalization, was trading at about $16,929. It recorded a low of $16,781 in the last week, though it stayed over $17,000 for most of the last seven days, ebbing and flowing in response to the unfolding of the FTX debacle.
In an important development this week, the New York Times reported that US federal prosecutors are investigating whether FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) manipulated the price of the collapsed algorithmic stablecoin terraUSD and its support coin luna to benefit FTX.
The biggest market rattler however came from Coinbase, whose CEO Brian Armstrong told Bloomberg that the crypto exchange’s revenue is set to be cut by half or more this year. Armstrong blamed declining prices and the collapse of rival FTX for rattling investors’ confidence.
However, it’s not all gloom and doom. Data from the market intelligence platform Santiment showed that Ether sharks and whales aren’t exhibiting any signs of slowing down accumulation. The price of the second largest crypto by market capitalization hovers around $1250 at press time, after hitting lows of $1225 this week.
According to Santiment, the Ether biggies, who hold between 100 to 1 million ETHs, and own about two-thirds of the coin’s overall supply, have added 2.1% more coins to their kitty over the past month. In fact, between December 5 and 6, they added 561,000 ETH to their bags, which is their highest daily accumulation in the last three months.
Read more: Crypto School: What is Tokenized Bitcoin?
The two largest cryptos have also got the vote of confidence from stockbroker Jordan Belfort, popularly known as the Wolf of Wall Street. In a YouTube video this week, Belfort suggested that Bitcoin and Ether are the safest tokens to venture into while assuring investors not to pay attention to naysayers who are using the collapse of FTX as an excuse to dismiss cryptos.
The only other noticeable action in altcoins this week happened with the native token of the blockchain-based play-to-earn game Axie Infinity. It recorded a double-digit price rally, going from a low of $6.6 to a high of $9.6. However, market watchers appeared skeptical of the move and suggested it wouldn’t last long. And indeed, the coin had begun its downturn dropping about 6.8% in the last 24 hours.
Top 3 winners
Name 7-day gain
- Radix 47.5%
- Trust Waller 27.4%
- Frax Share 20.8%
Top 3 losers
Name 7-day loss
- 1inch -17.8%
- BTSE Token -16.4%
- Chain -13.7%
* Data from CoinGecko
