Crypto market tumbles as "exchange wars" resurrect contagion fears

The last 24 hours have been painful for crypto markets as some of the biggest centralized exchanges triggered “contagion” fears with public moves reminiscent of the recent Luna collapse.

It started with a leaked balance sheet, purportedly pertaining to Alameda Research, that put pressure on the financials of FTX, a major cryptocurrency exchange, since both companies are headed by Sam Bankman-Fried

Doubts regarding the exchange’s actual liquidity were amplified when Binance CEO, Chanpeng Zhao tweeted about the group selling its FTT holdings — the native token of the FTX exchange.

What ensued was a bankrun of sorts, as on-chain data shows heavy net outflows from FTX over the last 24 hours. Fears of another Luna like collapse also dented market confidence, pushing the market down, as BTC lost 6% for the day, while ETH is down 9%.

Similarly, the more directly affected tokens, FTT and SOL, are down ~35% and ~15%, respectively.

From a macro perspective, the S&P 500 is slowly trying to climb back to 3,900 and might maintain this trend until our Core CPI release on 10th November.

Top altcoin gainers and losers

Gainers

• Chainlink LINK (+5.72%)
• Fei USD FEI (+0.98%)
• Gemini Dollar GUSD (+0.24%)

Losers

• FTX Token FTT (-34.48%)
• Solana SOL (-13.75%)
• Dogecoin DOGE (-15.13%)

BTC Technical Analysis

Bitcoin has had a 10% retrace over the last 4 days pulling the price down as low as \(19,300, after which there was a short-lived bounce up to \)19,800. Bitcoin is facing continuing downward pressure now with the “exchange wars” going on, but unless SPX breaks down, another attempt at \(20,000 is likely. Core CPI for October will be our catalyst for the week and should give us insight into whether we will go below \)17,600 or the bottom is in.

ETH Technical Analysis

Ethereum is down 15% over the last 4 days and currently sits in a demand zone of around \(1,440. Ethereum showed signs of buyer exhaustion around \)1,600 and losing \(1,550 has confirmed this trend shift with \)1,350 being the first point of interest. In case of any bounces, ETH needs to break above $1,500 with volume to strengthen the momentum needed for any future upside.

NFT Market Map

Many projects of the top 50 NFT collections by trading volume added three-digit gains to their volume.

BAYC topped the leaderboard with a 1,500%+ surge in volume, but data from NFTGo suggested more sellers (20, +400%) were playing the game than buyers (14, +250%).

PudgyPenguins & Versailles Heroes also marked a 300%+ increase in daily volume.

Coin360 Daily Digest

Here’s a rundown of the major crypto market news from today.

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Disclaimer: None of the information here constitutes financial advice and market participants are advised to conduct their own research since cryptocurrencies are speculative assets with considerable risks.