Market Wrap: Finger-Pointing and Job Cuts as Bitcoin Slides Back Toward $20K

Bitcoin (BTC) fell for a third straight day, drifting back down toward $20,000 and trading in sync with U.S. stocks.

There was no shortage of drama in the news as the crypto industry continued to address the fallout from the recent carnage in digital-asset markets. The price of BTC is now trading at less than a third of its all-time high around $69,000 late last year.

The CEO of the futures crypto exchange CoinFLEX accused the Bitcoin Cash supporter and noted investor Roger Ver of owing it $47 million in the stablecoin USDC. Ver had tweeted earlier Tuesday that "some rumors have been spreading" that he had defaulted on a debt to a counterparty; instead, he said, the counterparty "owes me a substantial sum of money."

And after a report emerged that the crypto exchange Huobi Global might cut over 30% of its workforce, an official at the rival exchange OKX announced plans for the company to increase its headcount by 30%.

"Over the past two weeks, we have seen the bear markets bringing out the worst," Walter Teng, digital asset strategy associate at the independent investment research firm FundStrat, wrote in a newsletter.

LINK rally fizzles

Arcane Research, the Norwegian analysis firm, totted up a list of dismal indicators and predictions in a weekly report :

Prices for bitcoin mining machines "have fallen off a cliff" and are likely to keep falling, which means the miners may eventually have to "dump their orders" in the face of falling cash flows.

Bitcoin spot-trading volumes have fallen by 59% over the past nine days.

The growing industry woes are "leading to a vicious withdrawal cycle on other centralized lending platforms."

In digital-asset markets beyond bitcoin, the blockchain oracle project Chainlink's LINK rallied as much as 8% earlier after the Robinhood (HOOD) trading platform agreed to list the token. However, later in the day the rally fizzled and LINK was down 2.1%.

In traditional markets, a sell-off in tech led U.S. stocks lower as a key index of consumer confidence dropped to a 16-month low on growing worries over high inflation.

U.S. crude futures rose 2% in New York trading to $111.84 a barrel, and Group of Seven leaders discussed plans for capping oil prices. Gold slid 0.2% to $1,821 an ounce.

Latest prices

●Bitcoin (BTC): $20,237 −2.8%
●Ether (ETH): $1,157 −3.4%
●S&P 500 daily close: 3,821.74 −2.0%
●Gold: $1,820 per troy ounce −0.0%
●Ten-year Treasury yield daily close: 3.2% +0.01

Bitcoin, ether and gold prices are taken at approximately 4pm New York time. Bitcoin is the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (XBX); Ether is the CoinDesk Ether Price Index (ETX); Gold is the COMEX spot price. Information about CoinDesk Indices can be found at coindesk.com/indices.

Source : coindesk