Hello, 18Digits. It has been a rough week in the crypto world, and we’re glad to have you back for this week’s updates. While we’ll update you on your weekly voting results, you’ll also get the biggest stories happening within our industry in the past few days.
This week, the Binance-FTX saga drove investors’ anxiety and plummeted the prices of crypto assets. This review will explain how the deal between two of the biggest centralized crypto exchanges fell out and its effects on crypto prices.
Before you continue reading, please be aware that this article is not intended to be financial advice. Before investing or hiring a professional, you should conduct your research.
What happened in the crypto market this week?
The crypto week started inauspiciously as Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao, announced the world’s largest crypto exchange was selling its FTX token (FTT) holdings. Binance’s decision came after days of speculation on the financial health of FTX and its sister company, Alameda Research. What followed was chaos, as investors pulled out crypto assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars from FTX. As a result, Bitcoin went below the $20k mark for the first time early on Tuesday (UTC).
The drama continued on Tuesday when Binance announced on Twitter that it was acquiring FTX to help cover the “liquidity crunch.” This news drove Bitcoin 17% down in 2 hours as FUD was inevitably high.
Wednesday came with a bigger shock. Binance walked away from the acquisition deal. In an official statement, the crypto exchange giant explained it made the decision due to its “corporate due diligence, growing stories regarding mishandled customer funds, and alleged US agency investigations.” On Wednesday, Bitcoin hit a multi-year low at $15.6k.
Bitcoin has slowly recovered as it strayed above the $17k early on Friday(UTC). Perhaps the biggest among other crypto assets is that Tether(USDT) briefly lost its usual peg to the dollar on Thursday. The stablecoin temporarily traded at $0.94 on Kraken.
The past few days have disrupted the relative stability the crypto market has enjoyed for some time. In the last seven days, Bitcoin has dipped by about 16% while Ethereum has tumbled by $19%. Binance’s native coin, BNB, also slid 14%. The story is the same for most crypto assets. Solana (SOL) and Dogecoin (DOGE) fell 46% and 28%, respectively. Polygon (MATIC) suffered a modest loss of 4%.
18Digits Top 18 Voting Results: Bitcoin(BTC) leapfrogs Ethereum(ETH), Shiba Inu (SHIB) zooms into Top 5
This week’s voting results saw a major shift at the top. While Bitcoin’s price was in the news for the wrong reasons in the past week, the cryptocurrency gained the top spot for the first time in over 20 weeks on 18digits. The last time Bitcoin led the pack was in week 21. Shiba Inu(SHIB) exchanged spots with Polygon (MATIC) as they now rank 5th and 6th, respectively. TRON climbs into the 9th position as it also leapfrogs Dogecoin(DOGE). The other cryptocurrencies in the top 10 maintain their spots.
In other news, Avalanche (AVAX) drops out of the Top 18. Tether (USDT) and Stellar (XLM) each gained a spot and moved into the 13th and 14th spots, respectively. Zilliqa (ZIL) continues its fine run as it gains a spot into 17th; Celo (CELO) also climbed one position into 18th. Ripple (XRP) lost a spot as it takes the 15th spot this week.
Biggest Winners & Losers: XEN, Render fly high; Magpie and GMD protocol plummet
Every week has its outstanding and unimpressive performers, and this week is no different.
According to this week’s voting results, XEN Crypto (XEN) is the biggest winner as it gained 18,231 spots into 338th. Render also showed a strong performance by moving 15,365 places into the 314th place. Floki (FLOKI) owners will also be impressed by its jump into 414th spots after gaining 14,463 places. MonkeyLeague (MBS) and EGG Protocol complete the list of the top gainers.
Magpie (MGP) is the top loser this week, falling 20641 places to rank 21325. GMD Protocol, Power Vault (POWV), SpaceShipX (SPW), and Avenue University Token (AUT) complete the biggest losers chart.
Vote for Your Favorite Cryptocurrency on 18Digits
It’s a wrap for this week. We hope you enjoyed this one. Remember to vote for your favorite cryptocurrency next week. If you’ve not voted before, the process is simple. Firstly, you need to become a community member by registering here. You may also need to check the rules to see how everything works here. See you next Friday!
