Bitcoin Seeks $21k, Crypto Slightly Rise, Market Hits $1 Trillion for First Time Since FTX Bankruptcy

After Bitcoin ended its best week since March 2022, the cryptocurrency “winter” continued to show signs of abating over the weekend and Bitcoin briefly surpassed $21,000, its highest price in more than two months.

This morning, the digital currency is working near that level, seen as resistance (an area of ​​high selling interest), at $20,825. Ethereum (ETH) is trading at $1,544, up 1.2% in the last 24 hours — the cryptocurrency is up 20% in the past seven days.

However, the weekend saw significant gains mainly among lower-cap currencies, suggesting that traders and investors are once again willing to take risks in the asset class. The broad rally brought the cryptocurrency back to the $1 trillion mark for the first time since November 7, shortly before the bankruptcy of brokerage FTX.

Not coincidentally, the cryptocurrencies that have performed the best in recent days are those that have suffered the most from the stock market crash: Solana (SOL), funded by Sam Bankman-Fried companies, has accumulated a more than 60% increase in The past seven days, 185% of the last drop below $8.

FTX token, FTT, surged on Monday (16th) with a nearly 70% rally in the last 24 hours alone. However, analysts caution against a purely speculative move, because, unlike Solana, FTT has lost any basis with the demise of FTX.

Metaverse tokens, a chip that was hit hard at the worst moment in the market amidst a lack of interest from users, is also recovering. The big one is Decentraland (MANA), which hit an all-time high last week after announcing new features in the project, and today it’s up another 21%. Sandbox (SAND) advanced the competition by more than 10%.

Traders will be anticipating another day of possible liquidity decline in cryptocurrencies due to the Martin Luther King Day holiday in the US, when exchanges will be closed but cryptocurrency markets will remain open as usual.

The rise of cryptocurrencies, after all, is seen as a reflection of less interest in the sector’s internal crises, but above all a more favorable macro environment following the release of the latest US consumer inflation data.

“We view the current digital asset recovery as a market reversal rather than a bear market recovery,” Mark Connors, head of research at Canadian digital asset management 3iQ, wrote.

Referring to recent, less aggressive comments from Fed governors, Connors added that “the probability of a cut increases [dos juros] and reducing the balance sheet [do Fed]…it was a sign that the sharp decline in the money supply might be ending.”

“It matters because the cut over the past 12 months was the largest since 1959,” he wrote. “This is relevant for digital assets, as BTC is a hedge against declining purchasing power, not inflation.”

In a quarterly Wall Street Journal poll, two out of three economists predict the United States will slip into recession this year, about the same percentage as in the previous poll. Many believe, however, that the economic downturn will be mild.

Joe DiPasquale, CEO of crypto fund manager BitBull Capital, believes that “market participants should be careful during these rally and wait for more stability.” We remain optimistic about the backlog [Bitcoin] at $18,000 or less, and our long-term outlook remains the same for 2023 – piling through the lows.”

Check out the performance of the major cryptocurrencies at 7 am:

Cryptocurrencies with the biggest increase in the last 24 hours:

Cryptocurrencies with the biggest losses over the past 24 hours:

Check out how the cryptocurrency ETFs closed in the last trading session:

Zero Hash joins ABCrypto

ABCripto, the main association representing the Brazilian crypto market, has announced a new member: Zero Hash, a company specializing in infrastructure and crypto-as-a-service.

Zero Hash announced its arrival in Brazil in November, and now has 50 employees working out of an office in Sao Paulo.

With the news, ABCripto now has 18 members: Foxbit, Mercado Bitcoin, NovaDAX, Z.ro Bank, Alter, Travelex Bank, EasyCrypto, Uniera, OWS Brasil, Ripio, Bitso, MetaMap, Deloitte, VDV Advogados, KPMG, Chainalysis, 99Pay .

Traders betting on further declines in the cryptocurrency lost $500 million

Nearly $500 million in cryptocurrency short accounts liquidated over the weekend, just as the market cap reached $1 trillion.

According to Coinalyze data, it is the highest liquidation value on record since October 2022.

Liquidation refers to the compulsory closing of leveraged positions by brokerage firms due to exhaustion of deposited collateral. In practice, this means that the traders who own these trades have incurred a loss of half a billion dollars.

According to the Coinglass platform, more than 70% of traders have recorded losses. Most of them worked on the OKX exchange, followed by Binance and Huobi.

Crypto.com to lay off up to 900 employees

The Crypto.com Exchange announced last Friday (13th) that it will implement a 20% reduction in the number of its employees.

The company cited economic challenges stemming from the downturn in the cryptocurrency market and the explosion of FTX as the reasons behind the layoffs.

We’ve grown ambitiously in early 2022, building on our incredible momentum and aligning it with the broader industry trajectory. That trajectory quickly changed with the confluence of negative economic developments, Chris Marsalek, co-founder and CEO, wrote in a post addressing the issue.

According to various social media profiles, Crypto.com has around 3,500 to 4,500 employees, so the wave of layoffs is expected to reach between 700 and 900 people.

With this new wave, the number of layoffs in the industry will already be close to 29,000 jobs.

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