Overview
- Do Kwon and LFG assets frozen.
- Markets: Bearish fake-out.
- Strike raises $80m.
- Alex Mashinsky resigns as Celsius CEO.
Good morning Banter Fam,
Is runaway fugitive Do Kwon toying with authorities? Or has crypto been hit with a bout of fake news?
The latest developments:
According to CoinDesk, South Korean authorities have requested crypto exchanges OKX, and KuCoin freeze $67m worth of BTC transactions tied to Terra’s Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) and Do Kwon.
LFG, on the other hand, denies the claims. Do Kwon proclaims the misinformation in this tweet.
So, if Do Kwon is a wanted international fugitive, why doesn’t he appear on the Interpol Red Notices website? Possibly because, according to Interpol: “The majority of Red Notices are not made public and are restricted to law enforcement use only,” a detail pointed out by @tier10k in this Twitter conversation with Do Kwon.
Meanwhile, FatMan shared some stories of victims of the Terra collapse to stir the pot.
Will Do Kwon continue tweeting while authorities struggle to locate the man, or will this turn out to be a giant hoax?
Market update 🌍
BTC/USDT 1D
The BTC bears silenced the upward rebound of the past two days after allowing price to reach $20,385 before returning the bulls’ rocketship to an earthly $19,907. Will the bulls ramp up for another attempt, or are new lows in the works? This week will likely provide the answer. BTC completed the daily candle down -0.77%.
High-resolution chart
ETH/USD 1D
Ether price is fairing slightly better than BTC, but not by much. ETH continues to engage the $1,200 support level after traders allowed it to reach a high of $1,401 yesterday. Like BTC, the bear squad quelled enthusiasm, keeping the price pegged to the support level. Keep a close eye on the uptrend support (green) to see if the price rejects the support and eventually breaks through the resilient downtrend resistance (red).
High-resolution chart
DXY 1D
Look at the price of this altcoin!? Oh, wait, that’s the US dollar index. They say currencies are stable, but this chart looks similar to Terra’s LUNA chart of early 2022. The stronger the dollar, the larger the debt load of many countries, increasing economic stressors. Less importantly, crypto will continue to struggle in the current atmosphere.
High-resolution chart
| US markets close | Gain/Loss |
| S&P 500 | -0.21% |
| Nasdaq | +0.69% |
| Dow | +0.92% |
| VIX | +1.05% |
Notable Gainers (24h):
| Protocol (Coin) | Price ($) | Gain (%) |
| Quant (QNT) | 137.39 | +11 |
| Celsius (CEL) | 1.54 | +3 |
| Polymath (POLY) | 0.27 | +10 |
| Reserve Rights (RSR) | 0.0082 | +9 |
| Ergo (ERG) | 3.34 | +8.2 |
| IoTeX (IOTX) | 0.040 | +8.1 |
| Optimism (OP) | 1.54 | +5.5 |
| Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index | 20 Extreme Fear |
| “Crypto” Google Trends 90d | 50 |
| “Bitcoin” Google Trends 90d | 46 |
Newswatch 📰
Jack Mallers’ Strike raises $80M. The firm behind the payment app built on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network has announced an $80m raise to help develop partnerships with major retailers while altering the payments experience for customers. The Strike network allows direct payments with no intermediary and competes with long-standing traditional payment providers such as Visa and Mastercard.
Going once, going twice. Sold to FTX. After a two-week auction process, Voyager confirms FTX as the highest bidder to purchase the company’s assets. The bid valued at $1.42 billion will reward FTX with Voyager’s digital assets, incremental value, and any claims. Next, authorities must finalize the agreement.
On a side note, FTX announced its headquarters will relocate from Chicago to Miami today, and its current CEO stepped down to make way for new CEO Zach Dexter.
Mashinsky steps down as CEO of Celsius. Alex Mashinsky has submitted a letter of resignation to the embattled crypto lender Celsius’ board of directors, effective immediately. Mashinsky commented:
“I elected to resign my post as CEO of Celsius Network today. Nevertheless, I will continue to maintain my focus on working to help the community unite behind a plan that will provide the best outcome for all creditors – which is what I have been doing since the company filed for bankruptcy,” Mr. Mashinsky said. He continued: “I believe we all will get more if Celsians stay united and help the UCC with the best recovery plan. I remain willing and available to continue to work with the company and their advisors to achieve a successful reorganization.”
News Tidbits:
- Polkadot’s Roadmap Roundup.
- Deep options liquidity of Arbitrum: IVX.
- Cosmos whitepaper intern notes.
- Robinhood releases beta Web3 wallet to 10k users.
- Sushi 2.0 UI is now live.
- Ranked Web3 VC database.
NFT & metaverse update 🐵
- OpenSea announces the support of Optimism NFTs and will also launch several of the network’s NFT projects.
Banter’s take
Today I read an interesting article released by Wu Blockchain. In the article, analyst Joey Wu spoke about investors’ division on whether the US economy will enter a recession. For this reason, Wu believes equities and crypto markets have yet to bottom.
Wu believes that the FED will continue increasing rates into 2023 and that the fight against inflation will be hard and long. However, Wu also notes that the markets could begin to recover amid rate hikes because, after all, markets are forward-looking. Wu predicts sometime between December 2022, and March 2023 will be the bottom.
Gabri
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Disclaimer
Good Morning crypto (issued by Crypto Banter) is a newsletter for entertainment purposes only.
All opinions expressed by the publisher, writers, and chartists should not be construed as financial advice and do not necessarily reflect the views of Crypto Banter. The publisher, writers, and chartists may hold positions in the tokens and assets discussed. Readers are encouraged to do their own research.
