First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Holds $30K After Turbulent Week, Altcoins Trade Up

Good morning, and welcome to First Mover. I’m Lyllah Ledesma, here to take you through the latest in crypto markets, news and insights.

• Market Moves: BTC and altcoins trade in the green over the last 24 hours. ADA, SOL and AVAX make 15%+ gains.
• Feature: Continuing with the Terra saga, we take a look at the latest exchanges to delist Terra's LUNA and UST.

Price Point

Bitcoin (BTC) is up 8% over the last 24 hours, climbing back above the $30,000 mark after dropping to lows of $25,000 on Thursday. The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has still lost over 50% of its value from its all-time high reached in November 2021 around $69,000.

After one of the most turbulent weeks in history for the market, the total crypto market cap has decreased over $300 billion over the past seven days. Multiple assets crashed over 30% during the week, but have started to regain ground early Friday.

And that doesn't even begin to touch the disaster that was Terra's LUNA as the UST stablecoin lost its $1 peg. LUNA tumbled 100% on the week.

Solana's SOL token, which took a steep hit on Thursday as the wider market fell, trading as low as $35, is now up 15% on the day and trading at around $51. Cardano's ADA is trading up 20% on the day, and Avalanche’s AVAX is up 24%.

In traditional markets, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell for a sixth straight day, and the S&P 500 took a 19.4% hit from its high of 4,800 in January. The S&P 500 is now at 3,868, and according to a popular rule of thumb used by investors, a dip of 20% or more signals the start of a bear market.

Robinhood (HOOD) shares soared after a new filing revealed that Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of crypto exchange FTX, took a 7.6% stake in the company.

Market Moves

According to Florian Giovannacci, head of trading at Covario AG, the crypto market rebound over the last 24 hours for BTC and altcoins is “more a technical bounce following over the top bearishness/capitulation and leveraged short positioning being liquidated (especially for alts).”

He said that today’s increase in price for crypto assets will “definitely help sentiment but there’s no news out there to really mark a definitive change of mood.”

Looking forward, despite trading in the green for a number of assets on the day, Giovannacci said correlation to U.S. equity is a key factor for BTC’s price.

“Until we see CPI data improving, bears will be in the driving seat.”

Latest Headlines

• Terra Blockchain Resumes Following 9-Hour Halt The Terra blockchain has resumed activity following a halt of around nine hours while validators plotted a route out of its ongoing crisis.
• Elon Musk Puts Twitter Take Over on Hold, Twitter Shares Tank The landmark deal that would see Elon Musk takeover Twitter and make it private has hit a stumbling block as Musk wants to verify the amount of fake accounts.
• Nomura Starts Trading Crypto Derivatives, Joining Rivals Goldman, JPMorgan Nomura carried out bitcoin futures and options trades with derivatives exchange CME Group and crypto market maker Cumberland DRW.
• Binance, OKX Delists Terra's LUNA and UST Citing User Protection The two crypto exchanges ended trading related to the Terra tokens after UST lost its peg and LUNA slumped more than 99%.
• Cardano’s ADA Jumps 40% to Lead Recovery in Major Cryptos; Sentiment Remains in 'Extreme Fear' Crypto market cap rose more than 13% in the past 24 hours even though inflation concerns persist.
• Crypto Related Stocks in Asia See Volatile Trading Amid Bitcoin Recovery Traditional market investors risked off publicly traded companies related to the crypto sector amid a drop in prices this week.
• LUNA, UST Still Available on FTX and Other Exchanges Despite Terra Blockchain Halt Transactions conducted during the blockchain halt are not considered to be final as they can’t be settled.
• Terra Validators Halt Blockchain to Gin Up Next Steps The blockchain was halted earlier Thursday after the governance token LUNA fell in price.
• Yellen Call for 'Responsible' Crypto Innovation Is Right Janet Yellen, recently speaking at American University, made erudite, sensible remarks about the right approach to regulate digital currencies and assets, innovation and the policies surrounding them.

Binance, OKX Delist Terra's LUNA and UST Citing User Protection

By Shaurya Malwa and Jamie Crawley

Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, suspended spot trading for LUNA and UST against its own stablecoin BUSD on Friday after rival OKX said it planned to end spot listings of UST and delisted margin and borrowing services for Terra ecosystem tokens such as LUNA, anchor (ANC) and mirror (MIR).

"An exponential amount of new LUNA were minted due to flaws in the design of the Terra protocol," Binance founder Changpeng "CZ" Zhao said in an explanatory tweet. "Some of our users, unaware of the large amounts of newly minted LUNA outside the exchange, started to buy LUNA again, without understanding that as soon as deposits are allowed, the price will likely crash further. Due to these significant risks, we suspended trading."

OKX planned to terminate exchange-traded UST trading for bitcoin (BTC), avalanche (AVAX), solana (SOL) and ether (ETH) as of 10:00 UTC, adding to earlier cancellations of the margin trading and borrowing function for LUNA, ANC and MIR. Perpetual swaps were suspended at 8:00 UTC.

“Seismic crypto market movements like we’ve seen this week tend to deliver some pretty brutal lessons,” explained Lennix Lai, an OKX director, in an email. “We’re seeing a flight away from direct investment in DeFi protocols in the wake of UST breakdown.”

“The reality is that centralized exchanges are set up to provide much greater levels of protection for users whatever the markets are doing,” Lai said.

UST slumped to as low as 22 cents earlier this week amid a run on the currency. The prices of its related LUNA token dropped 99.7% to pennies on Thursday from levels above $60 earlier this week.

LUNA and other tokens continue to trade on crypto exchanges FTX and Gate at writing time.

"Withdrawals for LUNA and UST will open when the network becomes stable," Binance said.

Today’s newsletter was edited by Lyllah Ledesma and produced by Parikshit Mishra and Stephen Alpher.