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First Mover Americas: Fantom Surges 20% as Sparkster Questions Fly

The latest moves in crypto markets in context for May 23, 2022.

By Lyllah Ledesma, Shaurya Malwa, Parikshit Mishra, Bradley Keoun

Updated May 11, 2023, 4:19 p.m. Published May 23, 2022, 1:56 p.m.

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

Price Point: Bitcoin and ether prices had a flat weekend with little movement. Fantom's FTM token surges 20% on the day.
Market Moves: Bitcoin’s four-hour time frame price chart signals upside, according to one analyst.
Feature: The seemingly dormant blockchain project Sparkster's apparent conversion of $22 million of ether into the stablecoin USDC – visible in blockhain data – is raising suspicions among some community members, CoinDesk’s Shaurya Malwa reports.

Price Point

Bitcoin (BTC) is stuck trading in the $29,000-$30,000 range after an uneventful weekend. The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization dipped to lows of $28,900 on Saturday.

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Ethereum (ETH) is up 2.8% on the day, trading at around $2,000 after experiencing a relatively flat weekend.

Altcoins mostly traded in line with BTC’s flat performance over the weekend, apart from layer 1 project Fantom (FTM), which is outperforming.

In traditional markets, stocks and the Chinese yuan advanced after President Joe Biden signaled he’d reconsider China tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. U.S. stock futures make a jump start to the week, with the Dow Futures up 340 points, S&P 500 Futures up 1.1% and the Nasdaq Futures up 1% on the day.

Market Moves

Until the next U.S. Consumer Price Index data is released (in three weeks) and the next Federal Reserve meeting, sideways movement is expected in the crypto market, according to Florian Giovannacci, head of trading at Covario AG.

Marcus Sotiriou, analyst at the U.K.-based digital asset broker GlobalBlock, said in an email to CoinDesk that bitcoin has printed a higher high and higher low on the four-hour time frame, which is considered a bullish indicator for continuation to the upside.

Bitcoin's four-hour price chart. (TradingView)

Fantom’s FTM was up 20% over the last 24-hours, making it the top performer amongst major digital assets on the day.

FTM is also up 48% over the last seven days.

Some analysts have attributed the uptick in Fantom to rumors that decentralized finance (DeFi) developer Andre Cronje might be returning to the project.

Fantom has risen more than 20% over the last 24 hours. (Messari)

Latest Headlines

GameStop Unveils Crypto and NFT Wallet, Shares up 3% A beta version of the self-custodial Ethereum wallet is available to download now from GameStop's website.
Japanese Bank Sumitomo Mitsui Trust to Establish Digital Asset Custodian The bank's pivot to digital assets comes alongside a global banking shift toward cryptocurrencies.
BNP Paribas Joins JPM's Blockchain Network Onyx for Fixed Income Trading: Report The French bank will use the Onyx network for short-term fixed income trading.
Crypto Valley Venture Capital Launches African Blockchain Early-Stage Fund The venture capital investor published a report which found funding for African blockchain startups far outpaced investment in other venture funding.

Feature: ICO-Funded Project Sparkster Converts $22M in Ether to USDC After 3 Years, No Product

By Shaurya Malwa

The conversion in recent days of nearly $22 million of ether (ETH) into the stablecoin USD coin (USDC) by the seemingly dormant blockchain project Sparkster has got some observers crying foul and calling on the funds to be blacklisted.

Bizarre narratives and ideas claiming world-changing potential peaked at the height of the initial coin offering (ICO) boom in early 2018. While some projects went on to build legitimate products and ecosystems, others have yet to deliver.

Sparkster looks to be in the latter camp. The project raised over $30 million in July 2018 in an ICO for what it described as a "no-code" software creation platform. The final tweet from the project’s Twitter account was in 2021 – a link to a demonstration of a supposedly upcoming product. Nothing has been communicated from that account since.

The wallets holding the proceeds from the ICO suddenly became active this weekend, however, and by Monday they were sitting on over $22 million of the stablecoin USDC. The move is seen as unusual and is raising suspicions among some community members – especially in the absence of a public explanation from the Sparkster team.

Link to full story: ICO-Funded Project Sparkster Converts $22M in Ether to USDC After 3 Years, No Product

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

First Mover Markets Trading Bitcoin

Lyllah Ledesma

Lyllah Ledesma is a CoinDesk Markets reporter currently based in Europe. She holds a master's degree from New York University in Business and Economics and an undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of East Anglia. Lyllah holds bitcoin, ether and small amounts of other crypto assets.

Shaurya Malwa

Shaurya is the Co-Leader of the CoinDesk tokens and data team in Asia with a focus on crypto derivatives, DeFi, market microstructure, and protocol analysis. Shaurya holds over $1,000 in BTC, ETH, SOL, AVAX, SUSHI, CRV, NEAR, YFI, YFII, SHIB, DOGE, USDT, USDC, BNB, MANA, MLN, LINK, XMR, ALGO, VET, CAKE, AAVE, COMP, ROOK, TRX, SNX, RUNE, FTM, ZIL, KSM, ENJ, CKB, JOE, GHST, PERP, BTRFLY, OHM, BANANA, ROME, BURGER, SPIRIT, and ORCA. He provides over $1,000 to liquidity pools on Compound, Curve, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, BurgerSwap, Orca, AnySwap, SpiritSwap, Rook Protocol, Yearn Finance, Synthetix, Harvest, Redacted Cartel, OlympusDAO, Rome, Trader Joe, and SUN.

Parikshit Mishra

Parikshit Mishra is CoinDesk's Regional Head of Asia, managing the editorial team in the region. Before joining CoinDesk, he was the EMEA Editor at Acuris (Mergermarket), where he dealt with copies related to private equity and the startup ecosystem. He has also worked as an Senior Analyst for CRISIL, covering the European markets and global economies. His most notable tenure was with Reuters, where he worked as a correspondent and an editor for various teams. He does not have any crypto holdings.

Bradley Keoun

Bradley Keoun is CoinDesk's managing editor of tech & protocols, where he oversees a team of reporters covering blockchain technology, and previously ran the global crypto markets team. A two-time Loeb Awards finalist, he previously was chief global finance and economic correspondent for TheStreet and before that worked as an editor and reporter for Bloomberg News in New York and Mexico City, reporting on Wall Street, emerging markets and the energy industry. He started out as a police-beat reporter for the Gainesville Sun in Florida and later worked as a general-assignment reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Originally from Fort Wayne, Indiana, he double-majored in electrical engineering and classical studies as an undergraduate at Duke University and later obtained a master's in journalism from the University of Florida. He is currently based in Austin, Texas, and in his spare time plays guitar, sings in a choir and hikes in the Texas Hill Country. He owns less than $1,000 each of several cryptocurrencies.