Bitcoin, Ethereum surge to pre-FTX levels since November 2022

The cryptocurrency market continues to grow

Let’s start with the good news of the week – this is the price dynamics. The cryptocurrency market continued to rise this week. Financial markets have returned to “risk mode” and this is also supporting the cryptocurrency market. The main reason: the growing hope that the Federal Reserve may soon change course. Inflation in the US has been declining for several months already – it is possible that the increase in interest rates will soon stop, which market participants hope for.

Take Bitcoin, for example: this week, the price of the asset exceeded $20,000 for the first time since the beginning of November. With Ethereum, the picture is similar: the price of Ethereum rose above $1,600, also for the first time since the beginning of November.

In early November, the bankruptcy of the FTX crypto exchange shocked the industry. The market initially reacted to the bankruptcy with heavy losses, but then quickly stabilized again.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was an early investor in the Solana project, and his trading firm, Alameda, owned large SOL assets. The sell-off after the bankruptcy of FTX hit the price of SOL especially hard.

And a recovery like BTC or ETH is still a long way off: Before the crash, FTX SOL was trading at around $36. The current rate is $21. The good market development over the past two weeks has left the Solana token intact: at the beginning of the new year, the price was $9.

The current rise in prices in the crypto market is due to a general change in sentiment. And Solana just started from a lower level – because the November sell-off was sharper than other crypto assets due to its association with Sam Bankman-Freed.

Why the Gemini bankruptcy has ceased to interest the market

No matter how the market develops, the effects of the FTX bankruptcy are still present. Consideration of the criminal case against FTX will drag on for years. And this week there was a very concrete effect: the broker Genesis, which specializes in lending to crypto assets, officially declared bankruptcy in the United States.

It wasn’t a surprise. Genesis had already completely stopped payments to customers shortly after FTX’s bankruptcy. Rival BlockFi, in turn, announced its insolvency in November. Genesis, on the other hand, has entered into negotiations with creditors to find a solution to the crisis.

Among these lenders was the American cryptocurrency exchange Gemini. Its founders are the Winklevoss brothers, known in Europe for their legal dispute with Mark Zuckerberg over the founding of Facebook. And Genesis implemented the Gemini Earn loan offer for Gemini. Its users were also affected by the stoppage of Genesis payouts.

The Winklevoss twins then formed a committee of creditors to coordinate with other Genesis creditors. It soon became clear that the negotiations were quite complicated: Cameron Winklevoss publicly criticized the head of the parent company Genesis Digital Currency Group (DCG) Barry Silbert several times.

Among other things, he accused him of Silbert transferring customer funds between different DCG companies. Winklevoss then called for Silbert’s resignation. Finally, it also emerged that the US Securities and Exchange Commission would sue both companies over Gemini Earn. Because, according to the department, these are unregistered securities offerings.

A bankruptcy filing followed this week. This is the best way to preserve existing assets and create the best possible outcome for all involved, said interim Genesis CEO Derar Islam. The bankruptcy of Genesis caused no market reaction. The bigger threat to price dynamics now is the change in sentiment at the macro level.

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