Sharp decline as Celsius distributes $2.53 billion and TON plunges
DATA from CryptoCompare shows that the price of Bitcoin plunged by around 8.4% over the past week to now trade around the $58,500 mark after seeing a recovery to the $64,000 level in late August.
Ethereum’s Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, saw similar performance, losing 8% of its value over the past week and now trading at $2,520 after seeing a $2,800 high last month.
Headlines in the cryptocurrency space this week revealed that bankrupt cryptocurrency lender Celsius has distributed $2.53 billion to approximately 251,000 creditors in cryptocurrency and cash, based on prices as of January 16, covering roughly two-thirds of eligible creditors and 93% of the eligible value
According to court filings, 121,000 eligible creditors, with an average distribution of $1,500, have yet to claim their funds. Among these remaining creditors, around 64,000 are owed less than $100, and another 41,000 have distributions between $100 and $1,000.
Meanwhile, over the week, leading decentralised finance platform MakerDAO rebranded to Sky in a bid to enhance its platform and broaden user engagement. MakerDAO is well-known in the space for being behind the popular cryptocurrency-backed decentralised stablecoin DAI.
Sky will introduce new tokens, USDS and SKY, which existing DAI and MKR token holders will have the option to upgrade to. The tokens will be launched alongside the sky.money platform, which will serve as the primary interface for the protocol’s ecosystem, on September 18.
Over this past week Hilbert Capital, the asset management arm of Hilbert Group, announced a strategic partnership with Gibraltar-headquartered Xapo Bank to manage a new Bitcoin-denominated hedge fund.
The fund, which is projected to attract more than $200 million in initial investments and is set to launch in September, comes as ParaFi Capital, a New York-based digital asset managers, raised $120 million from investors to acquire general-partner stakes in other crypto funds that focus on specific market segments, strategies, or geographies.
TON plunges after Telegram founder's arrest
This past week the founder and CEO of Telegram, Pavel Durov, was arrested in France in a controversial moved that saw the price of Toncoin (TON), a cryptocurrency closely connected to Telegram, plunge.
It’s connected to Telegram via The Open Network (TON), which was developed by the platform and is designed to be a scalable and user-friendly ecosystem for decentralised applications (dApps). Telegram, over regulatory pressured, stepped back from the project that is now managed by the TON Foundation.
Durov was arrested at Bourget airport near Paris, reportedly due to an investigation into Telegram's lack of moderation, which authorities believe has allowed criminal activities to go unchecked. Durov, who founded Telegram in 2013, has been a strong advocate for privacy and freedom of speech, often resisting governmental demands to censor content.
TON’s price plummeted by 12.7% after the arrest and saw a drawdown of 17.5% to a low of little over $5 before it started recovering to now trade at $5.2.
According to CCData, open interest on TON surged 58.6% after Durov’s arrest to reach $384 million as traders moved to take advantaged of the volatility the cryptocurrency was enduring.
Over the week, Senior District Judge William H. Orrick of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has plausibly alleged that some crypto transactions facilitated by crypto exchange Kraken may qualify as investment contracts, allowing the regulator’s lawsuit against the exchange to proceed.
Notably, this week also saw the US Treasury Department formally withdraw a 2020 proposal to impose know your customer (KYC) requirements on non-custodial cryptocurrency wallets, concluding a years-long debate that started in the last days of the Trump administration.
Meanwhile Russia is reportedly preparing to begin trials that involve the use of cryptocurrency exchanges and digital tokens for cross-border transactions, aiming to mitigate payment difficulties exacerbated by international sanctions.
More than $1.2bn in crypto stolen so far this year
Leading bug bounty and security platform for the Web3 ecosystem Immunefi has revealed in a report that so far this year, the total amount of cryptocurrency lost to hacks and rug pulls has surpassed the $1.2 billion mark across 154 incidents.
The figure marks a 15.5% rise when compared to the same period last year, where losses were of around $1.04 billion. Losses in August of this year, however, declined significantly to around $15 million in five incidents – the lowest monthly loss for the year and a 38% drop from August 2023.
Francisco Memoria is a content creator at CryptoCompare who’s in love with technology and focuses on helping people see the value digital currencies have. His work has been published in numerous reputable industry publications. Francisco holds various cryptocurrencies.
