Premarket trading Monday had the three top U.S. equity indexes picking up where they left off on Friday afternoon. All three traded lower, but only by about half as much as their closing prices Friday.
The cryptocurrency markets are a different story. Bitcoin (BTC) was trading down almost 14% at around $23,600, ethereum was down 18.2% at just under $1,200, and Binance Coin (BNB) was down about 14.6% at $220. These prices reflect declines over the past 24 hours. Recall that crypto markets never sleep.
Of the 10 largest (by market cap) cryptocurrencies, only Binance USD and USD Coin, both stablecoins, were trading higher. By less than 0.1% in both cases.
Last Friday’s consumer price index report sank crypto prices just as it sank equities prices. Then, late Sunday, crypto lending service Celsius announced on its blog that it is temporarily halting all withdrawals, swaps, and transfers between accounts due to “extreme market conditions.” The company took this step in order “to put Celsius in a better position to honor, over time, its withdrawal obligations.”
Celsius operates like a consumer bank, taking deposits from some customers, lending to others and profiting from the difference in the interest rate it pays the former and that it collects from the latter. The big difference is that it does not have federal deposit insurance, and any crypto assets it claims are subject to crypto price movements.
Colin Wu (@WuBlockchain) has been watching Celsius’s movements:
An address suspected to be Celsius (0x87A67e7dC32fdc79853D780c6f516312b4A503B5) borrowed 278 million DAI in the Maker protocal by staking 17,919.37 WBTC, making it the largest personal debt position in the protocol. If BTC falls to $22,584, the position will face liquidation https://t.co/grty3xKwTM
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) June 13, 2022
Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) trades at around $23,600, slightly lower than Bitcoin itself.
Update: Celsius has transferred about 104,000 ETH to FTX in the past three days, including about 50,000 ETH today, 12,000 ETH yesterday, and 42,000 ETH the day before yesterday. In addition, Celsius also transferred about 9,500 WBTC to FTX today.https://t.co/RaiJTJIVm9 https://t.co/1RQaa9fT3u
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) June 13, 2022
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