Celsius Drama, 3AC Insolvency Rumors, Bitcoin Amid $20K: This Week’s Crypto Recap

The market has taken a beating over the past seven days, and it’s not looking very good at the time of this writing. Bad news came from various fronts, which resulted in close to $400 billion being wiped off the total capitalization in the past week alone. Let’s unwind.

Right off the bat, towards the beginning of the week, Celsius Network – one of the cryptocurrency industry’s biggest lenders – announced that it has halted withdrawals, swaps, and transfers. Users found themselves without access to their funds. Rumors of liquidations started running rampant, and this cause serious panic within the entire market. To this date, the company remains silent, but the CEO assured that the team is working non-stop to resolve the issues.

Later during the week, Three Arrows Capital – one of the industry’s largest hedge funds – was also apparently in distress. Analysts revealed that some of their multi-million dollar positions were very close to getting liquidated, raising further red flags for the community.

The result? Bitcoin is currently trading at slightly above $20,000 – its previous all-time high from 2017. This is also a level that many believe if lost, will trigger massive liquidations to the downside. The cryptocurrency ended up losing a whopping 30% of its value, and that’s not even the worst news.

Ethereum shaped up as the cryptocurrency that lost the most over the past seven days – down 40% and trading above the critical level of $1,000 for quite some time now. ETH’s downturn was largely propelled by forced liquidations from the news around Celsius and 3AC.

All in all, it’s been very rough seven days for the entire industry. At the time of this writing, it doesn’t look like there’s any serious hope for reversal, so the question is if these levels will hold the selling pressure.

Market Data

Market Cap: $933B | 24H Vol: $87B | BTC Dominance: 42.2%

BTC: $20,647 (-31.4%) | ETH: $1,080 (-39.6%) | ADA: $0.48 (-22.8%)

This Week’s Crypto Headlines You Can’t Miss

Three Arrows Capital Eyes Asset Sale or Bailout, Confirms Co-Founder. The co-founder of Three Arrows Capital – one of the industry’s largest hedge funds – Kyle Davis – revealed that the company is exploring different options to handle its challenges, some of which include asset sales and getting rescued by another firm.

Vitalik Buterin Does Not Believe Crypto Could Replace Traditional Currencies. Vitalik Buterin – Ethereum’s co-founder – said that he doesn’t believe cryptocurrencies could replace traditional fiat. He also thinks that if BTC was to replace fiat, this wouldn’t be a good move at all.

Investors Not Looking to Bail Out Struggling Celsius Network (Report). The recent problems of Celsius Network continue to spiral. New reports suggest that former investors in the company do not want to pour any more funds to help.

Celsius Crashes 50% As the Platform Halts Withdrawals due to ‘Extreme Market Conditions.’ Celsius Network – one of the industry’s largest lenders and a prominent player in DeFi and CeFi – halted withdrawals, transfers, and swaps. This essentially left users with no access to their funds in the platform.

Elon Musk, Tesla, SpaceX Sued for $258 Billion Dogecoin’ Pyramid Scheme’. The billionaire is under legal pressure for his role in encouraging the public to buy the popular memecoin – Dogecoin. The latter is now down some 92% from its all-time high.

SBF Clears the Air on Bitcoin’s Potential for Payments. The CEO of FTX – Sam Bankman-Fried – firmly believes that Bitcoin, as an asset, can actually scale for widespread payments. However, the billionaire believes that this can be done through the implementation of layer-two technologies such as the Lightning Network.