Multiple SBF Appearances, Fed Chair Speech, and Market Bounce: The Week’s Crypto Recap

The past seven days were filled with a lot of information as the situation around FTX keeps unraveling. The former CEO of the exchange – Sam Bankman-Fried, had multiple appearances, but they may have spurred more questions than they answered.

Before we get there, though, it’s important to note that the market managed to add around $20 billion to its capitalization, which is a step in the positive direction. Bitcoin managed to gain 2%, while ETH is up a total of 6% in the past week.

This week’s best performer, for better or worse, is Dogecoin. DOGE skyrocketed a whopping 21% in a market that’s struggling to recover. MATIC also performed very well, up 7% in the past seven days.

As mentioned above, the week’s highlights were the multiple appearances of SBF in a few interviews and podcasts. However, much of what he said was just an attempt to skew and deflect harder questions without providing a lot of concise information on how the whole thing came crashing down.

For example, he was quoted saying that the reason he prioritized Bahamian withdrawals in the wake of the fallout was that he’s physically located there and “you don’t want to be in a country with a lot of angry people in it.”

Elsewhere, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, had a speech this week. He hinted that there will be ongoing increases in interest rates and that the “ultimate level of rates will need to be somewhat higher than thought at the time of the September meeting.”

News also came from the Commodity and Futures Trading Commission. Its chairman, Rostin Benham, said that the only cryptocurrency that can be considered a commodity is Bitcoin. This is a considerable change in his view because earlier, he had said that Ether also falls within this category. The implications of this remain to be seen.

All in all, it was a very exciting week, and there’s a lot going on in the industry right now. This surely means that the next seven days will be just as action-packed.

Market Data

Market Cap: $890B | 24H Vol: 46B | BTC Dominance: 36.6%

BTC: $16,934 (+2%) | ETH: $1,278 (+6%) | BNB: $389 (-3.7%)

This Week’s Crypto Headlines You Can’t Miss

Tether Responds to Media FUD Regarding Rising Loan Risk. Tether – the company issuing the industry’s biggest stablecoin by means of total market capitalization (USDT) – has addressed a lot of the criticism launched at its direction in the media.

SBF Says FTX US Should be Solvent, Unsure Why Withdrawals Not Enabled. Despite the ongoing bankruptcy case, Sam Bankman-Fried maintains that the US branch of FTX should be solvent. He also said he doesn’t know why withdrawals haven’t been enabled yet.

Animoca Brands Unveils $2B Metaverse Fund. Animoca Brands – the blockchain gaming giant – is set to roll out a massive $2 billion fund called Animoca Capital. Its purpose is to invest in metaverse-related businesses, according to executive chairman Yat Siu.

CFTC Chair Changes His Mind About Ethereum Being a Commodity. The chairman of the US Commodity and Futures Trading Commission – Rostin Benham, believes the only cryptocurrency that can be considered a commodity is Bitcoin. Last year, he said ETH also falls within these lines, but he seems to have changed his mind.

Bitcoin Sentiment in US Recovering After the FTX Meltdown. The sentiment in the Bitcoin market is recovering following the meltdown and catastrophic consequences of the FTX fallout. This is according to well-known crypto analytics provider CryptoQuant.

Bear Market Length Has Now Matched Previous Cycles, Is Trend Reversal Imminent? The current length of the ongoing bear market has now matched previous cycles. In fact, today marks the 377th day, whereas the previous drawdown that ended in 2018 lasted for 364 days.

Charts

This week we have a chart analysis of Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, MATIC, and Dogecoin – click here for the complete price analysis.