ALGO makes its move

Earlier this week, crypto cratered; $200 billion worth of value vaporized. Monday into Tuesday, Bitcoin lost 9%. Algorand fell 12%.

Native token of a burgeoning Proof-of-Stake (PoS) layer-1 speed/scalability-seeking project/ecosystem, and the industry's 19th-largest crypto by market capitalization, ALGO at one stage in its existence reached $3.50. Okay, that was two-and-a-half-years ago.

But ALGO, earlier today, during Asian hours, looked a little bit like its old self again, soaring to $2.66.

As of 8:45 a.m. (EST), ALGO turned back into a pumpkin, under $2. Still, it has enjoyed a 13.6% gain compared to this time yesterday.

Some of the frenzy would seem to be connected with news that 21Shares, a Switzerland-based crypto fund manager, has launched a Swiss-exchange-traded-product, or ETP, backed by ALGO.

Argh. Most coins are in the red. Bitcoin dipped below $60K. It has shed 1% since this time yesterday. Ethereum fell 1% as well. Darling Shiba Inu, surging 60% over the past 30 days, vaulting into the upper echelon, lost 6%. Also down 6% over 24 hours is Litecoin. Oh, LTC had been rolling … but not anymore. It has lost 15% in the past week.

Solana hit an all-time high, nearly $260, one-week-and-a-half-ago. SOL has since lost 20%. And then there is Fantom. It rocked an ATH just before Halloween. Momentum has vanished. FTM has since lost 40%. Don't get us started on Chainlink. LINK used to be a staple of the Big Ten. In May, LINK was above $50. But it hasn't been above $30 in weeks. LINK’s on the verge of falling out of the Top 20. Just checked. LINK is No. 18. It’s $28. Whatever.

Bullish flows have deluged the market for ETH options with institutions leading the charge. Call options, you will remember, furnish purchasers with the right, but not the obligation, to buy the underlying asset at a predetermined ("strike") price on or before a specific date. Call buyers are viewed as inherently bullish, in contrast to buyers of "put" options giving buyers the right to sell.

Okay, so with Ethereum trying to hold a $4K handle in spot markets this week, large investors in the past 24 hours are said to be snapping up ETH call options with strike prices of at least $5,000 and going as high as $6,500, according to Patrick Chu, director of institutional sales and trading at Paradigm. Nearly 80% of the ETH option transactions on Paradigm's OTC platform has been for calls, he said (CoinDesk).

Gemini, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss's fast-growing crypto empire is securing a $400 million investment to pursue development of a decentralized metaverse. It’ll serve as a counterstrike to Facebook, which has a vision for a metaverse that ostensibly revolves around Meta shareholder value, and thus sets the stage for another clash between the former Olympic rowers and their former Harvard classmate Mark Zuckerberg (Forbes).

The Winklevoss's gained notoriety after "The Social Network," a 2010 film depicting the legal battle over who founded Facebook. One year later, the twins settled their claim for $65 million. By 2013, they were all in on Bitcoin.