Market shows uncanny resilience

Slings and arrows came swiftly, in succession, in the form of a slightly higher headline inflation number and the green light for a plan to liquidate FTX's coin stash.

Crypto couldn't care less.

Look at Solana, viewed as singularly most sensitive to a court-ordered sell-off (over time) of tens of millions of dollars worth of SOL. As of 7:11 a.m. (EST), SOL (No. 10 largest digital asset) enjoyed a 4% spurt in the past 24 hours as $19 suddenly appears within spitting distance.

Meanwhile, a couple of hurly-burly altcoins, Hedera Hashgraph and Kaspa, each popped overnight with the latter rallying by as much as 22% on the week.

KAS for a moment there earlier today tasted a market capitalization of right around $1 billion, making it CoinGecko's 44th-largest coin. Last May, after the obliteration of Terra's ecosystem, roiling the markets, KAS was fractions of a penny. It has since skyrocketed. Its all-time high of about a nickel came early last month. When we checked KAS again at 8:32 a.m. (EST), it was $0.047953 on a 4.6% gain since yesterday at that time.

Majors shaded green, mildly. Bitcoin, as of 7:26 a.m. (EST), was $26,350 (+0.8% in 24 hours); Ethereum stood at around $1,625 on a gain of 1.5%.

Total crypto gained 1% to $1.09 trillion, per CoinGecko.

Wednesday's green foray came despite the Consumer Price Index (CPI) running hotter than expected, with the closely monitored "core CPI" (minus food and energy) rising 0.3% in August versus July; most economists expected a 0.2% core CPI uptick.

As for Solana and its supposed susceptibility to a forced liquidation – much of the outstanding SOL supply is locked and can’t be moved, thus liquid SOL pre-absorbed anticipated blows in what now appears to be a "sell the rumor, buy the event" scenario having played out.

It's not just Solana that FTX intends to liquidate. Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP are on the $3.4 billion off-load list, as is Aptos.

The layer-1 protocol founded by ex-Facebook employees is set to release 20 million APT tokens in November, according to TokenUnlocks.

In other words, Aptos is unlocking (for possible sale) 8.5% of its circulating supply (235.02 million).

As of 7:44 a.m. (EST), APT was $5.18, per CoinGecko, which pegs the impending unlock as a $100M+ event.

APT has shed 25% in the past month. Derivatives market data reveals traders are turning bearish on APT, CoinDesk said.

And despite this double-whammy of sell pressure, APT remains the 38th-largest digital asset.

Overall, the impact of impending FTX selling on the crypto market is shaping up to be relatively small ($200 million per week seems more than doable) and, importantly, will happen incrementally over a period of months through the rest of 2023.

However, downward pressure has already rained down and constant sell pressure exerted by a large holder can't be categorized as a welcome dynamic; although it remains to be seen whether a willing whale swoops in with an off-to-the-side, court-approved proposal to snap up a bunch of Solana in bulk.

The existence of an FTX liquidation proposal caused a stir coming into September. Yesterday, a judge in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware signed off. FTX can sell – and invest (hedge/stake) – its crypto holdings to pay back creditors.

The unsecured creditors committee, through its attorney, declared that all parties wish to expedite the process.

According to court papers, per Reuters, FTX is keenly aware its liquidation plans could move markets.

FTX has hired Galaxy as its investment advisor in charge of the unwinding process, which involves mitigating the potential for any leaked information that could possibly spur short selling.