Crypto revived

Despite a measurably massive dump tied to Grayscale's beleaguered GBTC vehicle, as well as renewed fears about sell pressure from the creditors of a long-defunct exchange, Bitcoin, nevertheless, shot back above $40,000.

Total crypto assets gained 3.6% to go to $1.64 trillion.

It appears, asserted CoinDesk, that throughout the recent downswing some large buyers have been on the prowl for inexpensive entry points. Bitfinex whales were spotted using algorithmic strategies to break outsized orders into smaller pieces over the past several days, per Byzantine General.

Looking at the Big Ten, Solana gained 7.5% to nearly $87. That pop was over the past 24 hours as of 9:30 a.m. (EST).

The Solana network's loveable memecoin, Dogwifhat, also is surging. An announcement that WIF would list on Bitget sent the token on a joyride from twenty cents to back above thirty cents. Last Thursday, WIF, the 170th-largest digital asset, reached an all-time high of $0.46. And to think it was only one month ago that WIF was $0.001555. It has since gained 20,000%.

Meanwhile, Manta Network, a layer-2 scaling solution which last week saw its native token get listed on some big exchanges, has rebounded from a coordinated attack on its nodes that, while short-lived, still managed to mar MANTA's debut.

With a market capitalization of more than $700 million (amassed in six days), MANTA is now the 92nd-largest token, according to CoinGecko. MANTA gained 23% in the past 24 hours to reach a record high of $2.80 as of about 6 a.m. (EST). Based on total value locked (TVL) of more than $1 billion, the Manta project is starting to make a run at its two rivals in the layer-2 space, Optimism and Arbitrum.

The OKX exchange's native OKB token “flash crashed” yesterday after an unusual price swing set off a sudden series of liquidations. It took all of three minutes for OKB to lose roughly half of its value. The quick trip from $46 to $25 is already on the verge of being completely forgotten. OKB was $47 as of 8:45 a.m. (EST) and the exchange confirmed it will compensate users for losses caused by the cascade.

Coinbase shares, in step with Bitcoin and many other digital assets, enjoyed an outstanding 2023. But the publicly traded crypto exchange and the sector has hit a wall to start off 2024.

In a note to clients explaining why it was downgrading COIN from a "neutral" rating to "underweight," a JPMorgan Chase analyst pointed to expectations for crypto ETF enthusiasm to flicker out.

Concurrently, and also concerning, Decrypt has tracked scattered reports of defunct-exchange Mt. Gox caretakers tracking down addresses of creditors so as to make restitutions for losses that go back to the exchange's collapse ten years ago. In 2018, a Japanese court signed off on a post-bankruptcy "rehabilitation" plan for Mt. Gox which shuttered in 2014 after a hack that led to BTC losses which at the time were estimated to be in the neighborhood of $64 million.

That pile of more than 700,000 BTC would be worth almost $30 billion today.

Some Russian nationals this past summer were charged in connection with the incident, and about 20% of the infamous, ill-gotten stash was ultimately recovered.

Now social media platforms are buzzing with reports from users who shared screenshots of what they said were deposits in their bank accounts. "Platforms tracking the funds ascribed to Mt. Gox had not revealed any major BTC dumps," Decrypt said. "Until now."