Local cryptocurrency traders brace for FTX deal Impact

Binance said that it was walking away from the deal due to FTX’s mishandling of customer funds and regulatory investigations that were triggered in the last couple of days.

At 5.45 PM Thursday on Coinmarketcap, Bitcoin was trading at $16,393, down 18.07% in the last 7 days. It had touched an all-time high of $68,789.63 last November.

Ethereum stood at $1,193, down 21.45% in the same period. The alt coin touched a peak of $4,811 on November 10, 2021. In the last 24 hours, Solana slid to $14.51 (-25.53%), Ripple dropped to $0.359 (-4.81%) while Cardano slipped to $0.3485 (-3.11%).

Dogecoin was down to $0.0828 (-6.10%) and the other popular meme coin, Shiba Inu, was trading at $0.00000976 (-1.27%).

The total value of the crypto market had shrunk to $827 billion after the brutal market meltdown that started on Tuesday.

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Indian investors, most of whom had hitched on to the crypto bandwagon during the 2021 bull market, were a scared lot watching their portfolios contract as crypto prices declined sharply.

Apart from the almost year-long bear market, what’s now bothering the Indian investors is the lack of transparency in the crypto ecosystem, the high leverage of key players, and the fact that the companies can’t seem to withstand the collapse of their tokens.

“It’s a black swan. Nobody expected things to unfold in this manner. It goes on to show how fragile the ecosystem is. The exchanges and stablecoin issuers are in serious need of audits, and regulators need to step in,” said Ashwin Nadar, a 25-year-old Mumbai-based investor.

“FTX got exposed, so they are under water. We don’t know how many others are insolvent. Investors must stop putting their trust in exchanges and begin self-custodying their assets.”