Bitcoin dropped below $19,000 again, to $18,866.77 on Thursday, in a 6% drop of $1,226.41 from its previous close. It was down almost 61% from the year’s high of $48,234 on March 28, and almost 73% off its all time high of $68,990.90. It has since risen back up above $19,000, but barely, at $19,174.78.
Part of the problem is major investors and actors in the crypto-space are encountering financial difficulties, and this is triggering margin calls and other forced liquidations to cover expenses. Still other entities, like exchanges are beginning to see liquidity problems that are causing them to freeze buying, selling, and trading, leading some to feel that as an asset class, crypto may not be entirely safe as we head into uncertain economic times, and find that many crypto-lenders may not still be in possession of the crypto that customers gave them to lend.
What began with Three Arrows Capital has begun to reveal a spiderweb of borrowing and lending of assets across numerous entities and platforms that are now apparently in distress and unable to return funds or maintain operations. Now Voyager Digital has suspended all buying, selling and trading by customers, as it pursues a $644 million loan of tokens and bitcoin it loaned to Three Arrows. Then Genesis Trading lined up behind Voyager, revealing it has hundreds of millions it may have lost to Three Arrows as well.
Ether also lost about 7.5% from its last close, dropping to $1,016.08, a loss of $82.38.
This began with the freezing of all assets by Celsius Networks, a crypto lender which suddenly appears to have found itself with liquidity issues as the crypto winter began and assets began declining in earnest. And that may have been triggered by the sudden and spectacular collapse of stablecoin Terra in May, when it quite suddenly lost almost all of its value dragging down its paired token, Luna as well.
Now going forward it is unclear what other collapses are barely being contained, and which could force the prices of cryptos down, spooking investors and raising the possibility that prices could go much lower, and the support levels may not be where one would think they were based upon historical data.