Initial Takeaways from the Implosion of FTX
SBF vs. CZ
As we addressed in our daily note on Monday, one thing few can argue is that crypto always keeps things interesting.
As many know by now, two industry giants, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) and Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ), sparred over the weekend following circulating rumors that FTX was on the verge of insolvency.
To recap recent events:
Rumors initially emerged from a Coindesk report last week implying that a large percentage of SBF's trading firm Alameda's assets were denominated in $FTT. FTT is the exchange token of SBF's crypto exchange FTX.The prevailing logic was that the degrading health of the FTT token might result in the inability of FTX to fulfill customer withdrawals due to the co-mingling of funds between FTX and Alameda.CZ, seeing an opportunity to pounce on a competitor, took to Twitter to publicly announce that the leading Asian crypto exchange would be selling its sizeable FTT holdings to the market. This caused downward price pressure across cryptoassets on Sunday, particularly for FTT and $SOL, another asset held in size by Alameda.In response to the aggressive tactics employed by CZ, current Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison tried to dispel concerns over Alameda's liquidity and offered to purchase&nb...Reports you may have missed
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CORE STRATEGY Our base case assumes that the macro environment will remain accommodative for crypto through year-end. However, in light of recent market action, we remain alert for signs of a local top (not a cycle top). That said, it is difficult to justify a risk-averse stance at this stage and think it is right to lean into this altcoin rally. Source: TradingView, Fundstrat Source: TradingView, Fundstrat STRONG DOLLAR +...
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INDICATIONS OF FROTH Given the violent nature of the past month’s rally, we have been vigilant for signs of a local top. It would be disingenuous to claim that some qualitative "top signals" are not flashing right now. XRP—which we noted as a possible election trade back in October—with only 1–2k daily active addresses (vs ETH's over 400k, source: Artemis), is ripping toward new highs while influencers take to TikTok...
