Bitcoin (BTC) hits 2-year low as FTX collapse contagion fears linger

Bitcoin on Tuesday hit a two-year low because the cryptocurrency market takes a bruising following the collapse of main change FTX.

Bitcoin hit $15,480, its lowest stage since Nov. 11, 2020, in accordance with CoinDesk information. The digital coin has since bounced from that low and was buying and selling at round $15,728.33 at 4:08 a.m. ET.

Your entire cryptocurrency market has misplaced greater than $1.4 trillion in worth this 12 months because the business has been plagued with issues from failed tasks to a liquidity crunch, exacerbated by the autumn of FTX, as soon as one of many world’s largest exchanges.

Crypto’s newest points started after Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, mentioned his change would promote its FTT tokens. FTT is the native digital foreign money of FTX’s crypto change. Binance’s transfer sparked the collapse of FTX, an organization as soon as valued at $32 billion. FTX has since filed for chapter.

To make issues worse, hackers stole round $477 million of cryptocurrency from FTX, the majority of which has been transformed into the digital coin ether. However the hackers have begun to launder that cash into bitcoin. As a result of they’re promoting ether, the value of ether has additionally been beneath strain.

Ether was buying and selling down round 3.5% at $1,089.42 at 4:08 a.m. ET.

FTX could have greater than 1 million collectors. It owes greater than $3 billion to its prime 50 unsecured collectors alone.

Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried stepped down as CEO earlier this month and was changed by John Ray III.

Ray is seeking to promote or restructure FTX’s world empire.

In the meantime, Bankman-Fried continues to be holding out hope that he can dealer some kind of deal to bail out FTX, CNBC reported.