It’s no doubt been a week of turmoil- not just for crypto, but for global indices and the foreign exchange markets.
But while crypto spent most of the past seven days in a weaker position, there was some sweet relief on Friday as nearly 5% was added to the global market capitalisation.
At US$952bn, the markets are now only 1% lower against the week.
Ethereum’s savage downside saw a 6% reversal that brought it back up to US$1,350 after skirting dangerously close to one thousand, though is still nearly 9% down on the week.
Bitcoin, which has shown slightly more stability, is trading at US$19,400 after adding over 3% this morning.
The real big hitter has been Ripple’s XRP token, which has rallied over 60% this week; nearly half of those gains happen in the past day alone.
The payment token is now at four-month highs, buoyed mainly by potentially good news coming out of its long-running legal spat with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Other top movers this week include the Stellar network’s XLM token, which saw its market cap shoot up to US$3.3bn on a 27% rally, and Algorand (ALGO), which added over 30% to its now US$2.7bn market cap.
Cronos (CRO), the native coin of the Crypto.com exchange, saw some relief after being absolutely decimated this year- a 13% weekly gain brought its market cap abvoe US$3bn.
After a valiant effort by the short squeezers, Terra Classic (LUNC) ultimately ended the week in a worse position, with the bears managing to depress the community-run project by nearly 6%.
But the two biggest losers this week were the two post-Merge Ethereum alternatives – Ravencoin and Ethereum Classic – which fell 25% and 15% respectively.
In the decentralised finance (DeFi) space, Curve’s recent sluggish performance saw a bit of a reversal today, with 5% added to its market cap, while Compound Finance and MakerDAO are also performing well.
Total value locked across all DeFi platforms shot up 5.5% to US$55.5bn in the past day, thus bringing TVL to a net positive position against the week.
Elsewhere in the news
Washington State’s assistant attorney general Stephen Manning has asked to be entered as an interested party in the Celsius Network bankruptcy case.
A report from CoinDesk suggested that state regulators want to take a more active approach to the case (and regulation in general) under a “growing belief that the Feds are moving too slowly”.
The proposed Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill in the UK “will make it easier and quicker for law enforcement agencies such as the National Crime Agency to seize, freeze and recover cryptoassets”.
A second reading before the Commons is scheduled for October 13.