It was a befittingly sombre affair in the crypto markets over the UK long weekend, marred by a poorly performing Ethereum as traders pulled out of their positions now following The Merge.
But after dipping as low as US$1,280 – the lowest in two months – the past 24 hours have seen some signs of recovery with a 4.5% rally returning ETH above US$1,350.
Bitcoin cut a similar path over the past few days, having dipped scarily close to the US$18,000 mark before adding 4.5% this Tuesday morning, thus heading closer to US$19,500.
Other large-cap blockchain tokens have failed to regain as much ground, with Polkadot and Polygon especially struggling.
The crypto markets as a whole currently stand at US$935bn; Investors will be hoping for a return above US$1tn by the end of the week.
Among today’s top performers include Bored Ape Yacht Club’s APE token, which added double digits to its now-US$1.8bn market cap, and the US$1.5bn fan-engagement token Chiliz, which went up around 9%.
The mid-cap Algorand blockchains Algorand, Kava and Internet Computer also performed well.
In the decentralised finance (DeFi) space, total value locked across all protocols has essentially remained unchanged at US$54bn.
In the news
The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has issued a warning against Sam Bankman-Fried’s Bahamas-registered digital asset exchange FTX.
“We believe this firm may be providing financial services or products in the UK without our authorisation,” read the FCA statement, adding: “This firm is not authorised by us and is targeting people in the UK.
But in response, an FTX spokesperson told Bloomberg: “We’re looking into it and communicating with regulators; we believe that a scammer is impersonating FTX… The phone numbers listed by the FCA are not from FTX and are listed as a crypto scam.”
Heads up: a scammer has been impersonating FTX in the UK by phone! Please only use https://t.co/ZcBNEuyQvH, https://t.co/6mG6iOFv3o, https://t.co/X88vVFRKde, etc. to access FTX, and do not respond to any phone numbers etc. FTX will never call you by phone.South Korean prosecutors have asked Interpol to intervene in the capture of Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon, who is allegedly refusing to cooperate with an investigation into the US$60bn collapse of the UST and LUNA tokens.— SBF (@SBF_FTX) September 19, 2022
“We are doing our best to locate and arrest him,” the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office said. “He is clearly on the run as his company’s key finance people also left for the same country during that time.”