Bitcoin is still lurking around US$19k – the volatility expected after the US inflation data update didn’t really find a crypto-market direction. Meanwhile, Mango Markets hack news and a little-known layer 1 called Casper are causing a stir.
Judging by the crypto majors at least, it was a fairly sedate weekend for price action, although more volatility for the market is overdue according to various analysts, such as Michaël van de Poppe:
Matter of time until massive volatility is going to kick back into the markets, after four months of consolidation.
Majority is still assuming we’ll continue to go downhill with the markets, but I think that odds of upwards momentum have increased.
— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) October 16, 2022
“Bitcoin is squeezing and ready for a breakout move above $19.6k,” the crypto-chart-watching Dutchman further noted.
Raoul Pal, a stupidly rich British former hedge fund manager and the co-founder of financial media company Real Vision, also believes October is still in for some action. Judging by one of his latest Twitter threads (below), though, it might well be in the opposite direction from the “Uptober” crypto narrative.
Pal compares the current macroeconomic situation with past bear markets and stock market crashes, citing October as a frequent month for a “generational low”. (Although, he also points out other market bottoms that extended into November and a bit beyond.)
Something about history not repeating but rhyming, perhaps? (Do, however, bear in mind Kraken Australia boss Jonathon Miller’s take on the words “let’s dig in” at the end of this article.)
October is the month stock market crashes – It is also the month that kills bear markets…
Let’s dig in… 1/
— Raoul Pal (@RaoulGMI) October 16, 2022
Mango Markets hacker comes clean
Seventeen days into October and it’s reportedly been one of the worst months for hacks in crypto history in what’s actually been the worst year so far for DeFi exploits overall. And that’s according to the analytics company Chainalysis.
1/ After four hacks yesterday, October is now the biggest month in the biggest year ever for hacking activity, with more than half the month still to go. So far this month, $718 million has been stolen from #DeFi protocols across 11 different hacks. pic.twitter.com/emz36f6gpK
— Chainalysis (@chainalysis) October 12, 2022
The Solana-based DeFi platform Mango Markets was the biggest of those October hacks so far, with more than US$100 million drained.
There’s been some pretty crazy updates on this situation, however, starting with the hacker offering to return stolen funds with the proviso that criminal charges won’t be pursued:
So just to recap the @mangomarkets situation:
-Hacker exploits Mango for $100M+
-Hacker turns around & offers to return most funds, if DAO promises not to pursue criminal investigations
-Hackers uses 32M votes from the exploit to vote ‘Yes’
LMFAO you cannot make this shit up! pic.twitter.com/LsdafMS7vQ
— Alex Valaitis (@alex_valaitis) October 12, 2022
It seems, however, that the trail leading to the hacker or hackers wasn’t exactly well covered. As a result, the main person responsible – New York-based “digital art dealer” Avraham Eisenberg – then felt compelled to identify himself across the weekend, claiming his actions were legal.
I believe all of our actions were legal open market actions, using the protocol as designed, even if the development team did not fully anticipate all the consequences of setting parameters the way they are.
— Avraham Eisenberg (@avi_eisen) October 15, 2022
As things stand, Eisenberg and his “team” appear to have returned more than half the funds – US$67 million to the Mango Markets DAO (decentralised autonomous organisation).
$67M in various crypto assets have been returned to the DAO. Let’s meet up on Monday 3 PM UTC on the Mango discord to discuss, how we can sort out this mess.
— Mango (@mangomarkets) October 15, 2022
It’s also been reported by Decrypt and other US crypto media sites that Mango Markets agreed to cut a deal with the hackers for him/them to keep US$47 million as a “bug bounty”.
And that’s a form of reward usually given to ethical “white-hat” hackers helping protocols to find chinks in their armour.
This whole Mango episode is crazy, highly questionable stuff, and continues to prove that decentralised finance, while a fascinating and incredibly innovative sector, still has major teething problems to overcome. Tread there with extreme caution.
Onto some general daily crypto price action.
Top 10 overview
With the overall crypto market cap at US$963 billion, up about 1% since this time yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.
While the market’s main pace setters, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), are cruising sideways, a few other crypto majors have been bleeding out a bit over the past few days.
Looks like XRP could do with another good update regarding its parent company Ripple’s legal stoush with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. We’ll keep you posed on any major developments.
Layer 1 smart-contract protocols Cardano (ADA) and Solana (SOL) are also well down on a weekly timeframe.
Cardano, in particular, is one of those polarising projects, which has a bit to do with its highly intelligent, highly outspoken founder Charles Hoskinson. It gets a lot of hate, particularly from the Ethereum community, but like XRP, ADA’s supporters can be extremely… evangelical.
I’m starting to get the same #Cardano vibes I had when I first started really covering $ADA when I discovered how insanely undervalued it was.
We are going to have so much fun.
— Dan Gambardello (@cryptorecruitr) October 16, 2022
Uppers and downers: 11–100
Sweeping a market-cap range of about US$7.1 billion to about US$381 million in the rest of the top 100, let’s find some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time. (Stats accurate at time of publishing, based on CoinGecko.com data.)
DAILY PUMPERS
• Casper Network (CSPR),(market cap: US$520 million) +25%
• Synthetix (SNX), (mc: US$550 million) +12%
• Quant (QNT), (mc: US$2.53 million) +6%
• Aave (AAVE), (mc: US$1 billion) +4%
• Chainlink (LINK), (mc: US$3.5 billion) +3%
Casper, eh? What’s up with this one, then, aside from the price? Firstly, what is it? It’s yet another proof-of-stake layer 1 blockchain, which has a focus on helping large, institutional enterprises build effective blockchain-enabled services.
And that’s something its CEO Mrinal Manohar reportedly believes most other blockchains are ill-equipped to provide.
Why is it pumping today? Tricky to determine at a quick glance. Perhaps insiders know something the rest of us don’t. A quick scroll down its available markets on CoinGecko and CSPR is not yet listed on the largest exchanges (it’s on OKX, Huobi and KuCoin, for example, but not Coinbase, Binance, FTX or Kraken).
When @Casper_Network binance FTX is listed on major exchanges such as Coinbase Kraken, how many times will there be a price increase over its current price? #cspr #Bitcoin #BTC #luna #binance #doge #shiba
— CASPER TÜRKİYE (@casperturkey1) October 16, 2022
Perhaps, like ADA and XRP, CSPR is building out a rabidly loyal, hopium-fuelled supporter base in search of the next bullrun major protocol moonshot. We’ll see.
👂 👂 👂 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻 #CSPR is going to be a top 20 #Crypto. These are some amazing prices to get in at!! #CasperLabs @Casper_Labs https://t.co/S6X190imhI
— Micah XRP🖕🏼SEC (@MicahPW20) October 13, 2022
DAILY SLUMPERS
• Huobi (HT), (market cap: US$916 million) -4%
• Terra (LUNA), (mc: US$404 million) -4%
• Chain (XCN), (mc: US$1.38 billion) -2%
• EOS (EOS), (mc: US$1 billion) -1%
• Tezos (XTZ), (mc: US$1.2 billion) -1%
Around the blocks
A selection of randomness and pertinence that stuck with us on our morning moves through the Crypto Twitterverse…
We had all hoped for Uptober for #crypto, instead, it seems we are getting CRABTOBER!!!
Still got two weeks though…
— Lark Davis (@TheCryptoLark) October 16, 2022
Why I NO LONGER recommed REAL ESTATE. In my 2022 book Capitslist Manifesto, I stated Marxist took over the US in the 2020 election. Marxists will raise property taxes, impose rent controls, as rising interest rates decrease property values. I recommend gold, silver, Bitcoin.
— therealkiyosaki (@theRealKiyosaki) October 15, 2022
President Biden: “I’m not concerned about the strength of the dollar. I’m concerned about the rest of the world, our economy’s strong as hell.” pic.twitter.com/ZFYLJVWSoM
— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) October 16, 2022
The British Pound £ is a shitcoin.
👉 Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/HLXxpXv3wQ— Bitcoin Archive 🗄🚀🌔 (@BTC_Archive) October 16, 2022
“The Fed is finished. They don’t know it yet but they are.”
–@LawrenceLepardWhat a 🔥🔥🔥 interview. Thank you for all the positive feedback, views and listens!
Link: https://t.co/s7TAQiBEUP pic.twitter.com/dZWXFyxOkD
— Natalie Brunell (@natbrunell) October 16, 2022
With #playtoearn fading away, many #gamefi guilds are now pivoting to #esports or infrastructure. At @Polemos_io we never went down the typical scholarship focused guild route, instead, esports / infrastructure are at the core of our gamefi platform, so no catching up needed💪
— Sascha Zehe (@fireblade_storm) October 16, 2022
Last but not least, Kraken Australia boss Jonathon Miller has a way to improve your Twitter experience. Let’s dig take a quick look…
Wow my feed is instantly better pic.twitter.com/o1yYYiaD8C
— Jonathon Miller (@jdesmondmiller) October 16, 2022
(Quickly checks articles to see if we’ve used the phrases “let’s dig in” and “simple steps” just lately. Phew, think we’re clean.)