Jerome Powell’s latest speech is a few days old and the crypto caravan moves on. Bitcoin has bounced above US$20k and Ethereum’s finding some resilience, but Avalanche has a few issues…
There’s been some controversy circulating about the Avalanche layer 1 protocol, which sent the AVAX token crashing yesterday…
now that’s what I call an avalanche pic.twitter.com/f1Hc9bwhOa
— zach (@smolzachxbt) August 29, 2022
Things have picked up a bit since then, but the token is still down close to 15% on the week.
So what happened? In some sort of nutshell, this…
• Self-described crypto “whistleblower” website Crypto Leaks published a report this week alleging Ava Labs had paid law firm Roche Freedman to sue Avalanche’s competitors.
• Crypto Leaks also posted a series of unattributed, covertly recorded videos, showing lawyer Kyle Roche apparently detailing his relationship with Ava Labs executives.
• The report insinuates the law firm was paid by the Avalanche creators to hurt competitors, including major rival Solana, and help distract regulatory scrutiny away from Avalanche.
Kyle Roche @ Roche Freedman, the secret #Avalanche law firm
RF litigates against Ava Labs competitors, to draw the SEC & CFTC to them, and away from Ava Labs
Roche ensures there’s “no such thing as regulation for what they [Ava Labs] want to do”👀
See https://t.co/6iK3R72VfM pic.twitter.com/AN0RpRVm49
— Crypto Leaks (@CryptoLeaksInfo) August 28, 2022
• Lawyer Kyle Roche has since said that the statements he made related to Ava Labs were “obtained through deceptive means” by an employee of Avalanche rival Dfinity’s founder Dominic Williams.
My statement concerning the Crypto Leaks story:https://t.co/wGGR8GCHZc
— Kyle Roche (@KyleWRoche) August 29, 2022
• The same Crypto Leaks report also implicated Ripple Labs’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse with similar Roche Freedman-associated, competitor-targeting plans. Garlinghouse has strongly denied any such actions, or even meeting Roche.
Can’t comment on the validity of the slew of allegations in here, but I can unequivocally say that I have never met or spoken to (much less invested in) Kyle Roche. https://t.co/s5Qu91AV2Z pic.twitter.com/DjLZ0eSdbe
— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) August 29, 2022
A quick scan of Avalanche tokens on CoinGecko, and it’s clear the ecosystem has been taking a bit of a hit on the news. DeFi protocols Trader Joe (JOE), Pangolin (PNG) and Avalaunch (XAVA), for instance, are all down around 15%-20% on the weekly timeframe.
Top 10 overview
With the overall crypto market cap at US$1.02 trillion and up about 3.4% since yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.
After plummeting below the trillion dollar mark yesterday, the crypto market cap has reclaimed the magic number on its daily spin of the chocolate wheel.
Ethereum (ETH) was leading the descent yesterday, and now it’s holding the flag for the daily pump, up close to 8% over the past 24 hours at the time of writing.
With so much conflicting analysis, plus a strong school of thought emerging that the protocol’s mythologised upcoming upgrade (that’d be The Merge) will be a sell-the-news dumpster fire, ETH’s short-term future seems difficult to call right now.
That said, European trader/analysts Rekt Capital and Michaël van de Poppe are having a crack…
If $ETH enjoys stronger follow-through from this recent successful retest of orange support…
Then #ETH will be able to go up and form a macro Lower High, much like in early 2021
That Lower High would form at ~$1800#Crypto #Ethereum pic.twitter.com/OnXqfOZegu
— Rekt Capital (@rektcapital) August 29, 2022
Once again, #Ethereum carries the markets, as the merge is coming up relatively soon.
Therefore, if this week ends up well for risk-on assets, the market might surprise the majority again.
Why?
Well, the majority is already betting on a 100% certain downwards fall to $10K.
— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) August 29, 2022
Uppers and downers: 11–100
Sweeping a market-cap range of about US$8 billion to about US$412 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
• Synthetix (SNX), (market cap: US$803 million) +16%
• Lido DAO (LDO), (mc: US$1.07 billion) +15%
• Cosmos Hub (ATOM), (mc: US$3.4 billion) +13%
• Flow (FLOW), (mc: US$1.98 billion) +12%
• Kusama (KSM), (mc: US$445 million) +9%
DAILY SLUMPERS
• Chain (XCN), (market cap: US$1.8 billion) -4%
• Tenset (10SET), (mc: US$459 million) -1%
Around the blocks
A selection of randomness and pertinence that stuck with us on our morning moves through the Crypto Twitterverse…
💥JUST IN: 5,000 Bitcoin, dormant for 9 years, was just moved! 🤔
— Bitcoin Archive 🗄🚀🌔 (@BTC_Archive) August 29, 2022
This will not stay blue forever. Macro and markets may be different, but humans don’t change, human behavior is driven by greed (red) and fear (blue). pic.twitter.com/gTh6hMg70P
— PlanB (@100trillionUSD) August 29, 2022
Snoop Dogg and Eminem have now delivered their hyped Bored Ape-themed MTV/VMA performance…
Full performance of Snoop Dogg & Eminem featuring Bored Ape Yacht Club at the #VMA’s.
— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) August 29, 2022
Turns out it’s not exactly been getting five-star reviews across Crypto Twitter and Reddit, though…
Gorillaz, Hatsune Miku, and even Nintendo with Splatoon. All did it first, and much better.
— Mx. Luca Renée Shoal, Dyke Mom Fox 🏳️⚧️ θ∆ (@lucashoal) August 29, 2022
The Eminem subreddit is not happy right now 😭 pic.twitter.com/EtLjYkfOSW
— zain gaziani (@zaingaziani) August 29, 2022
