A ‘Game of Thrones' between two of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges by volume — Binance and FTX — has commenced, according to GlobalBlock analyst Marcus Sotiriou.
What Happened: As concerns rise about the health of FTX, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said his company will sell all its FTX (FTT) tokens, worth nearly $500 million according to Sotiriou.
The issue at hand is that billions worth of assets of Almeda Research, owned by FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, are linked to FTT.
"In fact, the $5.8 billion of FTT on Alameda's balance sheet is equal to 193% of the total FTT market cap at the time of writing," said Sotiriou.
"Alameda cannot sell even small amounts of their FTT holdings without heavily impacting the price," wrote the analyst in a note, seen by Benzinga.
See Also: How To Buy Cryptocurrencies — Step-By-Step
Why It Matters: Sotiriou said a "self-fulfilling prophecy" has potentially started.
"We have already seen FTX's lending book drop by 50% from $2.5 billion to $1.25 billion, and the USDT book dropped 60% from $500 million to just over $200 million, in just the past 24 hours."
The analyst noted that Ethereum ETH/USD withdrawal from exchanges and FTT tokens on exchanges have both reached an all-time high, showing a "clear lack of certainty from investors." FTT is an Ethereum-based utility token.
"Whether or not FTX has enough reserves to weather the crypto winter is yet to be seen, but at this point, Binance is winning the exchange war."
Kaiko Research said it would take $4.4 million worth of FTT market sell orders to push down the price by 1% across all markets.
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
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