The Crypto Roundup: 23 February 2021

Latest price and news from the crypto space

Latest price from our hand picked list of digital assets

The price of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ether, dropped from around $1,800 to a $1,500 low on most cryptocurrency exchanges, but the massive sell-off saw it drop to $700 on Kraken in a flash crash.

Publicly-traded remittance firm MoneyGram has announced it suspended its use of Ripple’s payments platform in light of the company’s ongoing legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platforms have liquidated around $25 million worth of cryptoassets as the price of ETH dropped from $1,800 to $1,500. It’s the highest amount in three months after $93 million were liquidated on November 25, 2020.

Sponsored: Crypto.com Exchange has listed Filecoin on The Syndicate, where all Crypto.com Coin (CRO) stakers will be able to participate in a discounted sale event for 250,000 USD worth of FIL at 50% off. The event commenced on Tuesday, 23 February 6:00am UTC on the Crypto.com Exchange.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

Ether Flash Crash on Kraken Sees ETH Trade at $700
MoneyGram Suspends Use of Ripple’s Platform Over SEC Lawsuit
$25 Million in DeFi Loans Liquidated Amid Crypto Market Decline
Sponsored: Crypto.com Exchange is listing FIL at 50% OFF

Ether Flash Crash on Kraken Sees ETH Trade at $700

The crash lasted just over a minute on the ETH/USD trading pair and saw ETH plunge from $1,630 to $700 before recovering as quickly as it fell. The breath-taking drop also affected the ADA/USD pair, which moved from $0.835 to $0.156 in a few minutes.

A Kraken spokesman was reportedly quoted that the cryptocurrency exchange “saw a surge in sell orders around this time,” and is “communicating directly with clients and asking that anyone with questions about their account please open a ticket.”

This isn’t the first time Ethereum’s price has crashed on Kraken. Flash crashes are a known occurrence in the cryptocurrency space, as in 2017 GDAX, now known as Coinbase Pro, saw ETH briefly crash from $319 to $0.10 over a “multimillion dollar” trade.

MoneyGram Suspends Use of Ripple’s Platform Over SEC Lawsuit

MoneyGram wrote:

“Due to the uncertainty concerning their ongoing litigation with the SEC, the Company has suspended trading on Ripple's platform.”

Ripple and MoneyGram entered a partnership back in June 2019, in which the former used the latter’s payments solution, RippleNet, leveraging the XRP token in forex settlements as part of its cross-border payments process. MoneyGram received incentives for using RippleNet.

Reacting to MoneyGram’s announcement, Ripple wrote that it had signed a multi-year contract with MoneyGram which “is still in place and is not limited to their use of ODL [on-demand liquidity solution within RippleNet that uses XRP].” Both firms are “looking forward to finding a path forward.”

$25 Million in DeFi Loans Liquidated Amid Crypto Market Decline

Data from DeBank shows some 57% of liquidations, worth $13.6 million, came from lending platform Compound, followed by 33.2% from versions one and two of Aave. The liquidations occurred despite a relatively small market movement.

These were likely aided by high gas prices as transactions are needed on the network to close out positions and avoid liquidation. The average transaction fee on the Ethereum network has reached a record high at $29 on Monday.

DeFi lending platforms let users take out overcollateralized loans, but liquidations are triggered once the over-collateralization ratio drops below a specific threshold for each platform.

Elon Musk Is Right about Dogecoin

Records show that one address owns more than a quarter (28%) of all DOGE in circulation — or 36.8 billion Dogecoin, which is worth about $2.1 billion at current prices. It The top 20 holders own nearly half of the total supply.

To assess whether this position was abnormally large, Flipside Crypto compared it to other major UTXO-structured chains. Specifically, the firm looked at what percent of the liquid supply the 50 largest addresses hold on each.

For reference, Dogecoin was a fork of Litecoin, which was itself a fork of Bitcoin — meaning they all tweaked the same source code. DASH was also a fork of Litecoin. This was the result:

Doge: 62%
Litecoin 30.5%
Bitcoin Cash 24%
BITCOIN SV: 21%
DASH: 18%
Bitcoin 10.5%

Across account-style chains, the 50 largest addresses own 34% of all TRX tokens, 45% of all ETH, and 30% of all LUNA.

The fact that whales own over 50% of the total Dogecoin supply is concerning, not only for the security of the chain which is very susceptible to a 51% attack, but also for the volatility of its token price. DOGE’s FCAS score has been climbing as the developer community started contributing once again to its code.

While large holders don’t really have an incentive to liquidate, they do have the power to do so — which is enough to deter new holders like Elon Musk from buying.

Crypto.com Exchange is listing FIL at 50% OFF

Crypto.com Exchange has listed Filecoin on The Syndicate, where all Crypto.com Coin (CRO) stakers will be able to participate in a discounted sale event for 250,000 USD worth of FIL at 50% off. The event commenced on Tuesday, 23 February 6:00am UTC on the Crypto.com Exchange.

Allocation:

Each participant’s maximum amount of CRO that can be applied towards the listing event will depend on the amount of CRO staked on the Crypto.com Exchange.

Subscription:

Participants will be able to subscribe for FIL by contributing an amount of CRO tokens not exceeding their respective maximum allocation. Staked CRO tokens may not be used to subscribe for FIL in this event.
Participants will need to trade the minimum volume required at their CRO staked level in the past 30 days in order to be eligible to subscribe.
The past 30-day trading volume is calculated daily at 00:50:00 UTC. For more information regarding exact cutoff times, refer to our FAQ here.

NOTE: The trading volume can take up to 1 hour to calculate at most. To avoid any delays, we advise you to satisfy the trading requirement well in advance of the subscription timelines.

Event Timeline:

23 Feb 6:00am UTC: Sales Begins (FIL/CRO subscription price fixed)
24 Feb 6:00am UTC: Sales Ends
3 Mar 6:00am UTC: Acceptance Period Begins (unused CRO will be refunded immediately if you reject the allocation)
4 Mar 6:00am UTC: Acceptance Period Ends (CRO refunds will be distributed for forfeited participants)