Altcoins
Crypto Prices Under Pressure as $2 Billion Altcoin Unlocks and $11 Billion Bitcoin (BTC) Distribution Loom
Cryptocurrencies are still stuck in a corrective phase, but a wave of supply events worth billions of dollars could further delay any meaningful recovery.
“A rapid succession of nearly $2 billion in tokens unlocked over the next ten weeks could send the altcoin market lower,” crypto analytics firm 10x Research noted in a report released Wednesday.
Large token unlocks in crypto are typically bearish events, increasing supply by distributing assets that were previously locked in vesting contracts to team members, organizations, and early investors, including corporations venture capital.
Over the next two months, some $97 million worth of aptos (APT)$79 million in Starkware (STRK)$94 million in arbitration (ARB)$53 million from Immutable (IMX)$330 million from Avalanche (AVAX)$64 million of optimism (OP)$28 million in PRIME, almost a billion dollars in follow-up (SUI)$48 million Ethena (ENA), $171 million worth of ALT from Altlayer and $135 million worth of XAI tokens will be added to circulation, according to data compiled in the report.
“Venture investors may face pressure to lock in recent gains, which could limit any upside performance of tokens with positive momentum, particularly those for which unlocking becomes available,” the report said.
More than $11 billion in bitcoins (BTC) will be distributed to creditors of the Earn program of the Gemini crypto exchange and the long-defunct crypto market Mt. Gox, Velte Lunde, an analyst at K33 Research, warned in a statement. tuesday report.
“The next few months are rigged to see waves of good old crypto FUD,” Lunde said, referring to the popular cryptographic acronym for fear, uncertainty and doubt.
Amid upcoming offering events, one market observer suggested that FTX redemptions could provide some relief.
Pending bankruptcy court approval, about $14 billion to $16 billion in U.S. dollar funds could be released to creditors, and a good portion of that could flow back to the crypto market, said Arthur Cheong, founder and chief investment officer of DeFiance Capital.
“Expect at least $3-5 billion of crypto-native liquidity to be injected back into the market,” Cheong said in a statement. X post Wednesday.
At the end of the day in the United States, the broad CoinDesk 20 index was down 3.4% over the past 24 hours, with bitcoin down 2.5% at $61,500 and ether. (ETH) down 3.6%. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Solana (GROUND) were the worst performers in the index, each down more than 7%.