Bitcoin Dips Below $61K, Ether Slips 3% as Some PlusToken China Ponzi-Related Coins Moved to Exchanges

Cryptocurrencies
continued
to
show
weakness
on
Wednesday
with
bitcoin

(BTC)
dipping
below
$61,000,
in
stark
contrast
with
U.S.
stocks,
which
climbed
to
new
records.

BTC
started
the
day
around
$62,000,
then
slipped
ever
lower
during
the
later
hours
of
the
U.S.
trading
session
to
$60,400,
down
2.4%
over
the
past
24
hours.
Ether

(ETH)
held
up
slightly
better
for
most
part
of
the
day,
then
dived
3.2%.

What
likely
weighed
on
prices
was
reports
circulating
about
seized
cryptos
linked
to
the
PlusToken
ponzi
scheme
being
moved
to
exchanges
during
the
day,
raising
concerns
of
potential
selling
pressure
coming
to
the
market.

Chinese
authorities

seized
nearly
$4
billion
worth
of
crypto,
including
ETH,
BTC
dogecoin

(DOGE),
xrp

(XRP)
from
the
PlusToken
operators
in
November
2020.

One
observer
noted
that
some
7,000
ETH,
worth
$16
million,
of
the
remaining
$1.3
billion
ETH
was
moved
to
exchanges
in
the
past
24
hours,
which
may
indicate
an
intention
to
sell
the
assets.

Strange
action
happened
at
some
unexpected
corners
of
the
crypto
market.

Earlier
today,
U.S.
federal
prosecutors

charged
crypto
trading
firms
Gotbit,
ZM
Quant,
CLS
Global
and
MyTrade
and
their
employees
with
market
manipulation
and
fraud.
Notably,
a
CoinDesk
report
in
2019

detailed
how
Alexey
Andryunin,
the
co-founder
of
Gotbit
and
one
of
the
individuals
charged
by
prosecutors,
built
a
business
out
of
faking
exchange
volumes
for
tiny
crypto
tokens
using
trading
bots
to
get
listed
on
price
aggregators
like
CoinMarketCap.

Robo
inu
(RBIF),
one
of
the
tokens
mentioned
in
the
documents,
more
than
doubled
in
price
for
a
brief
minute
on
the
news,
and
was
still
up
20%
during
the
day,
per

CoinGecko
data.

Prosecutors
created
a
cryptocurrency
called
NexFundAI
Token
at
the
direction
of
law
enforcement
for
the
investigation,
a
court
document

showed.
A
token
with
the
ticker
NEX
with
insignificant
market
value
surged
as
much
as
3,500%
as
speculators
rushed
to
chase
the
potential
token
to
profit
off
the
attention.

Then,
its
price
quickly
tumbled
as
the
document
also
said
that
prosecutors
had
already
disabled
trading
with
the
token
before
unsealing
the
charges.

A
check
on
traditional
markets
showed
the
S&P
500
closing
the
day
at
a
new
all-time
high,
with
the
tech-focused
Nasdaq
climbing
0.6%.
The
10-year
U.S.
Treasury
rates
advanced
to
a
two-month
high
of
4.08%
during
the
day,
as
investors
digested
the
minutes
of
the
September
meeting
of
the
Federal
Market
Open
Committee.

The
document
showed
that
a
“substantial
majority”
of
Federal
Reserve
officials
supported
the
larger
cut,
but
some
favored
a
25
bps.
Policymakers

agreed
that
more
cuts
are
likely
coming
but
appeared
split
about
the
pace
and
size
of
future
cuts.

Traders
now
see
a
21%
probability
that
the
Fed
will
keep
rates
steady
at
the
next
meeting
in
November,
up
from
zero
only
a
week
ago,
while
expectations
of
another
50
bps
cut
vanished,
down
from
35%
last
week.