BNB-Bitcoin Ratio Falls to Lowest Level Since August

February 21, 2023

The latest moves in crypto markets, in context

By Jamie Crawley, CoinDesk reporter

Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.

Welcome to Tuesday! Here's what's happening in crypto today:

Arbitrum-based platform Factor attracts over $4.3m in first 12 hours after going live
FTX bankruptcy claims are being picked up for up to 20 cents on the dollar
The Litecoin network gets its first NFT

CoinDesk just launched The Airdrop, a Web3 newsletter breaking down the biggest news related to internet culture, NFTs, DAOs and the metaverse

Subscribe here

Latest Prices

CoinDesk Market Index (CMI)

1,159

−20.9 ▼ 1.8%

Bitcoin (BTC)

$24,581

−243.2 ▼ 1.0%

Ethereum (ETH)

$1,674

−35.1 ▼ 2.1%

S&P 500 futures

4,055.25

−32.3 ▼ 0.8%

FTSE 100

7,995.70

−18.6 ▼ 0.2%

Treasury Yield 10 Years

3.83%

▼ 0.0

BTC/ETH prices per CoinDesk Indices, as of 7 a.m. ET (11 a.m. UTC)

Treasury Yield 10 Years: 3.83% −0.0

Top Stories

FTX bankruptcy claims are being picked up for 20 cents on the dollar in private over-the-counter (OTC) markets. The distressed asset fund managers doing so are projecting around a 50 cents on the dollar recovery in five years, an anonymous FTX creditor told CoinDesk. Most of the deals are private as not all claims are fungible. "There may also be a clawback period for those who tried to withdraw leading up to the bankruptcy, so the quality of claims is important," the source said. FTX, which went bankrupt in November, has an estimated 1 million creditors, with the 50 largest being owed a combined $3.1 billion.

(Gerd Altmann/Pixabay)

Factor, the decentralized digital asset management platform built on Ethereum scaler Arbitrum, attracted over $4.3 million in trades in the first 12 hours after going live. Factor's aim is to allow developers to be able to offer tokenized baskets, yield pools or derivative offerings to community users. Depositors to these products will profit from the upside created by those developers, who themselves earn a cut of fees. The initial coin offering for Factor's FCTR token started with a $10 million target and will last for three more days, after which the resulting pool of money will be distributed to determine the initial price of FCTR in the open market.

The Litecoin network has effectively gotten its first NFT after a copy of its mimblewimble upgrade was placed on the platform's blockchain. Bitcoin developer Anthony Gurrera forked the code behind Bitcoin ordinals to the Litecoin network, answering a challenge from a Twitter user who offered a public bounty of 15 LTC ($1,410) to the first party to fork ordinals to Litecoin. Ordinals Protocol has recently enabled Bitcoin-based NFTs by allowing users to inscribe references to digital art into small denominations of BTC.

Market Insight: BNB Losing Ground to BTC

Binance-founded blockchain BNB Chain's native token has reached its lowest level against bitcoin since the start of Aug. 2 last year.

The BNB/bitcoin ratio has declined by nearly 13% following the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) legal action against stablecoin developer Paxos over its Binance-branded stablecoin BUSD, which the regulator deems to be an unregistered security. This was followed by an order from the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) to stop minting BUSD.

The outflows from BNB may demonstrate that traders view the SEC's move as action against Binance, even though the exchange says BUSD is issued and redeemed solely by Paxos. BNB has been previously touted as a safe haven, though may now look comparatively risky against bitcoin which last week reached its highest levels since August.

"BNB token has underperformed the broad market in February as the Paxos-BUSD situation continues to weigh on the exchange, which experienced massive outflows last week," crypto analysts Kaiko said in a weekly report. "The BNB to BTC price ratio, which measures the relative performance of the two tokens, fell to its lowest level since August 2022."

Read the full story by Omkar Godbole

Chart of the Day

Source: Kaiko

The chart by Kaiko shows daily trading volumes on centralized Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and dominant decentralized crypto exchange Uniswap since early January.
Coinbase has seen more than $185 billion in trading volume so far this year. That's nearly double of Uniswap's tally of $93 billion.
The data dents the narrative that crypto traders are increasingly flocking to decentralized platforms in the wake of FTX's collapse.

- Omkar Godbole

Since 2015, Consensus has served as the premier event for calibration, collaboration and resolution among tens of thousands of professionals and builders forging the future of finance, technology and the new digital economy. Join us in Austin April 26-28 to connect with developers, investors, founders and brands that are serious about delivering on crypto and Web3's transformative potential. Take 15% off with code FM15. Learn more and register.

Trending Posts

Disclaimer: The information presented in this message is intended as a news item that provides a brief summary of various events and developments that affect, or that might in the future affect, the value of one or more of the cryptocurrencies described above. The information contained in this message, and any information liked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. The information presented herein is accurate only as of its date, and it was not prepared by a research analyst or other investment professional. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency before deciding to purchase or sell any such instruments.