A Brief Note About FTX/Etc

I hope everybody’s doing ok. From one tortoise to another, we’ll make it out just fine.

Rather than speculate on the FTX situation, I will continue to retweet threads that seem useful.

I’m not sure anybody knows what actually happened yet, there are still pieces to put together. Please leave a comment if you have verifiable or actionable information to share.

I realize the uncertainty of the situation is killing you. For full disclosure, I use only Coinbase, Gemini, Bittrex, KuCoin, Uniswap, and Dodo DEX exchanges, though I have used other exchanges at other times, including FTX.us one time to sell ETHPOW.

I also keep a list of crypto savings referral links.

If I take any entity off of that list, as I did for Celsius in May and BlockFi in June, I will tell you in this newsletter and tell you why I have concerns about these platforms, but I will not level accusations, assumptions, or FUD unless it’s something I can personally verify.

(In both situations, I did not know that the platforms would collapse after I took them off of my list.)

If you’re still waiting for a reason to take custody of your crypto and move it into your private wallet, now’s as good a time as any to start. DAN Teaches Crypto has some good tutorials in its “Safety” and “How Do I” modules.

For reference, I use Trezor, Electrum, Linen,* Metamask, Atomic Wallet, Keplr, Yoroi, Anchor (EOS/WAX), and Nami.

You may want to start with Trezor and learn one wallet at a time—practice send/receive, signing transactions, and connecting with Web3 services. Then move to staking, swaps, minting NFTs, and other activities only after you get the basics. It’s not easy, but it’s worth trying.

If you ever want to consult, I’m happy to share my knowledge though I can’t offer technical support or training. Schedule time with me on Superpeer.

*I have a small claim on future equity in Linen (the company that makes the Linen wallet).

Some interesting notes

First, a word of caution about on-chain. When these runs and disruptions happen, on-chain data gets very messy. Wait until the dust settles. I’ll have a proper analysis next week.

Second, some observations.

Overall, altcoins continue to pace bitcoin. I use an altcoin dominance chart that strips out ETH, USDC, and USDT. On that chart, we don’t see a “flight to safety” out of altcoins and into bitcoins yet, even if some altcoins have suffered more than others.

Some altcoins are even up against BTC over the past week, including some of the altcoins I listed on my altcoin reports.

Does this mean altcoins are waiting for the other shoe to fall?

We’ll see. For now, the market goes wherever bitcoin goes. That said, I’d note any project that shows strength coming out of this mess (over months, not days).

Also, while we can see huge outflows from some exchanges, we also see some big inflows, too. Aggregated order books show few sell orders and a huge stack of buy orders at roughly $14,000, that key level I’ve talked about for months. Too many charts to fit into this brief update.

True, order books flip-flop all the time. Traders often peel their bids when prices drop. Exchange outflows don’t stop anybody from selling.

But when you see these specific conditions, bitcoin’s price often makes a big jump upward. That seems counterintuitive and doesn’t always happen, but you’d be surprised how often it does. “Dead cat bounce” or “relief rally” as sellers leave, shorts cover, and late bulls chase the market upward.

Don’t FOMO if we get a bounce. Just stick to the plan.

Sometimes, it means the worst is over, sometimes not. I’ll have a proper update next week.

Relax and enjoy the ride!