The crypto market saw losses across the board on Wednesday as bitcoin (BTC) once again dipped below the USD 20,000 mark, and some analysts pointed to a risk of further downside.
On Wednesday at 10:30 UTC, BTC stood at USD 20,123, down by 4% for the past 24 hours and by 3% for the past week. At the same time, ethereum (ETH) traded at USD 1,133, down by 7% for the day and up by nearly 1% for the week.
Other popular altcoins, including Binance’s BNB, FTX’s FTT, and Avalanche’s AVAX token all saw 24-hour losses of between 7% and 8%.
Notably, the market sell-off on Wednesday came as news emerged that a court in the British Virgin Islands has ordered the liquidation of the crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, which has for some time been rumored to be insolvent.
Sky News said it has learned that partners from Teneo in the British Virgin Islands has been lined up to handle the insolvency of the fund. It was unclear what the immediate financial implications would be for Three Arrows' creditors, per the report.
Writing in a market update on Tuesday, analysts at Arcane Research said that bitcoin has seen “a slow week,” with the coin underperforming altcoins such as ETH and BNB, and even the S&P 500 stock index over the past seven days.
According to the analysts, bitcoin’s underperformance is likely related to the “ever-growing contagion effects” of the Three Arrows Capital insolvency and the collapse of the Terra (LUNA) ecosystem. This has further placed centralized crypto lending and borrowing companies in a difficult situation, as seen with Celsius (CEL) and the withdrawal freeze that it introduced on June 13.
“The market is paying close attention to how the current imbalances are resolved, putting a tight leash on BTC’s ability to
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