Crypto sell-off continues as week-long FTX saga ends with bankruptcy filing

Bitcoin continues to trade in a tight range of $18,000 to $25,000, keeping investors in the loop as to where the price is headed next. The crypto market has been plagued by a range of issues, from collapsed projects to bankruptcies.

Nurphoto | Getty Images

Cryptocurrencies continued their sell-off on Friday as FTX announced it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States

According to Coin Metrics, bitcoin fell 5% to $16,589.82, while ether lost 4.5% to $16,589.82. They ended the week down 20.1% and 24.3%, respectively.

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has also resigned, according to a expression posted to the FTX Twitter account on Friday.

Bankman-Fried became a so-called white knight for the industry, helping to bring crypto to the masses through his relationships with high-profile celebrities, regulators, and institutions in addition to his exchange product.

Investors are watching the impact of three-year-old FTX and its sister company, trading firm Alameda Research, still unclear about the extent of the damage that will spread to the rest of the market.

About 130 other global companies, including Alameda and FTX US, have also entered bankruptcy proceedings.

Some of the biggest names in finance — including SoftBank, BlackRock, Tiger Global, Thoma Bravo, Sequoia, and Paradigm — have invested in FTX, which was valued at $32 billion in its latest funding round.

“We are in the midst of another deleveraging event in the crypto ecosystem, and so far it has had limited impact on broader stock markets beyond sentiment as crypto institutions lent to each other,” Morgan Stanley analyst Sheena Shah said in a message on Friday.

“We anticipate another round of crypto QT” — or what the company has previously dubbed the “crypto equivalent of quantitative tightening” — “with creditor risks to be disclosed in the coming weeks,” she added. “These creditors are currently selling crypto assets to cover risk, which increases volatility.”