Huobi Tensions Sink Tron Token Price

The price of Tron (TRX), the 18th-largest token by market capitalization, tumbled Friday amid tensions at crypto exchange Huobi as the broader crypto market rose.

This article originally appeared in Crypto Markets Today, CoinDesk’s daily newsletter diving into what happened in today’s crypto markets. Subscribe to get it in your inbox every day.

• Tron founder Justin Sun sits on Huobi’s advisory board. The exchange said Friday it will cut its headcount by 20% and require employees to take their salaries in stablecoins. It also closed internal staff communication channels to quell a rebellion, according to reports on Twitter.

• TRX fell nearly 8% early Friday before it settled back to a 1.6% loss in the past 24 hours, data showed. The price is above a support level of 5 cents, and if it drops below that, the tokens could slip to as low as 3 cents, price charts show. Huobi’s native HT exchange tokens have lost as much as 11% in the past 24 hours.

• The Tron-based stablecoin USDD fell 3 cents, effectively losing its intended peg to the U.S. dollar. Such price action caused the value locked on Tron-based decentralized applications to fall by 2%, DefiLlama data shows.

• Futures tracking TRX saw less than $1 million in liquidations on exchanges, suggesting the selling was mostly spot driven. Spot refers to actual tokens, while futures are derivative financial instruments that allow traders to bet on the prices of the underlying tokens.

• Meanwhile, security firm PeckShield noted on Twitter that crypto wallet addresses linked to Sun moved over $50 million to crypto exchange Binance.

Bitcoin (BTC): The largest cryptocurrency by market value was recently trading at the $16,900 level, up 0.2% in the past 24 hours. BTC briefly topped $17,000 in afternoon trading hours (EST). Equities wrapped up Friday’s trading with gains following a strong U.S. jobs report. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite closed up 2.5%, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) rose 2.2% and 2.1%, respectively.

Ether (ETH): The second-largest cryptocurrency followed BTC’s trajectory, trading up 0.9% over the past 24 hours to change hands at around $1,265.

Bonk Inu (BONK): Developers behind Solana-based memecoin project Bonk Inu (BONK) burned over 5 trillion tokens, or 5% of the total supply, earlier on Friday, blockchain data showed. The move claimed to have effectively burned all tokens earmarked for developers of the project. The BONK price dropped 36% in the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinGecko.

CoinDesk Market Index (CMI)

810.63

+5.0 ▲ 0.6%

Bitcoin (BTC)

$16,931

+86.7 ▲ 0.5%

Ethereum (ETH)

$1,266

+14.1 ▲ 1.1%

S&P 500 daily close

3,895.08

+87.0 ▲ 2.3%

Gold

$1,871

+36.1 ▲ 2.0%

Treasury Yield 10 Years

3.57%

▼ 0.2

BTC/ETH prices per CoinDesk Indices; gold is COMEX spot price. Prices as of about 4 p.m. ET

Crypto Market Analysis: Bitcoin Trades Flat for the Week; Ether Breaches Top Range of Technical Indicator

By Glenn Williams Jr.

Bitcoin and Ether maintained their penchant for flat trading this week, with prices moving just 1.3% and 4.6%, respectively, over the most recent seven days.

On a relative basis, BTC’s seven-day performance was 18th among the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Ether was 12th in the group.

Over the most recent 30 days, BTC and ETH have moved just 0.7% and 0.8% respectively, reflecting the recent, stagnant price action. The laggard for the week was LEO, which declined 1.6%, while Solana (SOL) led the way with a 34.5% price increase.

Read the full technical take here.