Bitcoin near $26,500, Ether flat, altcoins drop

Binance’s BNB token was the only exception, adding 0.66% to $216.23 while gaining 1.80% for the week

Bitcoin slipped on Monday to trade at around $26,500. Ether also dropped but stayed above its $1,600 support level. Most other top non-stablecoin crypto currencies declined, with Toncoin leading the losers with a drop of more than 4%. Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX received court approval last week to sell its crypto holdings of nearly $3.4 billion, which could add to the selling pressure in the crypto market — particularly altcoins — for the rest of the year.

Bitcoin dropped 0.18% during the past 24 hours to $26,492.52 and went up 2.60% for the week, according to CoinMarketCap data. The token reached $26,840.50 on Friday, the highest price since August 17.

Ether dropped 0.87% to $1,619.94 and traded flat for the week with a 0.18% uptick.

Most other top non-stablecoin crypto currencies booked losses during the past 24 hours. Binance’s BNB token was the only exception, adding 0.66% to $216.23 while gaining 1.80% for the week.

In spite of the uptick in BNB prices, the world’s biggest crypto exchange faces growing regulatory challenges. The company’s U.S. affiliate Binance.US has laid off one-third of its staff and saw its CEO Brian Shroder leave the firm last week, citing the U.S. SEC’s “aggressive attempts to cripple” the crypto industry. The exchange also lost its legal and risk executives last week, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The crypto market is facing pressure from FTX’s liquidation, which plans to sell its $3.4 billion worth of crypto assets by the end of this year. The bankrupt exchange’s top three crypto holdings are Solana ($1.162 million), Bitcoin ($560 million) and Ether ($192 million).

FTX said it will gradually sell the holdings with a $100 million weekly cap to avoid a negative impact on crypto prices, but this limit could extend to $200 million upon approval from two committees representing FTX customers.

Sales of this size are destined to have an impact, wrote blockchain research firm K33 on Friday. Particularly altcoins with limited liquidity are exposed, making it vital for altcoin traders to maintain extensive oversight of FTX’s holdings.

The ongoing Bitcoin and Ether ETF applications in the U.S. could also be contributing to the underperformance of altcoins, said Justin d’Anethan, head of Asia-Pacific business development at Belgium-based Keyrock.

This is probably led by investors betting on exchange-traded funds becoming a thing -at some point in the future — and not wanting to miss out. On the contrary, altcoins that are still at risk of being labelled as ‘securities’ are not benefitting from the same enthusiasm, he added.