Investors withdraw record levels of coins from crypto exchanges – Financial Times

https://www.ft.com/content/168f2074-716c-48ef-8564-cdf740d23e4b

Summary:

Traders rush for exits alarmed at safety of their assets after FTX filed for bankruptcy

Investors are pulling record levels of bitcoin from crypto exchanges as the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX stirs fears over the safety of their assets.

Last month investors pulled 91,363 bitcoin, worth a total of close to $1.5bn based on the November average price of around $16,400, from centralised exchanges including Binance, Kraken and Coinbase. That marked the largest bitcoin outflow on record, according to data from CryptoCompare. It is unclear whether the coins are being sold or moved to private wallets.

“While the bitcoin sell-off decelerates, the damage has been done,” wrote Eric Robertsen, global head of research at Asia-focused bank Standard Chartered, this week.

He predicted that the pain for crypto investors will continue well into 2023. “More and more crypto firms and exchanges find themselves with insufficient liquidity, leading to further bankruptcies and a collapse in investor confidence in digital assets,” he added.