Digital Currency Group tokens red across board, sparking market speculation

Business•December 17, 2022, 1:14PM EST
UPDATED: December 17, 2022, 6:37PM EST
Digital Currency Group tokens red across board, sparking market speculation

Quick Take

  • A market downturn on DCG’s portfolio assets is sparking industry speculation.
  • This marks one month since troubled crypto lender Genesis Global Capital, which is owned by DCG, suspended redemptions.
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Assets on the Digital Currency Group portfolio have taken a hit over the last 24 hours, triggering market speculation.

It has been a month since troubled crypto lender Genesis Global Capital, daughter company of DCG, suspended redemptions.

“DCG and Genesis have highly competent teams. In normal circumstances neither would pay 15%-30% of slippage to rapidly exit long-held positions over the weekend, so observers are naturally speculating this was a forced event of some kind,” Rich Rosenblum, president of trading firm GSR, told The Block on Saturday.

Messari DCG portfolio 12:42 ET on 12/17

Filecoin in particular has seen a significant decline. 

"It’s by far the most traded of the portfolio in the last 24 hours," Rosenblum said. "It could be due to there being a highly developed borrowing market for FIL, which resulted in more selling once a -15% intraday threshold was breached. You need to stake FIL to mine it. Miners often borrow FIL by leveraging their other holdings."

Ran Neuner, CEO of Onchain Capital, speculated in a tweet that DCG may be dumping as it tries to repay a $1.5 billion loan to Genesis, or it could be heading toward bankruptcy as it exhausts its liquid assets. 

Bitvavo crypto exchange wrote in a company blog on Friday that DCG is “experiencing liquidity problems” and has  “suspended repayments.”

Updates with corrected name of Digital Currency Group. Previous post said Digital Coin Group.