FTX crypto exchange has filed for bankruptcy.

This week, the bitcoin cryptocurrency managed to get out of the 5-month flat and resume the downward trend. Maybe on a 24-hour timeframe, these movements do not look like a "resumption of a downward trend," but it's silly to deny that bitcoin has not even been able to adjust properly in 5 months. The most important $18,500 has been broken, so the road further down is open. Although the downward trend line has lost relevance, the fall in quotes can continue quite calmly.

In recent months, we have repeatedly said that we expect bitcoin to fall further. The fundamental background remains very difficult because the largest central banks worldwide continue to raise key rates, increasing demand for safe assets. Although risky currencies like the euro and the pound have started to grow for the first time in a long time, and in recent weeks two of the three US stock indices have also shown growth, this trend only applies to bitcoin later. The Fed may slow down the pace of monetary policy tightening in the next few months, and it may completely abandon further rate hikes in a few months. And this factor would have played a role, and bitcoin would have also shown growth if not for the news that one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, FTX, is on the verge of bankruptcy. At the beginning of the week, information was received that Binance could buy out this exchange, but after several days of studying the financial statements, many inconsistencies and "holes" were found. Therefore, Changpeng Zhao's company refused this deal. And yesterday, it became known that FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried filed an official bankruptcy petition with the appropriate authorities and left the position of head of the company.

Bankman-Fried became a fraudster who, at his clients' expense, covered the losses of other affiliated companies. Changpeng Zhao, in turn, said that the cryptocurrency market has not yet "survived" the consequences of the FTX bankruptcy. That is, the entire cryptocurrency market may fall even more, which fully corresponds to our forecasts. If FTX had not gone bankrupt, this fall in bitcoin would not have happened. But let us recall that there is also no reason to expect its growth now.

On the 24-hour timeframe, the quotes for "bitcoin" finally attempted to surpass $18,500. Now, from our point of view, the fall may continue with a target of $12,426. As we warned, overcoming the downward trend line does not mean the end of the "bearish" trend since, in parallel, the price was in a side channel. Now the lower limit of this channel has been overcome, so the quotes may continue to fall.