Following Vitalik Buterin’s controversial remark about the cryptocurrency and blockchain space’s capacity to grow, the price of ETH has been steadily decreasing. And one exchange is said to contribute to the trend. BitMex is its name.
Over the last week, the ETH price has slumped by 39,5% — from $256 to $173. Vitalik has been fast to claim that the community has misinterpreted his statement that there is no chance that the cryptocurrency and blockchain space will see “1,000-times growth” again. However, the trend has not faded away. Even the ETH mining rate is down. Lately, it has decreased from around 295 TH/s to 255 TH/s with the slide accelerating in recent days.
An opinion has emerged that one reason behind this dramatic slump is the stance of one of the leading cryptocurrency trading platforms Bitmex. Or rather its CEO Arthur Hayes’ dislike for ETH. Thus, in his tweet published on the 2nd of August he said “50x leveraged ETHUSD perpetual swap is now live! Trade using only Bitcoin, you never have to touch Ether or USD.” The reactions to that tweet were mixed. While @devilninja777, said that “ETH to $0 would make crypto a better place,” @I_Am_The_Wizard wrote “Thanks Arthur for making us lose money with your crap site. I hope you get defamed and sued.”
Apparently, that was just the beginning, as he also called to short sell ETH and advised BitMex’s customers to “punt” on ETH/USD price. On the 14th of August, he published a tweet
In it, he linked the “ETHUSD Perpetual Swap Two Week Update,” calling ETH “a double-digit shitcoin” there once again (in case you have short memory) and claiming that “In the last 24 hours, BitMEX’s ETHUSD swap has traded the equivalent of 800,000 ETH. The next most liquid ETH/USD and ETH/USDT markets, Bitfinex and Binance, traded just under 500,000 ETH each in the same period.”
In the meantime, Calil & Dantas Crypto Investments have enquired whether this massive ETH sell-off will pump BTC price:
Currently, BTC is trading at $6,266.