- The FTX contagion has left Gemini struggling to balance its books as it faces a rush of withdrawals as bankruptcy fears loom.
- Crypto firms, including crypto exchanges, come under extreme pressure to convince their customers of their financial buoyancy.
Gemini is among the crypto exchanges hit hard by the FTX contagion, with the once-stable firm battling withdrawal issues. The Winklevoss brothers-owned enterprise faces rising withdrawal requests as crypto firms continue to feel the spillover of the Alameda Research and FTX bankruptcies.
$485 Million flows out of Gemini
According to data from the blockchain analytics platform, Nansen, the embattled crypto exchange saw a whopping $485 million in outflows over the past 24 hours. This is seen as the highest among digital asset service providers.
However, the outflows amounted to $563 million, overshadowing the $78 million in net inflows recorded. In the past week, the total net outflows experienced by Gemini were $682 million, with $866 billion in inflows making up the difference.
Meanwhile, the Nansen data indicate that most withdrawals happened on Wednesday. Furthermore, the balances of crypto assets on Gemini’s wallet are already down to $1.7 billion from roughly $2.2 billion on the same day, per Arkham Intelligence’s data.
It is worth noting that Arkham and Nansen’s analysis did not include data from the Bitcoin blockchain and might not include the total number of all Gemini’s wallets.
Meanwhile, a severe outage on the Gemini network a few hours after it announced that it had ceased withdrawal sent panic among users.
Is another FTX on the Horizon?
With the unexpected implosion of FTX and its sister agency, Alameda Research, many crypto exchanges are under extreme pressure to handle the situation and reassure investors.
Amid growing concerns about centralized exchanges, investors are trying to move their funds to avoid insolvency. The blockchain intelligence firm added that Binance, KuCoin, and Coinbase had witnessed increasing deposit drawdowns.
For Gemini, questions about the exchange’s stability are currently flying around, with users looking for answers as to the safety of their funds. However, Martin Lee, the lead data analyst at Nansen, believes that the situation is better than what the crypto community sees.
Lee analyzed a particular Eth withdrawal address on Gemini. He found out that the firm saw a rapid withdrawal on November 16. For emphasis, Gemini witnessed 7.6 times the frequency of outflows compared to the number of inflows.
Also, it saw a total outflow of close to $500 million worth of ETH and ERC20 tokens in the past 24 hours. Moreover, its stablecoin balances recorded the second-largest withdrawals among crypto exchanges over the past seven days.
Meanwhile, Gemini’s current stablecoin balance has slumped to $149 million from $500 million. In addition, the on-chain analyst noted that withdrawals on November 16 far exceeded the withdrawals of 15, 14, and 13, respectively.
Despite the numbers, Lee admitted that they are lower than that of November 12, which indicates that many retail traders withdrew their ETH coins from Gemini on November 16. The FTX contagion has forced several exchanges to publish their crypto holdings to plow down the widespread fears among the crypto community