Today in Crypto: Retail Investors May Shoulder Celsius’ Bankruptcy; Altcoins Outperform Bitcoin as Investors Return

After months of chaos and volatility, the crypto market may be seeing a minor light at the end of the tunnel, as the prices of the biggest tokens have crept up in the last few days.

Bitcoin was up almost 8% in the last three days of the work week, and ether surged 20%, Bloomberg wrote Saturday (July 16). The report said neither token has set a new low point in the bear market for almost a month.

Furthermore, Celsius Network released a presentation ahead of its bankruptcy court hearing Monday (July 18) which outlined the company’s current situation and what restructuring might look like.

The company, which has frozen withdrawals amid the broader volatility, said it is hoping its mining subsidiary can use minted bitcoin to grow its balance sheet and fund mining operations. It’s also looking into selling assets and “third-party investment opportunities.”

Meanwhile, bitcoin hit its highest level in over a month early Monday, with the global crypto market also now topping $1 trillion, per a Seeking Alpha report.

The report said bitcoin has climbed 3.2% and hit $22,000. Ethereum has also jumped 8.9%.

Additionally, altcoins — which are smaller and lesser-known tokens — are doing better than bigger coins like bitcoin, with risk appetite on the rise again, Bloomberg wrote Monday.

For example, Polygon has risen by 25%, ApeCoin rose by 19% and Cardano rose by 11%. Altcoins often do better than bitcoin during rallies, the report noted, but underperform when prices are down, partly because they’re favored by more speculative traders, tending to be less liquid.

In more crypto news, shares of Coinbase were up 9% at close as crypto was rallying.

As previously mentioned, ethereum and bitcoin were up as of late, with ethereum being around 30% of Coinbase’s trading volume, and bitcoin at around 21% of that, CNBC wrote Monday.

In more news, Tap Global, a crypto FinTech platform, announced Monday that it has rolled out a new business-to-entrepreneur (B2E) product, looking to help entrepreneurs incorporate crypto into their business.

“As part of our long term strategy, we are pleased to introduce a new product, B2E accounts for crypto entrepreneurs, digital nomads or self employed who want the flexibility of accepting, holding and trading cryptocurrencies but also get everyday banking functionality and multi currency support,” said Arsen Torosian, Tap Global’s chief strategy officer.

Finally, Celsius’ Chapter 11 bankruptcy will likely see retail customers bearing most of the failure, according to a court filing.

The company’s $1.2 billion hole in its balance sheet comes from its $5.5 billion in liabilities and only $4.3 billion in assets, most of which is not liquid.

According to a CoinDesk report, Daniel Gwen, a business restructuring associate at New York law firm Ropes & Gray, said there’s now a stage for a conflict between customers and “sophisticated institutional creditors.”

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