DonAlt Sees a Potential Crypto Bottom as Bitcoin Holds Firm After Binance Incident

Crypto prices’ response to bad news is drawing more attention than the news itself. After a reported $6.3 billion theft from Binance, Bitcoin and XRP have stayed relatively steady, a reaction veteran trader DonAlt says recalls the market’s response to the FTX collapse in November 2022. The immediate question is whether this stability reflects buyers absorbing new information or simply a pause before more selling. Price action can offer clues, but it can’t explain on its own what traders are thinking or how long their confidence will last.

DonAlt, who anticipated XRP’s 700% rally in 2024, says the absence of a sustained sell-off makes it difficult to stay bearish. His view rests on how the market is absorbing pressure, though he’s careful to frame the setup as a probability rather than a repeatable pattern. That distinction matters: a past trade can inform a judgment about risk, but it doesn’t establish that the next market shock will produce the same outcome. This is more significant than it looks because the reaction to a headline can reveal whether sellers are finding willing buyers.

Why the FTX comparison matters

The U.S. FBI said North Korea’s TraderTraitor hacking group was responsible for last week’s theft from Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange. Bitcoin held near $77,900, while XRP traded around $1.25. Those prices, by themselves, don’t settle the market’s direction; DonAlt’s focus is the lack of follow-through selling after a major shock. In markets, a dramatic headline and a lasting change in price aren’t the same thing: the first draws attention, while the second indicates that participants are continuing to act on the news.

He compared that reaction with November 2022, when Bitcoin eventually bottomed near $16,000 after FTX collapsed. It later climbed to $100,000. DonAlt wrote that the market’s failure to sell off decisively after the FTX event had made him strongly bullish, adding: “Hard to be bearish here after having been given the same setup yet again.” The sequence gives his current argument a reference point, but the eventual recovery doesn’t prove that the early signal was obvious or that a similar signal will work again. Markets can remain firm for different reasons, and the same price behavior can lead to different results.

That comparison is a signal he’s watching, not a forecast that prices will trace the same path. When an X user asked whether the past would repeat, DonAlt responded that markets offer no certainty and trading is about assessing odds. He said the risk-reward looked attractive in 2022 and appears similarly appealing now, while acknowledging that the trade could lose. Here’s the thing: a trade can have an attractive payoff relative to its risk and still be wrong. That’s a judgment about the balance of possible outcomes, not a promise about direction.

What resilience can—and can’t—tell traders

The next few weeks should show whether buyers have absorbed the selling pressure. If Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies remain firm as the Binance incident is priced in, that would support DonAlt’s reading. A renewed decline, by contrast, would suggest the calm was temporary. The test isn’t whether prices can hold steady for a moment; it’s whether they continue to do so as attention shifts from the initial report to its consequences.

Investigators are also monitoring the stolen funds as they move through crypto mixers. That activity adds an unfolding dimension to the incident, but the available facts don’t establish what effect it will have on market prices. For traders, the immediate test is simpler: whether prices continue to withstand negative headlines. If you’re working in this space, that distinction helps keep a trading signal separate from the underlying security event. The uncomfortable possibility: resilience may fade.

The implications of a market that shrugs

DonAlt’s bullish case depends on resilience persisting. If prices hold, the market may be showing that sellers have already acted or that buyers are willing to absorb the pressure. If they fall, the earlier calm may have offered little evidence about what comes next. Either way, the reaction is more useful as a changing signal than as a template copied from 2022.

That said, one trader’s read isn’t a verdict on the whole market. Bitcoin and XRP can respond differently, and a steady price doesn’t mean that traders have dismissed the theft or that the security concerns have been resolved. The comparison with FTX gives investors a way to frame the current behavior; it doesn’t remove the uncertainty. DonAlt’s own caveat is the most grounded part of the argument: odds can look favorable while the trade still loses.