BTC Retreats Below $26.5K Amid Regulatory Fears
By Laxmikant Khanvilkar
Virtual digital assets or VDA suffered yet another round of selling in the past 24-hours as fears of regulatory action on more coins continue to linger. Earlier this week the U.S. Securities and Exchange (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Binance and Coinbase for allowing trading into unregistered securities. Likelihood of similar action against altcoins mentioned and unmentioned in the lawsuits led to further decline in prices.
Bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was recently trading at $26,393, off 3% over the past 24 hours. BTC had soared above $27,200 in the previous session as investors seemed to already price in the latest regulatory body blows against an industry already reeling from assorted debacles. Bitcoin and Ethereum (ETH), the second largest crypto in market value, along with Tether’s USDT stablecoin traded at large premiums on Binance.US, a sign that investors were exiting the platform.
ETH fared somewhat better than BTC to recently trade at $1,836, off 2.7%.
SEC fallout led BNB, the Binance Smart Chain’s native token, 7.6% lower while Cardano’s ADA, Polygon’s MATIC and Solana’s SOL, all top 10 tokens by market capitalization mentioned in the SEC filing, nosedived between 6% and 9%.
Apparently, the global crypto market cap decreased 3.16% to $1.1 tn over the past 24-hours. The total crypto market volume witnessed a fall of 9.33% to $40.16 bn during this period. The total volume in DeFi is currently $2.77 bn and stablecoins is $37.63 bn, which is 6.91% and 93.71% respectively of the total crypto market 24-hour volume. Bitcoin’s dominance eased 0.04% to 46.55% over the day.
IC15 index, the barometer of top fifteen tokens last quoted 2.05% lower at 36,985.
Meanwhile, the equity indexes closed mixed with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) ticking up a few notches but the Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 falling 1.3% and 0.4%, respectively, just a day after reaching 2023 highs as investors fretted about the Bank of Canada’s unexpected interest rate hike. The decision offered the latest evidence that central banks remain anxious about inflation and that the monetary hawkishness that has hamstrung asset markets over the past year may continue.
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