Today, we witnessed side trading in the cryptocurrency market, led by Bitcoin, which settles near the $26,430 level, after yesterday’s gains of 1.5%. Ethereum is also settling today near the $1,670 level, after recording gains of more than 2% yesterday.
Cryptocurrency participants continue to focus on what is happening in the United States. Today, we witnessed an official document that reveals the possible dates for the next trial that brings together the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple Lab, the developer of the XRP cryptocurrency. While it revealed that the date for resuming the legal battle may be sometime during the second quarter of the year 2024.
While the developments in this case receive great attention from the markets, as the conviction of Ripple Lab for selling unauthorized investment instruments to institutional investors may disrupt and delay the adoption of crypto technology by major market participants.
In a sign of continued declining sentiment in the markets, blockchain intelligence firm, Sentiment noted that so-called whales and sharks, who hold relatively large amounts of Bitcoin, continue to add Bitcoin to their wallets with more than 156,000 wallets holding 10 to 10,000 units, by adding $308 million worth of Bitcoin over the last six days. While these numbers come after the rise of the third largest Bitcoin wallet that was formed during the past week, with about $3 billion in bitcoin.
Also, yesterday, according to Whale Alert, we saw relatively huge transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain, by transferring 4,800 Bitcoins between two anonymous wallets, as well as transferring 2,900 Bitcoins from an anonymous wallet and depositing them on the Coinbase exchange. While these transfers coincided with the FBI issuing a warning to cryptocurrency firms about a network of hackers from North Korea.
In addition, and with continued regulatory concerns in the markets, cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp has announced that it will stop staking services for U.S. customers. And that with fear of moves by the SEC that led Kraken to pay a settlement of $ 30 million and stop staking services for its customers.
On the positive side, online store service provider, Shopify, has announced that merchants on the platform are enabled to use Solana network-based USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin. Whereas Shopify has enabled its customers to use several cryptocurrency networks including Bitcoin to settle merchant payments.
This negative sentiment may continue to put pressure on the cryptocurrency market in the coming weeks or months until a regulatory and legislative environment that regulates the cryptocurrency market becomes clear, which may chart the future path for the possibility of adopting this technology by institutional participants in the market. Also, the relatively huge movements in cryptocurrency wallets, led by Bitcoin, may continue to weaken the confidence of participants and fuel a state of caution about what may happen in the future in the market and lead to collapses or wide fluctuations.
Also published on Medium.
