Bitcoin Stagnates at $22,000, Ether Falls After SEC Action

Monday morning trading in Asia was mixed for the top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, but Bitcoin didn’t change much. After the U.S.-based Kraken crypto exchange stopped its staking service on Thursday and paid a US$30 million fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for not registering the service, Bitcoin dropped below US$22,000. Most of the cryptocurrency market went down over the weekend because of what the SEC did. This morning, XRP was the leader of the losers, while Solana went up.

Quick facts

• Bitcoin fell 0.4% in the last 24 hours to US$21,796 at 8 a.m. in Hong Kong. It fell 5% in the last seven days to trade in the same price range as it did almost a month ago. Ether fell 1.6% to US$1,515, which is a 7.1% loss over the past week.

• Solana went up 3.1% to US$21.48, but it is still 8.5% lower than it was a week ago. Delphi Digital, a crypto research firm, said in a report that Solana is the largest blockchain for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) after Ethereum, with 14% of all NFT transactions. This led to the gain today.

• XRP fell 2.3% to US$0.37, which is a 6% loss for the week. Since December 2020, Ripple Labs Inc., a company whose payment network is run by XRP, has been in a legal battle with the SEC. The SEC says that Ripple Labs made XRP without registering it as a security. The company said it expects a ruling in the first half of this year, which would help the crypto industry as a whole understand the law better.

• During an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Friday, SEC Chair Gary Gensler told other crypto exchanges to “take note” of the fine Kraken got for its staking service. “Companies like Kraken can offer investment contracts and investment schemes, but they have to give full, fair, and honest information… “They weren’t following this simple law,” Gensler said.

• But SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce said that what he did with Kraken was the work of a “lazy” regulator.

• Friday was a mixed day for U.S. stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average went up 0.5%, the S&P 500 Index went up 0.2%, and the Nasdaq Composite Index went down 0.6% by the end of the day.

• On Tuesday, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the month of January in the United States will be released, and investors are getting ready for it. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measurement of inflation in the economy that is utilized by many people, and the Federal Reserve utilizes it to determine interest rate policy.

• Economists expect the CPI to go up by 0.4% in January, which would bring the annual rate down from 6.5% to 6.2%. Core CPI is expected to rise 0.4% from the previous month, bringing the annual rate to 5.5%.

• In December, the CPI showed that prices went up 6.5% year over year. This was down from November’s 7.1%, which was a steady drop from October’s 7.7% and September’s 8.2%.

• In an effort to combat rising prices, the Federal Reserve has increased interest rates multiple times since March of last year. According to forecasts made by analysts working for the CME Group, there is a greater than 90% possibility that the Federal Reserve would increase interest rates by another twenty-five basis points at its meeting the following month. At the moment, the interest rates in the United States are between 4.5% and 4.7%, which is the highest they’ve been in the past 15 years. Officials from the Fed have stated numerous times that they may go as high as 5% if necessary.

bitcoin news Bitcoin Stagnates Bitcoin treads SEC action on Kraken