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This Week in Coins: Crypto Returns as SEC Backtracks and Germany Runs Out of Bitcoin
Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt.
After weeks of “chopsolidation,” digital assets have made a slow but steady comeback as bearish government actors have lost control of the broader market.
Although it has been trading mostly sideways, the Bitcoin price posted a modest 3.3% gain over the past seven days, entering the weekend at $57,966, having stabilized well above last Friday’s low of $53,900.
The leading crypto asset now appears almost relieved of sell-side pressure from the German government, which sent its last remaining Bitcoin to exchanges on Friday. The state wallet, which boasted 50,000 BTC for months up until the end of June, has now seen its balance reduced to zero.
Bitcoin selloffs from Germany, the United States, and Mt. Gox creditors have been a prevailing narrative that has spooked all cryptocurrencies in recent weeks. Now, with Bitcoin mining difficulty falling substantially and short-term traders panic selling at a losson-chain analysts believe the asset may be at or near a local bottom.
That bodes well for altcoins too, which performed even better than Bitcoin this week. Ethereum (ETH) closed the week up 5.5% to $3,126, as Ethereum ETF issuers packing some of the latest documents with regulators before launching their products.
ETH holders got some regulatory relief this week after Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Rostin Benham reported that ETH had been “reaffirmed” as a commodity in a federal court ruling earlier this month. While it’s a non-binding decision, it’s something courts could consider in future cryptocurrency-related cases, including those involving smaller-cap tokens.
In fact, many of these tokens have seen considerable gains this week. BNB surged 6.8% after Paxos confirmed on Thursday that the SEC has dropped its investigation into its sister stablecoin, Binance USD (BUSD). XRP and Cardano (ADA) — both tokens that have historically faced SEC scrutiny — are up an impressive 19%.
Further down the market cap rankings, Stacks (STX) surged 21.5% after Stacks’ blockchain infrastructure provider Hiro announced that the SEC had closed its 3-year investigation at the company on Friday.
Looking at crypto stocks, MicroStrategy (MSTR) is up 6.06% over the past five trading days. On August 8, the company plans to undergo a 10-for-1 stock splitso that number should drop a lot in a few weeks.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.