Bitcoin has gone back above $30,000 – a level not seen since June last year – and it’s up by more than 80% so far in 2023. While no one knows for sure what’s causing the gains, analysts reckon it’s to do with trends in broader financial markets. Bitcoin plunged last year when major central banks were raising rates, and now investors are betting that those rate hikes will come to an end soon, boosting risk appetite for assets like cryptocurrencies.
Number-two cryptocurrency ether has also been climbing to its highest since last summer, with enthusiasts getting particularly excited about the latest software upgrade (more on that below).
But prices are still far below the highs hit at the end of their pandemic-era boom (click here to see what Reuters wrote when bitcoin went past $68,000) and the fallout from last year’s crashes and scandals continue to reverberate through the industry.
The U.S. Treasury Department warned last week that North Korea, cybercriminals, ransomware attackers, thieves and scammers are using decentralized finance (“DeFi”) to launder their illicit proceeds.
A member of the European Central Bank’s supervisory board, Elizabeth McCaul, said in a blog post that the European Union’s proposed regulations for crypto assets do not go far enough. She also took issue with how the size of a crypto firm is measured: mega-exchange FTX wouldn’t have counted as significant under the EU’s proposed rules, because of how it was organized, and nor would Binance, probably, she said.
Speaking of Binance, the Wall Street Journal reported that Binance’s U.S. arm is struggling to find a bank to handle its customers’ cash. Deposits were previously sent to Signature Bank or Silvergate Capital Corp. Meanwhile, Australia’s financial regulator said it has been doing a “targeted review” of Binance (first confirmed in February) with a focus on “the extent of consumer harms” from when Binance misclassified some retail investors as wholesale. The regulator noted the recent CFTC lawsuit, plus actions by regulators in the United Kingdom, Japan, Italy and Singapore.
