Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX fallout and a sudden interest in Bitcoin’s Wikipedia page
Data from CryptoCompare shows the price of Bitcoin moved mostly sideways throughout the past seven days, starting it at around $34,300 and rising to $35,100, after seeing a $34,000 low and a $35,500 high over the last week.
Ethereum’s Ether – the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap – steadily moved up throughout the week, starting it at around $1,800 and climbing to near $1,900.
Over the past week, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was found guilty of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy after a five-week trial. Bankman-Fried was charged with stealing as much as $10 billion from customers to finance lavish spending that included venture capital investments, real estate, and political contributions.
Bankman-Fried’s tentative sentencing date is set for March 28 2024, but he is expected to appeal the guilty verdict, with the counts he was found guilty of carrying a maximum sentence of 110 years.
Over the week, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) placed Bitfinex on its warning list of firms suspected of offering financial products or services without the required authorization. On its website, the FCA issued a warning last Friday, urging the public to avoid dealing with Bitfinex, while the exchange responded that it has been in regular and extensive contact with the FCA for the past four months and has taken steps to meet the FCA’s regulatory standards.
The exchange has also limited the access of UK visitors to several parts of its website, including to pages offering affiliate programs, staking services, lending services, and more.
Over in the US, cryptocurrency exchange Kraken is set to share some user data with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) following a June court order it received. The fir noted in an email it “expects to share information covered by the court’s order in early November 2023.”
A legal dispute between Kraken and the IRS led to the data handover, which came after the tax agency got permission from a U.S. federal court in May 2021 to issue a John Doe summons to the exchange and its subsidiaries and Kraken refused to cooperate with it.
Bitcoin’s Wikipedia page sees spike in interest as whitepaper turns 15
Earlier in October, Bitcoin’s Wikipedia page saw a surge in popularity, reaching the highest number of pageviews since mid-2022. On October 24, it had more than 13,490 pageviews in an increase that came shortly ahead of the 15th anniversary of Bitcoin’s whitepaper.
The whitepaper was shared by the cryptocurrency’s mysterious creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, on a cryptography mailing list on October 31, 2008, after Satoshi said they were working “on a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party”.
The email started the decentralised Bitcoin network and, 15 years later, the world’s biggest asset manager, BlackRock is looking to launch a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, while Bitcoin’s market capitalisation is now above $670 billion.
Hopes a spot Bitcoin ETF will soon be approved in the United States have seen the total assets under management (AUM) for digital assets products spike to $31.7 billion in their first increase since July 2023 last month, with AUM for products based on BTC climbing 11.1% to $23.2 billion, according to CCData’s latest Digital Asset Management Review.
Grayscales’ GBTC discount to net asset value, meanwhile, shrank to its lowest level since December 2021 at 12.6%.
The enthusiasm surrounding the potential approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF in the US has seen asset management and research firm AllianceBernstein forecast Bitcoin’s price could climb to $125,000 by 2025.
Circle limits stablecoin minting for individuals
In the stablecoin sector Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, announced the discontinuation of stablecoin creation for individual accounts, in a move that it noted it won’t affect business or institutional accounts.
The firm noted it is now focusing solely on qualified institutional clients, and recommended retail users access USDC through brokerages, cryptocurrency exchanges, and digital wallet services. The company will stop wire transfers and stablecoin creation for individual accounts by the end of November.
This move aligns Circle more closely with its main competitor, Tether, which has long maintained a minimum threshold of $100,000 for minting and redeeming its USDT stablecoin USDC is the second-biggest stablecoin with a supply of $25 billion but has lost a lot of market share this year, dropping 43% of its market capitalisation year-to-date, while Tether’s USDT has hit a record high market capitalization above $84 billion.
Francisco Memoria is a content creator at CryptoCompare who’s in love with technology and focuses on helping people see the value digital currencies have. His work has been published in numerous reputable industry publications. Francisco holds various cryptocurrencies.
Featured image courtesy of Ever Wild Outdoors Art.