Bitcoin, Ether down; Binance loses another top executive
Bitcoin edged lower on Tuesday morning in Asia to trade below the weekend’s resistance level of US$26,000. Ether dipped to near the US$1,600 mark, while other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies traded mixed. XRP posted the biggest gains while Solana led the losers. Digital asset investment products saw a minor outflow last week accompanied by a surge in trading volumes, indicating mixed sentiment among institutional investors. U.S. stock futures traded mixed ahead of regular trading following the long holiday weekend.
Bitcoin below US$26,000
Bitcoin dipped 0.57% in the last 24 hours to US$25,804.63 as of 07:30 a.m. in Hong Kong for a weekly loss of 1.15%, according to CoinMarketCap data. The world’s leading cryptocurrency had been trading in the US$26,000 range since Friday. It briefly breached US$28,000 last Tuesday as an apparent victory for Grayscale Investment against the U.S. Securties and Exchange Commission boosted sentiment. That optimism has now cooled.
Ether dipped 0.49% to US$1,627.26, losing 1.58% over the past seven days.
The crypto market is suffering from regulatory uncertainties in the U.S., said Samer Hasn, market analyst for online brokerage XS.com, in an emailed comment. He also noted the effect of large transactions on the market, including a US$213 million XRP transaction and a US$37 million Shiba Inu transaction recorded over the weekend.
“Although the reasons behind the series of huge transfers that we are witnessing in the cryptocurrency market are not yet completely clear, I believe that they may continue to fuel a state of anticipation and caution in the markets, especially since these transfers come amid weak sentiment among market participants, with the continuing battle in the judicial arena in the United States,” Hasn said.
Meanwhile, Binance’s global head of product Mayur Kamat resigned from the company, Reuters reported on Monday. The world’s largest crypto exchange faces lawsuits from the U.S. SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), as well as an investigation from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
