Bitcoin Shakes Off Regulatory Crackdown, Jumps Nearly 6% in 24 Hours

Bitcoin’s price jumped Wednesday—along with tech stocks—bringing the rest of the cryptocurrency market with it during a time of increasing financial uncertainty. 

The biggest digital asset was up over 5.8% in the past 24 hours at the time of writing, trading for $28,540, CoinGecko showed. 

It has made a comeback since the start of the week, when it dropped as low as $26,722 following news that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission hit leading crypto exchange Binance with a lawsuit. 

The U.S. regulator said Monday that the world’s biggest digital asset exchange and its CEO Changpeng Zhao solicited customers in the U.S. and “chose to ignore” rules designed to block Americans from using the service. Binance offers its clients crypto derivatives products, such as futures and options contracts, which if traded in the U.S. must be registered and overseen by the CFTC.

If the CFTC succeeds in its lawsuit against Binance, the penalties that the regulator seeks are enough to shutter the exchange’s U.S. division—and potentially even the global company as well, according to legal experts.

But despite the regulatory woes, the rest of the crypto market is up, following Bitcoin: Ethereum, the second largest digital asset by market cap, was up 4%, trading for $1,816. 

While XRP jumped nearly 9% to touch $0.54, and Cardano reached $0.38, a 6.8% 24-hour rise in value. 

This is because the crypto market is following, as it often does, U.S. equities—tech stocks in particular. The Nasdaq was up today 1.21%, set to have its best quarter since 2020, while  the S&P500 jumped 0.89%. 

Wall Street traders were feeling bullish that the banking crisis that rocked markets this month is coming to an end—and that the Federal Reserve could pause its interest rate hikes sooner than previously expected.