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The moves come as the country tightens rules for cryptocurrency exchanges.

Trader Joe is seeing activity spike on its Arbitrum crypto trading venue.

Bitcoin mining stocks tracked by The Block were higher on Wednesday, with 18 gaining and none declining.

Bitcoin rose 3.4% to $28,398 by market close.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Between Coinbase, Binance, Justin Sun, Do Kwon and Custodia, there has been just so much news over the last week. And that’s largely just the U.S. But Binance is the most interesting, not only for what happened (the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued it), but also for what didn’t (the Department of Justice hasn’t filed anything). Plus, the CFTC’s Tech Advisory Committee met last Wednesday.

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Cathy Hackl, chief metaverse officer at Journey, said. There are still people building in the ecosystem.

Managing partner Andrei Grachev discussed the firm’s investment strategy – and continuing risks for the industry.

Paul Grewal says it’s clear the agency is undertaking a great effort to understand what is happening at the largest crypto exchange by trading volume.

Nellie Liang, the U.S. Treasury Department’s undersecretary for domestic finance, doesn’t believe that the digital assets sector should be blamed for the runs on Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank that led to their quick demise earlier this month.

Members of the House Financial Services Committee pressed Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chair Martin Gruenberg over his agency’s handling of Signature Bank’s digital asset-related business. 

The FDIC assumed control of Signature earlier this month after state regulators shut the institution down over bank run concerns. The bank regulatory agency currently controls a ‘bridge bank’ meant to temporarily continue Signature’s services without significant disruption until the bank or its assets can be sold off. 

Gruenberg affirmed that the FDIC would not block a buyer for Signet if part of an acquisition. Another New York bank has agreed to assume a large chunk of Signature’s deposits, though Gruenberg made clear the deal does not include the majority of Signature’s digital asset business.

Pressed by Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., as to why Signature’s digital asset deposits weren’t included in the recent sale, Gruenberg replied that the winning bidder for Signature’s deposits didn’t want them. 

“The winning bid chose not to bid on the digital assets, and there were about $4 billion of those,” said Gruenberg, who added that the agency is in the process of marketing Signet, Signature’s crypto-focused payments network, for sale. 

“It’s my understanding that Signet was not acquired and is in the process now of being marketed,” said the FDIC chair. Gruenberg added that the agency plans to return the $4 billion in crypto-related deposits to customers next week. 

Asked by Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., about Silicon Valley Bank’s digital asset customers, Gruenberg said that the bidder in that case took on all of the failed bank’s deposits, in contrast to the partial bid that the FDIC received for Signature’s. 

The FDIC chair, who notably did not specifically blame exposure to crypto assets in the failure of Silvergate Bank during testimony before Congress this week, also denied that bank regulators had told banks that take on digital asset clients that they would be tougher on them, a criticism levied by some crypto advocates, including Emmer, in recent months. 

“Has the FDIC ever communicated implicitly or explicitly to any banks that their supervision will be more onerous in any way if they take on new or maintain existing digital asset clients?” Emmer asked. 

“No,” replied Gruenberg.

New York state regulators seized Signature Bank earlier this month after a run on the bank following the collapse of tech-friendly Silicon Valley Bank.

Former Rep. Barney Frank, an author of a major financial regulation law and a member of the bank’s board, criticized the state-level decision by arguing that regulators “wanted to send the message that crypto is toxic.”  

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

While bitcoin has outperformed other cryptocurrencies since the onset of the banking crisis earlier this month, XRP has taken the lead in recent days.

The token has been trading up in the past week and saw a sharp uptick over the weekend. It is currently trading at around $0.60, up 9.2% over the past 24 hours and 16.9% in the last week.

XRP’s performance could signal how investors are feeling about a pending lawsuit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against payments firm Ripple, which initially launched the token in 2012.

“Google Trends data confirms that users searching for ‘XRP’ are highly interested in the case’s outcome,” said Strahinja Savic, head of data and analytics at FRNT Financial. “It’s unclear what specifically is causing the optimism around XRP right now. However, there is significant focus on crypto regulation. The SEC’s case against Ripple may be gaining increased attention as a result, amplifying optimism from [Ripple CEO Brad] Garlingouse and figures close to the case.”

Bitcoin, meanwhile, is trading at around $28,329 — up 5.4% in the last day. It has mostly been trading between $27,000 and $28,000 over the past two weeks, at times briefly coming close to $29,000.

“To the topside, 28.5/29.0k remains critical resistance to the continuation of this rally, so we can expect plenty of stops and fast moves higher through there,” crypto trading firm B2C2 said in a newsletter.

 

XRP/USD chart by TradingView

BTC/USD chart by TradingView

Galaxy Digital shares were up by 11.2%, a day after the company announced a net loss of $1 billion for its fiscal year 2022. Coinbase and MicroStrategy saw shares rise by 2.6% and 9.8%, respectively.

In traditional financial markets, the Nasdaq 100 was up by 1.5% and the S&P 500 by 1.1%.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.