Fears of more regulatory action against crypto were a key weight on prices this week, amid reports of more moves by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against major players in crypto. The shutdown of a popular privacy coin trading platform also rattled sentiment.
This kept Bitcoin trading up 3.5% over the past 24 hours at $63,243.4 by 07:56 ET (11:56 GMT). An overnight drop in the dollar, following soft labor data, afforded some strength to Bitcoin.
Sustained outflows from crypto investment products- particularly spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds- also weighed on the token over the past three weeks.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency was little changed over the past seven days, and remained comfortably in a trading range established since its fall from record highs in early-March.
The token had fallen as far as $57k last week, entering a technical bear market from its March highs.
While Bitcoin had since recovered from those lows, any further gains in the currency were largely stymied by concerns over more regulatory scrutiny against crypto.
The shutdown of LocalMonero- a popular platform for peer-to-peer trades of the Monero privacy coin- rattled sentiment.
The SEC this week postponed the planned public listing of crypto wallet operator Exodus Movement on the New York Stock Exchange.
This came as trading app Robinhood Markets Inc (NASDAQ:HOOD) said it was facing potential regulatory action from the SEC over crypto tokens traded on its platform.
The SEC was also seen postponing a decision on spot Ethereum ETFs to June, and is then expected to reject applications for the offering given that it is also reportedly pursuing an investigation of whether the world no.2 token is a security.
The regulator has similar cases against exchange Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ:COIN) and XRP issuer Ripple.
Broader crypto prices were also mainly in the green following Bitcoin’s rebound on Friday.
Ethereum rose 1.9%, while XRP climbed 0.3%. Solana was an outperformer, rising over 8% on the day.
While weak jobless claims data spurred some optimism over eventual interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, the central bank is still only expected to do so by September- a trend that is set to pressure crypto markets in the near-term.
Dogecoin (DOGE), the largest meme cryptocurrency by market value, appears to be on track to repeat the bullish “golden cross” technical pattern that preceded its early 2021 surge.
With a market cap of roughly $22 billion, DOGE has shown impressive performance this year, surging over 70%, outpacing Bitcoin’s nearly 50% increase.
The meme token’s 50-week simple moving average (SMA) is rising and appears set to cross above the 200-week SMA in the coming weeks, signaling a golden cross, CoinDesk noted in a report.
This pattern could indicate that short-term price momentum will soon surpass long-term momentum, potentially ushering in a prolonged bullish trend.
In March, the DOGE price surpassed its 200-week SMA after breaking out of a prolonged consolidation period, establishing support above this key level. The upcoming golden cross would be the first in over three years, with the previous instance in January 2021 preceding a four-month rally that saw prices soar over 8,000% to a record 76 cents on Binance.
However, historical trends don’t guarantee future performance, and moving average crossovers, which tend to lag behind prices, have been known to mislead traders in traditional markets.
Source: Cryptocurrency - investing.com
