The price of bitcoin has stalled thanks to recent news surrounding Bittrex, a popular digital currency exchange, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Bitcoin Is Slowing Down a Bit
Bitcoin has been on something of a roll since the beginning of the year. In 2022, the world’s number one cryptocurrency by market cap endured one of the harshest beatings it’s ever suffered and lost more than 70 percent of its value after attaining a new all-time high of about $68,000 per unit in the prior November. By the end of 2022, the currency had fallen into the mid-$16K range.
In addition, several other digital assets decided to follow in BTC’s footsteps. This caused the entire space to come crashing to the ground and lose more than $2 trillion in valuation over the course of just ten to 12 months.
However, this year has offered something of a turnaround for bitcoin. The asset initially rose to $17K during the early months, and from there, it began expanding its price throughout the $20K range. Recently, it made headlines when it struck the $30K mark for the first time in about ten or 11 months (not since June of last year), causing many analysts to assume that the bulls were back in town and that bitcoin was going to reverse itself for good over the next few months.
While lasting damage arguably hasn’t been done yet, the currency has seen its growth spurt stunted a bit for the time being thanks to the news surrounding Bittrex, which is the latest digital currency victim of the SEC as our latest article suggests. The agency is claiming that the exchange has been breaking financial and securities rules for years, and that it took steps to avoid playing by the rules since it first came to fruition in the year 2014.
To be fair, it’s hard to know if these suggestions are real or not given how the SEC has just been working to crack down on every cryptocurrency company in existence as of late. Not long ago, for example, the agency went after Kraken and engaged in a settlement with the exchange that saw the latter forced to give up more than $30 million in penalty fees. It was also required to cease all its staking services.
Going After All the Companies
The SEC didn’t stop there. It also recently issued a Wells notice to Coinbase, saying that while the company wasn’t being charged yet, it was being watched and it could expect to face charges in the coming future. The funny thing is that Coinbase claims to have met with representatives of the SEC regularly over the past nine years to ensure it always remained in compliance.
At the time of writing, bitcoin was trading in the low $30K range.
