The cryptocurrency market recently experienced events that were previously expected to present a severe negative price impact, and yet, Bitcoin (BTC) trades near $37,000 on Nov. 22, which is essentially flat from three days prior.
Such performance was utterly unexpected given the relevance of Binance’s plea deal on Nov. 21 with the United States Authorities for violating laws involving money laundering and terror financing.
Bearish news has had limited impact on Bitcoin price
One might argue that entities have been manipulating Bitcoin’s price to avoid contagion, possibly involving the issuing of unbacked stablecoins–especially those with direct ties to the exchanges suffering from the regulatory pressure. Thus, to identify whether investors became highly risk-averse one should analyze Bitcoin derivatives instead of focusing solely on the current price levels.
The U.S. government filed indictments against Binance and Changpeng “CZ” Zhao in Washington state on Nov. 14, but the documents were unsealed on Nov. 21. After admitting the offenses, CZ stepped away from Binance management as part of the deal. Penalties totaled over $4 billion, including fines imposed on CZ personally. The news triggered a mere $50 million in BTC leverage long futures contracts after Bitcoin’s price momentarily traded down to $35,600.
It is worth noting that on Nov. 20 the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Kraken exchange, alleging it commingled customer funds and failed to register with the regulator as a securities broker, dealer and clearing agency. Additionally, the complaint claimed Kraken paid for operational expenses directly from accounts containing customer assets. However, Kraken said the SEC’s commingling accusations were previously earned fees, so essentially their proprietary assets.
Another potentially disastrous tidbit of news came from Mt. Gox, a now-defunct Bitcoin exchange that lost 850,000 BTC to a hack in 2014. Nobuaki Kobayashi, the Mt. Gox trustee announced on Nov. 21 the redemption of $47 million in trust assets and reportedly planned to start the first cash repayments to creditors in 2023. Even though there was no information regarding the sale of Bitcoin assets, investors speculated that this final milestone is closer than ever.
One will find posts on social networks from experienced traders and analysts that anticipated a crypto market crash in case Binance were to be indicted by the DoJ. Some examples are listed below, and…
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