Bitcoin, Ether Steady After SEC Threatens to Sue Coinbase: Markets Wrap

Despite looming regulatory action on large cryptocurrency platform Coinbase, ethereum and bitcoin remained steady on Wednesday.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating Coinbase over their upcoming product, Lend. The SEC intends to sue the company if Coinbase launches the program which allows users to earn interest on lended assets, the popular exchange’s chief executive said in a blog post on Tuesday night.

Bitcoin inched its way back up after Tuesday’s brutal plunge when the digital asset fell 10% in less than an hour, according to Messari. From a 24-hour low of $44,429.29, the largest crypto by market capitalization rose to $46,308.63, as of press time. To reach BTC’s all-time high of $64,654.15, the crypto must climb 31%.

Ethereum tried to pare losses as well, ahead 2% on-day, after experiencing a similar fall on Tuesday. Total crypto market cap remains above $2 trillion, notching $2.04 trillion, as of press time.

In altcoins, Solana’s native token was trading at $193.77, up over 13% on-day. SOL hit an all-time high of $194.82 on Tuesday morning following the launch of FTX’s non-fungible token (NFT) platform.

DeFi

• Chainlink (LINK) is trading at $27.27, down -3.9% with trading volume at $2,515,064,197 in 24 hours at 4:00 pm ET.
• Uniswap (UNI) is trading at $23.5 with a total value locked of $4,835,604,641, declining -3% in 24 hours at 4:00 pm ET. 
• DeFi:ETH is 29.8% at 4:00 pm ET.

Crypto

• Bitcoin is trading around $46,308.63, declining -1.06% in 24 hours at 4:00 pm ET.
• Ether is trading around $3,479.44, up 1.8% in 24 hours at 4:00 pm ET.
• ETH:BTC is at 0.075, advancing 2.88% at 4:00 pm ET.

Insight

Juan Aja Aguinaco, co-founder of Shyft, weighed in on financial regulators placing pressure on global crypto platforms.

“Centralized exchanges have three paths in front of them: to comply, to leave the market, or to stay and brace for sanctions,” Aguinaco said. “All three options present substantial challenges [such as] the cost to make the entire operation fully compliant and invest in data protection infrastructure to guarantee users’ privacy, or the cost of blocking an important part of the global crypto market from participating in the product offering.”

Equities

• The Dow declined -0.2% to 35,031.
• S&P 500 is down -0.15% to 4,514.
• Nasdaq shed -0.57% to 15,286.

Commodities

• Brent crude was up to $72.66 per barrel, advancing 1.35%.
• Gold fell -0.4% to $1,791.3.

Currencies

• The US dollar strengthened 0.22%, according to the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index.

Fixed Income

• US 10-year treasury yields 1.338% as of 4:00 pm ET.

In other news…

Private equity firm 10T Holdings raised roughly $750 million for first growth equity funds, Blockworks reported on Wednesday.

We are looking out for

• European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde will hold a press conference after the central bank’s rate decision on Thursday

That’s it for today’s markets wrap. I’ll see you back here tomorrow.

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