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Price Point
After breaking above $20,000 on Tuesday, bitcoin (BTC) has lost ground again and is trading at around $18,500. Still, the world’s largest cryptocurrency is up over the past seven days. Analysts aren’t citing any true catalyst for Wednesday’s decline yet.
In traditional markets, U.S. stock futures and European indexes are dropping, indicating another painful day. This follows the S&P 500’s hitting a two-year low on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, the Bank of England said it will buy bonds to stop the spread of a financial crisis. This move caused an immediate reaction for bond prices in the U.K. The pound rallied, but remained slightly lower against the dollar on the day.
The rest of the crypto market was mostly trading in the red, erasing Tuesday’s gains. Cosmos’ ATOM was down 10%, Algorand fell 7%, and the token for the Near protocol dropped 6%.
In the news, cryptocurrency lender Nexo acquired a minority stake in Summit National Bank, a financial institution regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
Celsius Network’s native token CEL rocketed upward late Tuesday amid reports that Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of crypto exchange FTX, could bid on the bankrupt crypto lender’s assets, CoinDesk’s Danny Nelson reported. It was also announced that the Bahamas-based crypto exchange is moving its U.S. headquarters to Miami, only four months after cutting the ribbon on its headquarters in Chicago.
Decentralized-finance protocol Ribbon Finance, which is known for its on-chain structured products, said at the Token 2049 conference in Singapore that it is launching an options exchange to boost demand for its services among savvy crypto traders.
