What happened in crypto this week
What a week it’s been with the crypto market: Bitcoin hits $93,000, FTX sues Binance and former CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao for $1.76 billion, BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF hits $40 billion, investors withdraw appeal in Dogecoin lawsuit against Elon Musk, and ‘Crypto Dad’ denies interest in becoming SEC chair.
Let’s look at these and recap what happened this week in crypto.
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Bitcoin hits $93,000
Bitcoin reached a record $93,000 earlier this week, partly due to Donald Trump’s victory in the US election at the beginning of November.
At the beginning of the week, Bitcoin broke the $82,000 mark before pushing to $84,000 and then $87,000. While Trump’s win has helped push Bitcoin to new heights given his pro-crypto stance during his campaign that isn’t the sole reason behind the recent bull run.
According to Jesse Myers, co-founder of Onramp Bitcoin, the main reason is that the crypto market is at the “6+ months post-halving mark.”
In Myers’ opinion, “supply shock has accumulated,” meaning “there’s not enough supply available at current prices to satisfy demand,” adding that a “supply-demand price equilibrium must be restored.”
Earlier this month, James Toldeano, COO of self-custody wallet Unity, said it was “disingenuous” to say that the US election results directly caused Bitcoin’s price rise. With Bitcoin reaching new heights, Matthew Sigel, head of Digital Assets Research at VanEck, forecasted that the current Bitcoin rally is in its early phases.
FTX sues Binance and former CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao for $1.76 billion
Collapsed crypto exchange FTX filed a lawsuit against Binance and Changpeng Zhao over an alleged fraudulent transfer.
According to a November 10 filing, Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX’s former co-founder and CEO, fraudulently transferred “at least $1.76 billion” to Binance and Binance executives in July 2021.
In 2019, Binance acquired a 20% stake in FTX and in 2020, Binance acquired a further 18.4% in WRS, an umbrella company of Bankman-Fried based in the US. However, in July 2021, the two exchanges agreed on a deal that saw FTX buying back Binance and its executives’ entire stakes in FTX and WRS.
This amounted to around $1.76 billion in FTX’s FTT token, BNB, and BUSD (Binance’s stablecoin)
The filing states that the transfer was fraudulent because Alameda Research – FTX’s sister company, which funded the transfer – was insolvent at the time and couldn’t afford it.
According to testimony from Caroline Ellison, former CEO of Alameda Research, Alameda spent around “$1 billion of FTX Trading’s capital received from depositors to fund the repurchase.”
BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF hits $40 billion
BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) hit a new record this week. In 211 days, it reached $40 billion in net assets.
The record comes two weeks after it reached $30 billion in net assets in 293 days at the end of October. With BlackRock’s new achievement, it’s surpassed the previous record of 1,253 days held by iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF, according to Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas.
Balchunas added that “[BlackRock’s] now in Top 1% of all ETFs by assets and at 10mo old it is bigger than all 2,800 ETFs launched in the past TEN years.”
At the time of publishing, BlackRock holds more than 471,000 Bitcoin, valued at $42.8 billion, according to data from iShares.
Investors withdraw appeal in Dogecoin lawsuit against Elon Musk
Investors who’d sued Elon Musk and his company Tesla for manipulating the cryptocurrency Dogecoin earlier this week withdrew their appeal.
Filed by Dogecoin investors, the lawsuit, claimed that Musk had used his influential public platform to artificially inflate the price of Dogecoin for personal gain. As evidence of a pattern of market manipulation, the investors pointed to Musk’s tweets and public appearances.
However, according to US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein – who dismissed the case – the investors couldn’t establish claims of securities fraud based solely on Musk’s public statements.
The judge stated that Musk claiming Dogecoin was the “future currency of Earth” or could be “floated to the moon” by SpaceX were not credible grounds for claims of insider trading or fraud.
‘Crypto Dad’ denies interest in becoming SEC chair
Christopher Giancarlo, former CFTC chair, and known as ‘Crypto Dad’ has denied rumors that he’s being considered to replace Gary Gensler as chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
In a post on X, Giancarlo, known as Crypto Dad, said:
“I’ve made clear that I’ve already cleaned up [an] earlier Gary Gensler mess @CFTC and don’t want to have [to] do it again,” adding: “DC rumors that I’m interested in some #crypto role @USTreasury are also wrong.”
Giancarlo served as a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) between 2014 and 2019. In January 2017, he was designated as acting chair of the CFTC and in August 2017 he was confirmed to serve as the chair until 2019.
Speculation over the future head of the SEC comes as Donald Trump promised to remove Gensler following his re-election to the White House earlier this month. Other possibilities for the role include Hester Peirce, an SEC commissioner, Paul Atkins, a former SEC commissioner, and Mark Uyeda, a current SEC commissioner.