As the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sued Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao over claims that the exchange willfully provided unregistered crypto derivatives products in the U.S., in violation of federal law, Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $27,000.
The BTC/USD trading pair on the Coinbase platform sank to $26,525, its lowest price since March 17, data from TradingView indicated. By market capitalization, the biggest cryptocurrency was recently down 3.1% in price, trading at $26,978.
“As far as I can see the crypto community is putting this news on the ‘here we go again’ pile,” Julius de Kempenaer, senior technical analyst at StockCharts.com, told CoinDesk.
Kempenaer said the Binance-CFTC lawsuit “very likely” sent BTC’s price lower. However, he added that the lawsuit’s “implications are unclear,” even as it offered the latest example of increased regulatory scrutiny, a trend that the industry will continue to monitor closely. He said that bitcoin might fall to its previous breakout level near $25,000.
“As long as that level holds, the break from a long-term bottoming formation is still in play,” he said. But he added that “taking out heavy overhead resistance range between $29,000 and $32,000 will free up the way for a much stronger move higher.”
The Binance-CFTC news on Monday surprised traders who had placed bets anticipating a price increase. According to information from Coinglass, they sold long positions in BTC valued almost $39 million.
The CFTC referred to various cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Tether (USDT), and Binance USD (BUSD) as commodities in the complaint against Binance that was filed in U.S. District Court in Illinois. Proof-of-stake tokens may be considered securities, according to Gary Gensler, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the United States.
The second-largest cryptocurrency, ETH, has recovered to $1,703, but it is still down 3.6% from Sunday at the same time. The price of BNB, the native token of the Binance-founded blockchain network BNB Chain, has dropped from approximately $327 to about $310, a loss of over 5%. Trading for Litecoin (LTC) was down roughly
The regulatory unclarity is a “concerning” factor for moving the markets, especially the specific allegations contained within the CFTC suit, according to Riyad Carey, research analyst at crypto data firm Kaiko, told CoinDesk.
“Binance is by far the largest crypto exchange in the world and thus has an outsized impact on markets,” Carey said, although he added that the drop in markets hasn’t been “too severe,” given the importance of this regulatory news.
Some crypto-related stocks also dropped. Shares of exchange Coinbase (COIN) and bitcoin miner Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA) slid by 8% and 6%, respectively.
Equity markets were mixed Monday afternoon as investors weighed the announcement that regional lender First Citizens BancShares would buy most of the business of Silicon Valley Bank. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) rose by 0.4 and 0.8%, respectively. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was down 0.1%.
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