Binance Coin Tumbles 5% Overnight, Bitcoin Tops $17K (Market Watch)

The cryptocurrency market saw hints of recovery during the past 24 hours, which turned out to be particularly eventful. The total capitalization sits at around $880 billion, as BTC tops $17K once again.

The Battle for $17K

It appears that the Bitcoin bulls are committed to defending the $17K level, preventing the bears from initiating substantial movements to the downside.

Yesterday, the price dipped below that level, but buyers were quick to recoup and pushed it back above it. At the time of this writing, BTC is found at around $17,200 (on Binance), charting an increase of 1.4% in the past 24 hours.

It’s worth noting that this comes at a time of major developments in the industry. Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested earlier in the Bahamas at the request of the US Government. The press release announcing the arrest said:

“The Bahamas and the United States have a shared interest in holding accountable all individuals associated with FTX who may have betrayed the public trust and broken the law. While the United States is pursuing criminal charges against SBF individually, The Bahamas will continue its own regulatory and criminal investigations into the collapse of FTX, with the continued cooperation of its law enforcement and regulatory partners in the United States and elsewhere.”

BNB Taking a Beating

It appears that there’s an ongoing storm of negativity toward the world’s largest crypto exchange – Binance. Yesterday, a Reuters report quoted sources saying some US prosecutors are supposedly looking to press charges against the exchange and its CEO. However, the sources also said that other prosecutors from the same investigation think there is a need for further evidence. In any case, it concerns a case that started in 2018.

Today, CZ revealed that there’s been an influx of USDC withdrawal requests and that they are not being processed immediately because they have to go through a New York bank that won’t open until a few hours later. He also reassured that users are free to withdraw any other stablecoin, such as USDT or BUSD.

In any case, this has negatively impacted the price of Binance Coin, which is currently down over 5% for the past 24 hours.

The rest of the market is also rather shaky, although there’s an evident attempt at recovery.