CRYPTO

Ongoing speculation links Bitcoin's price plunge to reports hinting at the SEC's potential rejection of spot Bitcoin ETF applications.

Last week, BlackRock once again amended its S-1 form, this time naming JP Morgan and Jane Street Capital as the authorized participants.

Malicious actors stole Tether (USDT) worth around $30 million, $22.5 million in Ethereum (ETH), $10 million in DAI, $10.44 million in Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), and $10 million in USDC.

Saylor had commenced the sale of his stock option awards, consisting of 315,000 shares, which were originally granted to him in April 2014. These stock options will expire on April 30.

More information about the SEC and the timeline of its possible announcement of spot Bitcoin ETF approvals surfaced online this week.

Interestingly, the latest SEC filing did not mention Jane Street or Virtu Financial, the market-making heavyweights that the firm had said it would work with if its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) received SEC approval to be converted into an ETF.

Solana's value returned to its pre-Christmas price last week with holders concerned that the price rally of the altcoin in the past few weeks might not continue.

One of the possible explanations behind the sudden surge in the value of Bitcoin may be linked to the swelling hype surrounding the imminent approval of some spot Bitcoin ETF proposals of several Wall Street giants, which is anticipated to be announced by the SEC this week.

It was reported last week that the SEC may inform hopeful issuers this Tuesday or Wednesday whether they are cleared to launch their spot Bitcoin ETF.

Only Shiba and Bitcoin have maintained their status as the most popular tokens on India-based WazirX, consistently making it to the exchange's monthly ranking of the top four tokens.

Last week, U.S. prosecutors decided not to pursue additional charges against Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of the fallen crypto empire FTX who was found guilty of seven counts of fraud in November.

For the first time since 2020, the amount stolen in crypto hacks is on a downtrend and is 50% lower than the amount pilfered by malicious actors in 2022.

Tether's strategic move to withdraw millions of dollars in Bitcoin has resulted in a staggering profit of $1.148 billion, recording a 68% profit margin.

The naming of the AP could be tricky, according to an ETF analyst because the SEC not only wants them identified in the documents but requires issuers to make the AP the underwriter of the spot Bitcoin ETF.

Dimon made headlines last month when he vocally criticized Bitcoin, the world's largest crypto asset by market capitalization, saying he would "close down" BTC if he was the one running the U.S. government as the crypto asset, along with other cryptocurrencies, is used by criminals.

Bankman-Fried was expected to be prosecuted on six additional charges, including unlawful political campaign contributions, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, substantive securities and commodities fraud, conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business and charges of conspiracy to bribe foreign officials.

This is the second time that Zhao's request to leave the United States has been denied by the court.

Bitwise, one of the aspiring companies in the race, has recently submitted its updated S-1 Form, revealing its planned $200 million seed investment for its spot BTC offering.

The affected crypto businesses include Binance, Kucoin, Huobi, Kraken, Gate.io, Bittrex, Bitstamp, MEXC Global and Bitfinex.

With its recent price action, Solana ranks fifth in the list of the world's largest crypto assets by market capitalization, which is led by Bitcoin, the world's oldest asset.

Zhao had asked the court for travel permission in the past, but his latest appeal provided more context on his requests.

Last week, it was reported that the SEC met with hopeful spot Bitcoin ETF issuers to iron out details of their filings and inform them of a deadline for submitting amended proposals on Dec. 29.

Judge Jed Rakoff of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has granted summary judgment over the SEC's claim that Terraform Labs, the blockchain firm co-founded by Kwon, offered unregistered securities and security-based swaps.

Data also showed that Coinbase executives, including CFO Alesia J. Haas, Director Rajaram Gokul, and COO Choi Emilie offloaded millions of dollars worth of shares this month alone.

Half of the proceeds from ARK Invest's GBTC sale, approximately worth $100 million, were used to purchase the BITO Bitcoin Futures ETF.

Worldcoin's efforts seem to have been paying off slowly, with its crypto WLD seeing impressive gains over the past 30 days.

Just four months after its initial launch, Shibarium has processed over 200 million transactions, highlighting the L2 blockchain's ability to handle large volumes of transactions efficiently.

The latest purchase places MicroStrategy's total Bitcoin holdings at 189,150 BTC, acquired at an aggregate price of $5.895 billion, at an average price of around $31,168 per BTC.

The 46-year-old billionaire, who founded Binance in 2017, has a net worth of $37.2 billion, which means his wealth saw a year-to-date increase of $24.6 billion.