Bitcoin Rises Above $25,000, But US Regulatory Scrutiny Intensifies: This Week's Crypto Recap

Bitcoin Rises Above $25,000, But US Regulatory Scrutiny Intensifies: This Week's Crypto Recap

Over the last seven days, Bitcoin's price rose a whopping 10% in a few hefty green candles that took place within a few days of each other. This has brought a lot of positives to the industry and the total capitalization has also increased by about $100 billion.

At the time of writing, BTC is trading at around $24,000, but it managed to paint a new high above $25,000 for the first time since summer 2022. This also had an impact on the entire market as most altcoins also recorded massive gains. Ethereum is up 8.3%, ADA – 10.4%, MATIC – 20.3%, OKB – 37.4%, SOL – 11% and so on.

This has also raised hopes among many that the bear market is finally over and the next stop for BTC is $30,000. One of those supporting this idea is none other than Mike Novogratz – former Wall Street tycoon and crypto permabull.

However, the week was not without turbulence, particularly on the regulatory front. The US continues its offensive stance, cornering another major blockchain firm and forcing it to suspend certain services. The company in question is Paxos, which will stop issuing Binance USD (BUSD) stablecoins on February 21st.

In any case, the broader market growth has also had a positive impact outside the industry. Robinhood – the popular retail trading platform – reported a whopping 95% increase in crypto-related trading volume in January, showing that interest in the industry is gradually returning.

It will be very interesting to see how the market will develop in the next few weeks.

Market data

Market cap: $1152 billion | 24-hour band: $103 billion | BTC Dominance: 40.4%

Bitcoin:$24,136 (+10.7%) |ETH:$1,674 (+8.3%) |BNB: $311 (+1.8%)

This week's crypto headlines you can't miss

Venture capitalist Mike Novogratz predicts $30,000 worth of Bitcoin this quarter.Well-known Permabull and crypto advocate Mike Novogratz has made another bold prediction about the price of Bitcoin. He believes it will reach $30,000 by the end of next month.

The mysterious whales or why Bitcoin exploded by more than $2,000 in hours.A few mysterious whales have been pumping money into the cryptocurrency market. This happened just before the recent price explosion, when Bitcoin reached a high not seen since the summer of last year.

Why Bitcoin? Nigeria faces violent protests amid cash shortages.The lack of available cash in Nigeria has led to violent protests, leaving many injured and some even killed. Although tragic, the failure of Nigeria's payment system highlights the benefits of Bitcoin's censorship-resistant infrastructure.

Here is when Paxos will stop minting Binance USD (BUSD).Paxos – the US-based blockchain infrastructure company known for issuing a number of stablecoins, including BUSD, will stop issuing the latter from February 21st. This follows increasing regulatory pressure.

Robinhood’s crypto trading volume increased by 95% in January.Popular retail platform Robinhood saw a whopping roughly 95% increase in crypto trading volume in January. This comes on the back of a remarkable rally that has seen most cryptocurrencies rise by double and triple digits.

The reasons why FLOKI is up over 400% month-on-month.The popular memecoin Floki Inu (FLOKI), named after Elon Musk's dog, has surged 400% in the last month. There are several reasons for this, so take a closer look at the main ones.

Diagrams

This week we have chart analysis of Ethereum, RippleCardano, Polygon (MATIC) and OKB – click here for the full price analysis.

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