Fears of more regulatory action against crypto were a key weight on prices this week, amid reports of more moves by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against major players in crypto. The shutdown of a popular privacy coin trading platform also rattled sentiment.
This kept Bitcoin trading up 2% over the past 24 hours at $62,745.3 by 01:24 ET (05:24 GMT). An overnight drop in the dollar, following soft labor data, afforded some strength to Bitcoin.
Sustained outflows from crypto investment products- particularly spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds- also weighed on the token over the past three weeks.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency was largely unchanged over the past seven days, and remained comfortably in a trading range established since its fall from record highs in early-March.
The token had fallen as far as $57k last week, entering a technical bear market from its March highs.
While Bitcoin had since recovered from those lows, any further gains in the currency were largely stymied by concerns over more regulatory scrutiny against crypto.
The shutdown of LocalMonero- a popular platform for peer-to-peer trades of the Monero privacy coin- rattled sentiment.
The SEC this week postponed the planned public listing of crypto wallet operator Exodus Movement on the New York Stock Exchange.
This came as trading app Robinhood Markets Inc (NASDAQ:HOOD) said it was facing potential regulatory action from the SEC over crypto tokens traded on its platform.
The SEC was also seen postponing a decision on spot Ethereum ETFs to June, and is then expected to reject applications for the offering given that it is also reportedly pursuing an investigation of whether the world no.2 token is a security.
The regulator has similar cases against exchange Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ:COIN) and XRP issuer Ripple.
Broader crypto prices were also muted as anticipation of more cues on U.S. interest rates, from key inflation data due next week, limited any major trades.
Ethereum rose 0.8%, while XRP fell 0.7%. Both tokens were trading down for the week.
Solana was an outperformer, rising over 5% on Friday and staying on track for mild weekly gains.
While weak jobless claims data spurred some optimism over eventual interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, the central bank is still only expected to do so by September- a trend that is set to pressure crypto markets in the near-term.
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