Bitcoin failed to break the $17K mark on Wednesday and has rolled back to $16.77K at the time of writing. Price fluctuations remain more than subdued. BTC remains slightly above its 50-day moving average (50-DMA). As capturing a critical trending level has yet to encourage more buyers, it is worth looking cautiously at the dynamics of the coming days. Bitcoin was able to touch a bottom at $16,000, signalled by a rise in the number of losing addresses on the network, which exceeded 50% by the end of December, according to a Coinbase report. The situation was similar in January 2015 and 2019, which saw BTC bottom in previous cycles of decline.
The situation in Ethereum is more optimistic, as it rallied powerfully yesterday on a break of its 50-day average and is maintaining most of those gains on Thursday morning. In addition, in ETHUSD, the 200 and the 50 SMA have already turned upwards, which is one of the signs that the trend is changing. However, we still need confirmation.
News background
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse expressed hope that US regulators will achieve regulatory clarity on cryptocurrency regulation in 2023. In his view, the main problem is that the US reference various past bills, but it is better to start from scratch. Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has refused to plead guilty to eight charges. Bloomberg notes that refusing to plead guilty will give Bankman-Fried more information about the evidence against him. A trial is set for October.
The world's second cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase will pay a $100 million fine. Regulators note that the KYC requirement was followed formally by the exchange and that the information provided by the user was not correctly verified when registering a new client.
