A crazy week with a new Bitcoin ATH, Fed raids Polymarket CEO’s home, and FTX Sues Binance
DATA from CryptoCompare shows that the price of Bitcoin moved up significantly over the past week to hit a new $93,250 all-time high after seeing an 11.3% rise over the week. BTC has since seen a slight correction to $91,550 this evening.
Ethereum’s Ether - the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation – saw weaker performance, losing around 2.9% of its value over the past week to now trade at $3,090, down from over $3,300.
Headlines in the cryptocurrency space this week initially focused on the cryptocurrency market rally that started after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump won the US elections, and saw the total market capitalisation of the space top the $3 trillion mark for the first time since November 2021.
While BTC itself surged to a new all-time high, various digital assets saw significant rises, with meme-inspired cryptocurrencies and exchange tokens outperforming other basket types in the space, according to CCData.
Memecoins got a boost after it was revealed that Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk, along with Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, would lead a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) set to make the US government more efficient
The project, which will last until July 4, 2026, is set to publicly post all of its actions for “maximum transparency.” The department’s name is an od to the meme-inspired cryptocurrency Dogecoin, which trader under the ticker DOGE, and its announcement saw the token’s price surge.
The cryptocurrency market rally saw Nasdaq-listed business intelligence firm MicroStrategy acquire an additional 27,000 BTC for nearly $2 billion, bringing its total cryptocurrency holdings to over 279,000 coins worth around $23 billion.
The company has invested a total of around $11.9 billion in the flagship cryptocurrency, and is sitting on an unrealized profit of over $11 billion. The cryptocurrency’s rise to a new all-time high helped the firm report a 7.4% quarterly Bitcoin yield, and a yield of over 26% year-to-date.
Over the week, CCData’s latest Exchange Review report also revealed that the combined spot and derivatives trading volumes on centralized exchanges jumped 19% to $5.19 trillion last month, marking the fifth-highest monthly volume for this year, and aligning with a rise in digital asset prices.
Spot and derivatives volumes rose 18% and 19.4% to $1.5 trillion and $3.59 trillion, respectively. Bitcoin led the market’s volume with a 36.9% market share.
Data has also shown that the supply of stablecoins on the market grew by more than $5 billion in a week, suggesting new money is entering the space.
Federal authorities raid home of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan
Over the week federal law enforcement officials raided the home of Shayne Coplan, CEO of popular decentralized prediction market Polymarket, where traders accurately predicted Republican candidate Donald Trump would win the US presidential elections.
The raid was verified by a Polymarket spokesperson, who disclosed that officers seized Coplan’s phone and other electronic devices. As of now, there have been no charges filed against Coplan, nor has he been taken into custody.
The Department of Justice is reportedly investigating whether Polymarket allowed U.S. users to access its platform, a potential violation of a prior settlement agreement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). That agreement was reached in 2022, with Polymarket agreeing to block access to US users in compliance with federal regulations.
Meanwhile, over the week a hacker who played a role in the 2016 theft of approximately 120,000 BTC from cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, Ilya Lichtenstein, was sentenced to five years in prison over the $4.5 billion theft.
FTX sues Binance and its former CEO CZ seeking $1.8 billion
This week, collapsed cryptocurrency Exchange FTX filed a lawsuit against Binance and its former CEO Changpeng Zhao as it looks to recover nearly $1.8 billion it alleges were fraudulently transferred by Sam Bankman-Fried.
The lawsuit alleges FTX’s co-founder, who is currently imprisoned, used a mix of FTX's own FTT token and Binance-branded coins BNB and BUSD to buy back stakes in FTX's international and US entities in July 2021.
This week a former co-CEO of FTX’s sister firm Alameda Research, Sam Trabucco, agreed to surrender approximately $70 million worth of assets to FTX creditors, including a 53-foot yacht and two San Francisco apartments.
In other exchange news, Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck, a subsidiary of Monex Group, is set to debut on the Nasdaq Global Market as early as December 10 after securing approval from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The trading platform is set to merge on the Nasdaq through a merger with Thunder Bidge Capital Partners (TBCP), a special purpose acquisition company, to become the first Japanese cryptocurrency trading platform listed on a US stock exchange.
Francisco Memoria is a content creator at CryptoCompare who’s in love with technology and focuses on helping people see the value digital currencies have. His work has been published in numerous reputable industry publications. Francisco holds various cryptocurrencies.
