More Banks in Trouble, Fed’s Latest Interest Rate Hike, and Bitcoin’s New 9-Month High: This Week’s Crypto Recap

The cryptocurrency space recently rejoiced as several major US banks went out of service, requiring the FDIC and other regulators to step in to stem the contagion. However, the crisis spread to Europe this week, with two of the most prominent names facing significant problems.

Credit Suisse was acquired by Switzerland’s largest bank – UBS – for nearly $3.3 billion, down more than 60% from the former’s value days ago. This led to another surge in price action for bitcoin, which took it to a fresh nine-month high of nearly $29,000. Deutsche Bank is the other name making headlines lately, as its share price fell 10% daily on Friday and is down over 25% in a month.

More volatility ensued over the next few days as the Federal Reserve was expected to take a step on interest rate policy. With so many banks struggling because of record-high interest rates, many experts believe the central bank will stop raising them or even start lowering them. However, this was not the case and the Fed raised interest rates by another 25 basis points.

This triggered an immediate price drop for BTC and other risky assets. The largest cryptocurrency fell $2,000 in hours, but bullish sentiment returned almost immediately as of late. Even Binance’s temporary woes on Friday couldn’t affect Bitcoin for long, as the asset briefly surged above $29,000 today, marking another multi-month high.

Despite the equally quick retracement, it is evident that Bitcoin has had an impressive run over the past 10 days or so. The Fear and Greed Index is suggesting the same thing, as the metric surged to its highest level in well over a year.

market data

Market Cap: $1,220t | 24-hour band: $67 billion | BTC dominance: 44.8%

BTC: $28,284 (+12.2%) | ETH: $1,790 (+6.2%) | BNB: $325 (-2%)

Don’t miss out on this week’s crypto headlines

Bitcoin surged above $28,000 after UBS agreed to buy Credit Suisse. As mentioned above, perhaps the biggest news from the global financial industry over the past decade came from Switzerland, when the country’s largest bank agreed to buy Credit Suisse, but shareholders may not have received the full number of shares they proposed owned the deal .

Arbitrum (ARB) Begins Trading: Here’s What the Airdrop Is Worth. The long-awaited airdrop of Arbitrum’s new token finally took place on Thursday. As expected, it arrived with a lot of price fluctuations. ARB spiked to almost $9 at times before retreating to $1.45 now.

SEC Issues Wells Notice Against Coinbase For Listing Unregistered Securities. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission doesn’t seem to be stopping tightening its grip on the cryptocurrency industry. This time, US regulators followed up on Coinbase and sent a source note claiming to list unregistered securities.

The Fed hikes interest rates by 25 points, leading to bitcoin volatility. The second annual FOMC meeting was held on Wednesday and all eyes were on the Federal Reserve following the US banking crisis. While expectations have varied as to whether the central bank will actually hike interest rates further, its decision to hike them another 25 basis points resulted in massive BTC volatility.

Terras Do Kwon was reportedly arrested in Montenegro. After months on the run, reports surfaced Thursday that the notorious Terra co-founder has finally been arrested in Montenegro. Shortly thereafter, US prosecutors accused him of running a cryptocurrency scam.

Telegram integrates Tether (USDT) payments on the Tron network. On the crypto adoption front, giant messaging service Telegram started allowing users to send Tether (USDT) to each other on its platform. Interestingly, the payment options with the stablecoin are only supported on Tron for the time being.