Bitcoin breaks new high to $63,000

On April 14, US Eastern Time, Coinbase was listed on the Nasdaq (code COIN), which means that compliant cryptocurrency exchanges have been recognized by US regulators. On the eve of Coinbase’s listing, mainstream currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as the platform currencies of major cryptocurrency exchanges collectively hit a record high, and the currency circle exploded for a while.

Alternative weapons listed on Coinbase-compliance

Unlike other exchanges, there is no large number of currency listings and no leveraged contract trading. It is deeply involved in compliance-Coinbase seems to have chosen the most difficult path, but in fact it is the most accurate path.

Since its establishment in 2012, Coinbase has been making unremitting efforts to obtain regulatory licenses. In the past 9 years, it has held the Money Transmitter License of 50 U.S. states, and it has become one of the few exchanges that has a BitLicense issued by New York State specifically for digital currency exchanges. It operates in 33 countries. Obtain the permission to legally trade legal currency and open up payment channels.

In addition to the exchange business, Coinbase also applies for and acquires licenses on a large scale in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain. Currently, Coinbase has a series of financial licenses for payment, savings, loans, financial derivatives transactions, alternative asset transactions, brokerage transactions, and investment advisory.

In Coinbase’s compliance process, Brian Brooks, the former chief legal officer, played a pivotal role, and coordinated with various regulatory agencies to take the lead in the establishment of an industry alliance-type Crypto Rating Council (CRC). In 2020, Brian Brooks was also hired as the head of the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which oversees the U.S. banking industry.

Due to Coinbase’s compliant business strategy, it not only obtained regulatory approval and became the world’s first IPO cryptocurrency trading platform, but also allowed it to be recognized by mainstream financial institutions and became a big winner in this bull market. .

Judging from the user and transaction data disclosed by Coinbase in the S-1 document, as of December 31, 2020, Coinbase’s customers mainly include approximately 43 million retail users and 7,000 institutions from more than 100 countries. At the same time, the total value of fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies held by Coinbase on behalf of customers was 90.3 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 432.2% from last year, of which the total value of cryptocurrencies was 86.8 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 11.1% of the total market value of the entire crypto market.

By the first quarter of 2021, Coinbase’s performance has improved by leaps and bounds, with revenue of US$1.8 billion, a surge of 844% over the same period last year, and net profit of nearly US$800 million.

After crossing rivers and slopes, in the future, Coinbase will be committed to creating an open financial system application that serves 10 people.

As far as the industry is concerned, the listing of Coinbase means that the US Securities Regulatory Commission has fundamentally recognized the transaction of encrypted assets as a legal asset. And this recognition will drive more exchanges to seek regulatory compliance. After compliance, Old Money in the traditional market can also invest and trade encrypted assets under the premise of security supervision and legal protection.

Bitcoin breaks a new high to 63,000 US dollars, platform coins have risen

Perhaps due to the positive stimulus of Coinbase’s listing, various platform currencies take off. OKB rose by 6.46% on April 12 and reached as high as US$24.68 before the breakthrough. Currently, it has temporarily pulled back to US$21.21; BNB also rose by 13.46% on the same day and reached US$638.56. Now it has temporarily fallen back to US$562; It rose 6.11% on the day to US$22.76, but it was still some distance from the peak of US$26.89 on February 19, and HT is currently at US$20.68.

In addition, on April 13, Bitcoin hit a record high of US$63,766, an intraday increase of 5.61%; Ethereum also set a record high of US$2,298, an increase of about 7.11%. Other cryptocurrencies such as XRP rose by 23.25% to $1.86, ADA rose by 6.83% to $1.4, DOT rose by 3.96% to $42.06, and LTC rose by 10.92% to $271.

In addition to the positive listing of Coinbase, companies and institutions are still very interested in Bitcoin.

On the 12th, MicroStrategy announced that its board of directors will pay salaries in Bitcoin; to date, the company has invested more than $5 billion in the cryptocurrency.

Meitu Technology has also increased its holdings of Bitcoin several times. On March 17, Meitu purchased 16,000 units of Ether and 386.08581655 units of Bitcoin in open market transactions for a total of 50 million U.S. dollars. On April 8, Meitu Technology purchased Bitcoin for the third time for a total of 10 million U.S. dollars.

Institutions that once rejected Bitcoin unanimously have now accepted it. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley have previously announced plans to provide cryptocurrency investments to their clients. Tesla Inc. disclosed its $1.5 billion investment in Bitcoin earlier this year, and recently began accepting it as a payment for electric vehicles.

Like every previous breakthrough in historical highs, Bitcoin is now unpredictable. However, the continuous entry of institutions has led many people in the cryptocurrency industry to predict that Bitcoin will climb to a level higher than its current price.

On April 13, Li Qiyuan, the former co-founder of BTCC and Bitcoin China, stated that once Bitcoin exceeds US$62,000, the journey from US$63,000 to US$69,000 will be very short, and it will soon be seen to exceed US$70,000. .

Analyst Max Keiser said, “Bitcoin will go up to $77,000 in the short term, and it will reach $220,000 by 2021.”

Nexo co-founder and managing partner Antoni Trenchev said: “There is no doubt that the bull market is not over yet.”

Under the hot market, there are still uncertainties in supervision

Although the listing of Coinbase has encouraged the currency market to a certain extent, allowing people in the currency circle to see samples under the US cryptocurrency regulatory balance technique, this does not mean that regulation opens the door to cryptocurrencies.

Jesse Powell, CEO of Kraken, the world’s fourth-largest digital currency exchange, warned that governments may begin to restrict the use of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Ruisi Finance previously reported that Russia is stepping up its monitoring of cryptocurrency and fiat currency transactions. A few days ago, the Central Bank of Russia updated and approved the amendment to Regulation No. 375-P. Regulation No. 375-P refers to the requirements of the internal control rules for credit institutions under the framework of anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism financing issued by the Central Bank of Russia. The regulations enumerate the characteristics of more than one hundred suspicious transactions, including cryptocurrency transactions. It is reported that the amendment to the regulations will come into effect on October 1, 2021.

Herman Neglyad, a representative of Russia’s anti-money laundering agency Rosfinmonitoring, also said that the agency will monitor transactions involving the exchange of cryptocurrencies into fiat currencies. And the bank has already begun to cooperate with this work.

In addition, according to a Bloomberg report on March 12, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is investigating Binance. The content of the investigation is whether Binance allows US users to trade on the platform without being supervised by the US government. Commodity futures.

“I think there may be some crackdowns,” Jesse Powell said in an interview.

Powell believes that the regulatory uncertainty surrounding encryption technology will not disappear soon. The U.S. government recently proposed an anti-money laundering rule that requires individuals who hold cryptocurrencies in digital wallets to conduct an identity check when they conduct transactions of $3,000 or more.

In early March of this year, the U.S. Senate held a hearing on the candidates for the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). At the hearing, SEC chairman candidate Gary Gensler stated that the SEC must eradicate fraud in the encrypted digital currency market.

Gensler also said that cryptocurrency brings new ideas for payment and financial inclusion, but it also raises concerns about investor protection.

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon also said recently that he believes that the world of Bitcoin and digital currencies will soon undergo a “big change”, especially in the US regulatory field.