News updates May 25, 2022
1. Bitcoin (BTC) Price Analysis for May 25. The market is neither bullish nor bearish today as some coins have left the correction phase, while the rates of others are going down. The rate of Bitcoin (BTC) has risen by 1% over the last 24 hours. On the hourly chart, Bitcoin (BTC) is trying to come back to the bullish zone. If the buying trading volume rises and the rate can return to the $30,000 mark, there are chances to see the breakout of the resistance. On the bigger time frame, nothing crucial has changed in terms of possible sharp moves. At the moment, one needs to pay close attention to $31,000 and the way the price approaches it. If bulls can get to this mark, the growth may continue to $32,950 shortly.
From the mid-term point of view, Bitcoin (BTC) is trying tom return to $30,000. In addition, the selling trading volume has fallen, which means that bears are losing their initiative. If the rate can return to the mentioned mark by the end of the month, June might be bullish for the leading cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin is trading at $29,732 at present time.
2. Bitcoin Range-Bound; Support at $27K, Resistance at $33K
Bitcoin (BTC) continues to trade in a tight range, struggling to make a decisive break above or below $30,000. The cryptocurrency found support around $27,500, which has stabilized price action over the past week.
BTC was trading at around $29,300 at press time and was down by as much as 3% over the past 24 hours.
The relative strength index (RSI) on the daily chart is rising from oversold levels, but remains capped below the 50 neutral mark. A move above 50 in the daily RSI would confirm a brief recovery in price. For now, upside appears to be limited, initially toward the $33,000-$35,000 resistance zone.
Momentum signals are improving on the daily chart, but remain negative on the weekly and monthly charts. That could increase the risk of a breakdown in price, similar to what occurred in earlier this month.
3. Fidelity Bitcoin Investors Increase by 730% Amid Market Downturn. According to Colin Wu, Fidelity Investments recently submitted its latest filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in which it states that the Bitcoin Index Fund has garnered a total of $126.5 million. In August 2020, the Wise Origin Bitcoin Index Fund went public, allowing Fidelity to give Bitcoin exposure to its investors.
In comparison to the previous reporting period, total investment growth has slowed. Fidelity's in-bound investments have decreased year over year, according to regulatory filings. Even though the fund's size has remained stable in the second year, the number of investors has risen from 83 to approximately 689, a phenomenal 730% increase over the previous year.
Fidelity announced in April that it would allow investors to invest in Bitcoin through their 401(k) retirement savings accounts. This move will empower employers to choose whether or not to expose their employees to Bitcoin in their retirement accounts.
4. Defining Cryptocurrency Regulation Important for the Industry to Grow: Morgan Stanley
Disagreement on new legislation would be negative and lead to an extended period of uncertainty, the bank said. A united government may make it easier for new crypto laws to be agreed upon, and to “follow the spirit of Biden’s executive order” in keeping the U.S. at the vanguard of innovation, Morgan Stanley (MS) said in a report Wednesday looking at the implications of midterm elections for the cryptocurrency sector.
According to the bank’s public policy analysts, legislation concerning tech regulation, cryptocurrency, pricing of prescription drugs, tax increases and China competition will have varying chances of passage by the end of 2023, depending on the outcome of the November elections.
5. More Crypto Regulation Incoming in South Korea Following Terra Collapse, Gov’t Indicates
More regulatory scrutiny could be incoming for the crypto sector in South Korea in the wake of the terra (LUNA) and terraUSD (UST) crash – with exchanges set to come under the same kind of scrutiny as Terraform Labs and its Founder and CEO Do Kwon.
KBS reported that the People’s Power Party – the second-largest party in parliament and the party of President Yoon Suk-yeol – and the government held a joint “Emergency Inspection Meeting for Virtual Assets” at the National Assembly on May 24.
The meeting concluded with the announcement that the government would look to revise existing crypto regulations – and will likely focus on policing the way that exchanges list and delist coins.
At present, listing policies are formulated at the discretion of exchanges. The situation is quite different across the sea to the East in Japan, where token listing applications must be approved by a self-regulating body.
Exchanges also sparked controversy in South Korea last year, when a spate of late-night delistings left some investors fuming.
But the Terra collapse appears to have become a galvanizing incident in South Korea – and even the crypto-keen presidency looks bound to act on it.
Seong Il-jong, the Chairman of the People’s Power Party’s Policy Committee, was quoted as stating that “since the crypto sector” is a “new business,” there “may be situations whereby” certain “laws are not in place.”
Seong added that the government had launched a review of “whether we can regulate any disturbances” to the crypto market or “other problems” in the space.
And this review could lead to changes that come sooner, rather than later. Yoon has previously spoken of creating a new pro-crypto law that will give crypto firms business rights and further facilitate growth in the sector. But the meeting attendees agreed that while such a bill would take time to formulate and then pass through the National Assembly, further regulations could be passed much faster – and would take the form of amendments to the existing Specific Financial Transaction Information Act.
Another committee chief was quoted as stating that the aforementioned act had been created “with the purpose of preventing money laundering,” the government was “aware to a large extent that the [law] has limitations when it comes to regulating or controlling exchanges.”
Business Post quoted Jeon In-tae, a professor in the Department of Mathematics at The Catholic University of Korea, as stating that the level of “consumer risk for cryptoassets traded in large quantities on exchanges” was “increasing.”
Another academic, Hwang Seok-jin, from Dongguk University’s Graduate School of International Information Security, said that LUNA and other Terraform coins had “no collateral and had been “created through arbitrage and market inducement strategies.”
Hwang argued that it now is necessary to create a “transparent listing and delisting system.”
He claimed that “rather than holding countermeasure meetings after a specific issue occurs, such as the LUNA incident, it is necessary to establish a dedicated body that will prevent and preemptively respond to such situations.”
6. US Treasury Official Says Collapse Of Terra And UST Shows How Badly Crypto Needs Regulation.
A US Treasury official is worried that the crypto industry is growing too fast and becoming too dangerous without proper regulation.
This is in the wake of the collapse of UST and the Terra ecosystem that led to the de-pegging of UST from the one-to-one arrangement with the USD.
Michael Hsu is the Director of the Comptroller of the Currency; during a recent DC Blockchain Summit, he mentioned the de-pegging of UST from USD, saying that this event should be a clear pointer that there need to be regulations in place if the blockchain technology is to achieve its objective.
No Contagion
However, the director expressed his pleasure that the effects of the de-peg didn’t spill over to the banking system. Hsu aimed at yield farming, calling it a type of Ponzi that consumers should be protected from. UST investors were enticed with huge returns during its peak, running up to 20% of their stakes.
Hsu said,
“Yield farming today may have more in common with Ponzi schemes than productive innovation; hype-driven economy presents real challenges for those truly interested in productive innovation in protecting consumers.”
7. Korean watchdog begins risk assessment of crypto as Terra 2.0 passes vote
While the FSS' standardization effort is still in its early stages, it is expected that once a legal framework for virtual assets has been established, a uniform evaluation system will be put in place.
The Korean Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) has announced that it will be standardizing the way in which virtual asset risks are assessed.
According to a local news report, this is because it is currently tough to safeguard investors due to the many ways that risk is measured for each virtual asset exchange. While the FSS's standardization efforts are still in their infancy, when a legal framework for virtual assets has been established, it will be expected that a uniform evaluation system can be implemented for all exchanges.
On Wednesday, Stablenode's chief operating officer Doo Wan Nam tweeted that a meeting had taken place at the Korean National Assembly building with representatives from Korean exchanges and officials regarding the Terra (LUNA) and UST issues. The exchanges, according to Doo, said the situation was undesirable and that they would do everything possible to safeguard traders on their platforms.
8. Russian Court Recognizes Cryptocurrency as Means of Payment, Prosecutors See Precedent
The City Court of St. Petersburg has recognized a large amount of cryptocurrency handed over by the victim in an extortion case as a means of payment, Russian media reported. The prosecutor’s office in Russia’s second-largest city describes the ruling as a precedent.
*Two Men Sentenced for Cryptocurrency Extortion in Russia*
Two Russian citizens have been sentenced to nine and seven years in prison under strict regime for extorting 5 million rubles (almost $90,000) in cash and 55 million rubles (close to $1 million) in digital assets from another man.
In the course of the trial, the St. Petersburg City Court has recognized the cryptocurrency as a means of payment, the crypto page of Russian business news portal RBC reported. Prosecutors consider the ruling a first, as the government in Moscow is yet to determine the legal status of bitcoin and the like.
Four years ago, one of the perpetrators, Pyotr Piron, introduced himself to the victim, G.A. Shemet, as an officer from the Federal Security Service (FSB). He threatened Shemet with criminal prosecution to extort money from him in the form of fiat and cryptocurrency, the article details.
As Shemet did not believe Piron was a security official and refused to give him the funds, the latter enlisted the services of an accomplice, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former employee of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD).
The two told Shemet a criminal investigation will be launched against him for alleged illegal circulation of cryptocurrency. In the summer of 2018, they staged a fake arrest of the crypto owner who, under the threat of torture, handed over the fiat cash and his crypto stash.
The city court’s initial decision did not take into account the misappropriated crypto. It stated in the verdict that cryptocurrency “is not a means of payment on the territory of the Russian Federation, therefore it cannot be recognized as an object of civil rights and a subject of a crime.”
Following an appeal, a cassation court declared that the cryptocurrency can nevertheless be considered a means of payment and returned the case to the court of first instance. Without changing the prison terms of the defendants, the city court issued a new verdict, adding the digital cash.
The development comes after last month, a district court in St. Petersburg allowed law enforcement officials to confiscate stolen cryptocurrency in another criminal case. Investigators had demanded the seizure of two dozen crypto wallets of a suspect, holding 1 billion rubles in ethereum (ETH).
