On Friday, most of the top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, including Bitcoin and Ether, dropped in value during Asian trading hours, with Binance’s BNB sustaining the biggest loss. Despite Wall Street’s overnight performance, most Asian equities strengthened. This came as investor worries of a banking crisis resurfaced after U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated that the government is not looking into providing “blanket insurance” for bank deposits.
Hours after Do Kwon, the founder of Terraform Labs, was arrested by police in Montenegro, federal prosecutors in New York brought charges of fraud against him. Kwon, who had been missing for months, is now being investigated in South Korea and is on an Interpol wanted list in relation to the TerraUSD collapse in the previous year. This February, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Kwon with civil charges, claiming that he had deceived investors.
On Thursday, Bitcoin (BTC) was trading above the $28,000 mark, despite the U.S. Federal Reserve’s 25-basis point rate increase as well as worries about the banking industry and future monetary policy choices. BTC, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, experienced a 4% increase in the past 24 hours and was recently trading at around $28,200 Thursday afternoon. Earlier, it had surged as high as $28,800, suggesting that investors were once again willing to take on riskier assets. Data from TradingView showed that BTC/USD on the Coinbase exchange hit a high of $28,839.
Mysten Labs, the team behind the Sui blockchain, on Wednesday agreed to purchase FTX’s equity investment in Mysten Labs and sui token warrants for $96.3 million in cash from the FTX bankruptcy estate, as per court documents. John J. Ray III, CEO of FTX, has undertaken efforts to ensure creditors of Sam Bankman-Fried’s defunct crypto exchange get the most out of the situation, which involves liquidating several prized assets in the FTX Ventures portfolio. The buyback agreement is part of this process.