"Bitcoin booms in wake of a banking crisis", says Wall Street Journal... This was the headline of the week, the past week, alongside many other similar ones that went out to the public through CNBC for example... But that was last week.
Today is Monday and Bitcoin got hit like a hammer by the CFTS's latest and greatest... Cryptos Tumble After CFTC Sues Binance And CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao... Hmmm, who would have thought about that? We were supposed to hit $30k these days, and now... it seems like we're gonna have to wait for a while before BTC gets to that level.
The authorities in America have somehow managed to put up this circus(both Coinbase and Binance getting sued lately) in the middle of a damn bank run saga. I guess plenty of Americans taking their money out of the falling banks and putting that into gold and Bitcoin was a warning signal for Murica...
Good job, guys, you are now gonna push these plebs even harder out of the traditional financial system while killing the healthy progress the US was having in accepting the crypto industry "inside the borders". Why do I have the feeling that somehow America is voluntarily kicking the crypto ball out of its yard into China's?... More on that one later in the post.
So, what's with the recent FUD created around Binance and CZ and the CFTC lawsuit? Let's have a look at the situation...
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, and Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao, are being sued by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission for allegedly breaking trading and derivatives rules and with violating laws around offering futures transactions, “illegal off-exchange commodity options,” failing to register as a futures commissions merchant, designated contract market or swap execution facility, poorly supervising its business, not implementing know-your-customer or anti-money laundering processes and having a poor anti-evasion program.
The complaint alleges that Binance "actively facilitated violations of U.S. law" by assisting U.S. clients in evading compliance controls and instructing customers to obscure their location using virtual private networks, or VPNs.
The CFTC filed the lawsuit Monday in federal court in Chicago. The derivatives regulator said Binance shirked its obligations by not properly registering with it.
source
That happened just days after Coinbase was served a Wells Notice from the SEC and probably less than a couple of weeks after SVB, one of the most crypto-friendly banks in the US collapsed... Interesting, right?!
While this is just FUD, or the whole event has some marrow to it, remains to be seen. I wouldn't guarantee anything for CZ. The man looks trustworthy and quite transparent, but let's not forget the Steem takeover event when he facilitated through Binance funds the puppet witnesses vote by Justin Sun which created a lot of mess for us.
However, to me, it is crystal clear that the US is engaged in a witch hunt lately in regard to the crypto industry. I guess they really feel that the dollar is not only threatened by the Chinese yuan which can become "the currency" for lots of oil trades soon(a topic for a future post), but by Bitcoin as a reserve currency as well.
Meanwhile in China...
Chinese banks have been directly reaching out to crypto businesses over the past few months, adding to signs that the city’s push to become a major digital asset centre has backing from Beijing, even though trading of crypto has been banned on the mainland for well over a year.
The Hong Kong arms of Bank of Communications, Bank of China and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank have either started offering banking services to local crypto firms or have made inquiries, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
On at least one occasion, sales representatives from one Chinese bank even visited the office of a crypto company to pitch its services, said one person.
source
It almost feels like the US is passing the ball back to China. I guess I said that already. However, I read some tweets about a week ago about Hong Kong giving the green light to banks in their relationships with crypto companies, as of June 1st, but I thought it was just speculation. Now it all makes sense though...
Soon after the mining ban in China last year(if I remember correctly), it felt like the US acted as a "caring mother" for the crypto industry, but that seems to have changed recently at the speed of light. Something's brewing in the states and it doesn't smell good.
I have rugged and childish thinking when it comes to the traditional approach towards regulations, whenever I say that this industry has begged for too many of these. It could have instead been focusing on implementing the tech into all sorts of businesses and focusing less on speculation and having crypto accepted more as an asset than an integrant part of the financial system, but seeing how draconian the authorities have become lately makes me think that this was probably the way towards mass adoption.
Simply putting the masses into a corner from where they would only get out with a fight against the system, like in the Netherlands and France at the moment, and forcing them to shift towards the use of decentralized blockchain technology and cryptocurrency en masse while dumping the old rigged systems it's probably exactly what's going to happen in the years to come.
Somehow all the bad is pushing us towards better times and all the FUD will eventually get crushed by the bull market as we are heading toward new ATHs. Believe me, we are going to see new highs in the years to come. This thing is going to change the world, for sure, but no one said it's going to be easy...
Thanks for your attention,
Adrian
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