Cryptocurrency markets experienced a relatively calm month in February as the total market capitalization gained 4% in the period. However, the fear of regulatory pressure appears to be having an impact on volatility in March. Bulls will undoubtedly miss the technical pattern that has been guiding the total crypto market capitalization upwards for the past 48 days. Unfortunately, not all trends last forever, and the 6.3% price correction on March 2 was enough to break below the ascending channel support level. As displayed above, the ascending channel initiated in mid-January saw its $1.025 trillion market cap floor ruptured after Silvergate …

Business intelligence firm MicroStrategy and stablecoin issuer Tether have become the latest two firms to publicly deny any meaningful exposure to Silvergate Bank. The news comes as Silvergate announced on Mar. 1 that it would postpone the filing of its annual 10-K financial report, which has many fearing the cryptocurrency bank may be on the brink of a bankruptcy filing. This led MicroStrategy — which holds over 130,000 Bitcoin (BTC) — to confirm that its BTC collateral is not custodied with Silvergate. The Michael Saylor-founded firm added that it will not need to pay back a loan from Silvergate until …

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has confirmed it is “not planning any layoffs” and is trying to fill another 500 roles by the end of June, according to a Binance spokesperson. The comments came despite a huge spike in crypto layoffs in January — the majority of whom were from crypto exchanges. In a statement, the Binance representative said: “As of today, we are actively hiring for more than 500 roles with the goal of filling them by the end of H1 [...] We are not planning any layoffs.” The spokesperson was responding to a request for clarification from Cointelegraph on Mar. …

Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX has revealed a "massive shortfall" in its digital asset and fiat currency holdings with billions worth of customer funds missing from both the exchange and its United States-based arm, FTX US. On Mar. 2 the exchange released a presentation showing FTX had $2.2 billion in exchange wallets and fiat accounts of which $694 million consisted of the most liquid "Category A Assets" that include cash, stablecoins, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) priced at the latest spot prices. Only $191 million of total assets were located in the wallets of the accounts associated with FTX US, in …

Crypto traders' urge to create leverage positions with Bitcoin (BTC) appears irresistible to many people, but it's impossible to know if these traders are extreme risk-takers or savvy market makers hedging their positions. The need to maintain hedges holds even if traders rely on leverage merely to reduce their counterparty exposure by maintaining a collateral deposit and the bulk of their position on cold wallets. Not all leverage is reckless Regardless of the reason for traders' use of leverage, currently there is a highly unusual imbalance in margin lending markets that favors BTC longs betting on a price increase. Despite …

An investor with nearly $2 million worth of funds frozen in bankrupt cryptocurrency lender BlockFi has filed a class action complaint against its founders, two directors and crypto exchange Gemini. In a Feb. 28 complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, investor Trey Greene accused the defendants of numerous wrongdoings, including violating the consumer fraud and exchange acts, breaching its fiduciary duties, as well as offering and selling unregistered securities. “The unregistered securities sold by the BFI [BlockFi] Defendants on behalf of BlockFi were marketed and sold via a steady stream of misrepresentations and …

Civil charges were announced against former FTX director of engineering Nishad Singh on Feb. 28, the same day he entered a guilty plea to three counts of criminal fraud in Manhattan district court. Both the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are pressing charges against Singh. Singh pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to one count of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud on FTX customers and one count of conspiracy to commit commodities fraud after reportedly reaching a deal …

The founders of the troubled cryptocurrency lender Hodlnaut are trying to save the business despite creditors insisting on its liquidation. On Feb. 28, Hodlnaut’s interim judicial managers released the sixth affidavit of Hodlnaut co-founder Simon Lee reportedly stating the company’s founders proposed selling the business as a better option for creditors than liquidating the firm. According to a report by Bloomberg, Lee said that he and Hodlnaut’s other co-founder Zhu Juntao have reached out to a number of “potential white knight investors.” Lee reportedly wrote that Hodlnaut co-founders are confident the company’s user base “can be acquired and on-boarded on …

Nishad Singh, former director of engineering at FTX, is expected to plead guilty to fraud charges brought by U.S. prosecutors who are investigating the now bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange, Reuters reported on Feb 28. During the hearing in a Manhattan federal court, Singh's lawyer announced that his client had agreed to plead guilty to one count of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud on FTX customers, and one count of conspiracy to commit commodities fraud. Nishad Singh, the former director of engineering at now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, has agreed to plead guilty to U.S. criminal charges, …

The supply of wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) dropped to its lowest since May 2021 after the second-largest single-day burn on Feb. 27. A total of 11,500 WBTC worth about $260 million linked to now-bankrupt crypto lender Celsius was burned, turning its growth rate to negative. The current total supply of the wrapped token is 164,396 WBTC, with a monthly growth rate of -7.39. WBTC is an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token that mirrors the value of Bitcoin and is pegged 1:1 with the Bitcoin (BTC) price. Bitgo co-developed wBTC in 2019 alongside blockchain interoperability protocol Ren and multi-chain liquidity platform Kyber. wBTC is …

In the aftermath of the FTX collapse, Forbes published an article that focused on the recent “shuffling” of funds by the cryptocurrency exchange Binance. However, the following day on Feb. 28, Binance co-founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) took to Twitter to tackle the FUD. In response to the article, the CEO said: “They seem to not understand the basics of how an exchange works. Our users are free to withdraw their assets any time they want.” In his series of tweets, he addressed various claims from the Forbes article. This included what it called a “backroom maneuver” when Binance …

Robinhood Markets has confirmed that it had received an investigative subpoena from the United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) over its digital asset business' crypto listings, custody and platform operations. In a 10-K filing, the brokerage said it received the investigative subpoena in December shortly after crypto exchange FTX filed for bankruptcy in November, and after "several other major cryptocurrency trading venues and lending platforms earlier in 2022," including Three Arrows Capital, Voyager Digital Holdings and Celsius Network. The investigative subpoena was in relation to its cryptocurrency listings and custody services, which they said came in response to the crypto …