Cryptocurrency prices were mixed on Tuesday, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the start of the Federal Reserve policy meeting.
‘side trade’
Bitcoin rose slightly to $39,149 at last check, according to CoinGeckowhile ethereum was up nearly 1% at $2,563 and meme coin dogecoin was down 1.6% at $0.112309.
“Cryptocurrency markets have been trading sideways for the past week,” said Keegan Francis, Bitcoin and crypto expert, Discoverer. “Bitcoin remains in a band between $38k and $44.5k. Both the bears and the bulls have failed to move the price beyond either direction, indicating that traders are waiting for macroeconomic events to unfold before making more bets”.
Francis added that “no clear outliers stand out in the markets with the exception of LUNA, which approached all-time highs last week.“
Terra’s LUNA down almost 2% to $91.42 on Tuesday.
The start of the Fed’s monetary policy meeting, which will almost certainly end tomorrow with a 25 basis point rate hike, has investors looking for clues as to how the central bank will manage the myriad risks related to growth and uncertainty. inflation for the second half of the year.
Meanwhile, the of the European Parliament The economic and monetary affairs committee approved the proposed framework of Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA), the EU legislation to regulate digital assets.
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The committee rejected a last-minute addition to the bill that sought to limit the use of cryptocurrencies that use the proof-of-work mining process, which has been criticized by environmentalists for its power consumption.
‘A major catalyst’
Winston Ma, managing partner of CloudTree Companiesauthor of the digital war – How China’s Tech Might Shapes the Future of Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and Cyberspace,” he said, concern over sanctions related to the Ukraine-Russia war “was likely a major catalyst for President Biden’s Executive Order for Crypto Regulation last week, even though the order called for a comprehensive crypto regulatory framework broader than money laundering.”
“The crypto industry had been waiting for this executive order for a long time, but it came unexpectedly on March 9,” Ma said. “Likely fueled by concerns about sanctions evaders, the executive order showed that the government has started to go further pressure exchanges to implement existing anti-money laundering guidelines, a policy tightening that the war has clearly accelerated.
David Lesperance, Immigration Managing Partner and Tax Advisor at Lesperance & Associateshe said that Biden’s “order is an attempt to coordinate various US government agencies that have been trying to claim their right to regulate various parts of the crypto world.”
“Clearly there has been a turf war between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission,” he said. “SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has asserted that most digital assets are securities subject to SEC rules.”
Crypto firms are concerned about the SEC, Lesperance said, “because of their preference for the app.”
“Instead, they support efforts to expand the powers of the CFTC, which primarily has authority to regulate derivatives but not the underlying markets,” he said. “Whoever wins this tug-of-war will have huge ramifications for crypto regulation not only in the US but other markets that will follow the US lead.”
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