BTC Price Dumps Below $60K, SEC Names New Crypto Target, Durov’s Arrest: This Week’s Recap

A lot can change in the cryptocurrency markets within the span of the week. This is what happened to bitcoin and most altcoins since last Friday when BTC soared from around $60,000 to over $64,000 on Saturday after the bullish developments on US soil. Namely, Fed Chair Jerome Powell hinted at incoming interest rate cuts, and RFK endorsed pro-crypto presidential candidate Donald Trump and withdrew his campaign.

The weekend for bitcoin was quiet despite the turbulence elsewhere in the crypto market following the arrest of Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of Telegram. TON slumped by more than 20% in hours after the news broke, but more on that later.

BTC continued its run on Monday morning, soaring past $65,000 for the first time in over three weeks. However, that was short-lived, as the asset’s troubles were just getting started. By Wednesday afternoon, it had lost more than seven grand of value and found itself slipping beneath $58,000 for the first time in weeks.

The bulls tried to recover some ground on Thursday, which resulted in a surge to $61,200, but that was their best shot. BTC has retraced once again and now struggles below $60,000 despite some bullish signs.

Its market capitalization has declined to $1.180 trillion, but its dominance over the alts stands tall at just shy of 54%. Speaking of the alternative coins, most of them are in the red on a weekly scale.

ETH is down by more than 5%, BNB has shed 7.5% of value, and XRP is 6% in the red. Toncoin, as mentioned above, is the biggest weekly loser, having dumped by 17% since last Friday.

Market Data

Market Cap: $2.193T | 24H Vol: $85B | BTC Dominance: 53.8%

BTC: $59,615 (-2.75%) | ETH: $2,520 (-5.5%) | BNB: $535 (-7.5%)

Cryptocurrency Market Overview. Source: QuantifyCrypto — Cryptocurrency Market Overview Weekly. Source: QuantifyCrypto

This Week’s Crypto News You Can’t Miss

BlackRock’s Spot Bitcoin ETF Sees First Day of Outflows in Nearly 4 Months. After seeing only positive or no flows for almost four months, BlackRock’s IBIT’s streak was broken on Thursday. The financial vehicle saw withdrawals of just over $13 million alongside most other Bitcoin ETFs.

Elon Musk Wins Dismissal of $258 Billion Dogecoin Manipulation Lawsuit. Elon Musk and Tesla notched an important win in court against a few investors who had alleged that the exec and the EV company he runs knowingly manipulated the price of DOGE for personal gain. However, US District Judge Alvin Hellenstein ruled in favor of Musk and Tesla.

TON Events: Network Faces Repeated Outages Amid DOGS Hype, Update on Durov’s Arrest. Pavel Durov’s arrest was just a portion of the troubles that hit the Telegram-backed crypto project. TON’s network went down twice in less than 36 hours due to the high demand for the recently launched meme coin DOGS.

Bitcoin Long-Term Holders Realized Capitalization Surpasses $10 Billion for the First Time. The realized capitalization of Bitcoin long-term holders (LTH) marked a significant milestone earlier this week, as it charted an all-time high by surpassing $10 billion. This metric is particularly important as it demonstrates the behavior of investors who hold the asset for more than 155 days.

SEC’s Next Crypto Target: Regulator Goes After NFT Platform OpenSea. The US Securities and Exchange Commission continued its crusade against crypto-related firms this week. It sent an official Wells Notice against OpenSea, alleging that the NFTs on the platform could be unregistered securities. The company’s CEO said his team was “shocked” by the regulator’s actions.

Why Was Pavel Durov Arrested? Details Emerge. According to local French media, Durov was arrested on Saturday at the Le Bourget Airport after getting out of his private jet. The details were scarce at first, but the updates that were released later indicated that there was an open judicial investigation against “a person unnamed” on charges like organized fraud, money laundering, and sale of narcotics through Telegram.