BTC Price Drops Below $60K, SEC Names New Crypto Target, Durov Arrested: This Week's Roundup

A lot can change in the cryptocurrency market over the course of a week. Here’s what’s happened to bitcoin and most altcoins since last Friday, when btc soared from around $60,000 to over $64,000 on Saturday following bullish developments on U.S. soil. Namely, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hinted that interest rate cuts are coming, and RFK endorsed pro-crypto presidential candidate Donald Trump and withdrew his campaign.

It was a quiet weekend for bitcoin despite turbulence elsewhere in the cryptocurrency market following the arrest of Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of Telegram. TON plummeted by over 20% in the hours following the news, but more on that later.

btc continued its uptrend on Monday morning, breaking above $65,000 for the first time in over three weeks. That was short-lived, however, as the asset’s troubles were only just beginning. By Wednesday afternoon, it had lost over $7,000 in value and was trading below $58,000 for the first time in weeks.

The bulls attempted to regain some ground on Thursday, resulting in a surge to $61,200, but that was their best chance. btc has pulled back once again and is now struggling to get below $60,000 despite some bullish signals.

Its market cap has declined to $1.18 trillion, but its dominance over alts remains at just under 54%. Speaking of altcoins, most of them are in the red on a weekly scale.

eth is down over 5%, BNB has lost 7.5% of its value, and XRP is in the red by 6%. Toncoin, as mentioned above, is the biggest weekly loser, having dropped 17% since last Friday.

Market data

Market Cap: $2.193 Trillion | 24 Hour Volume: $85 Billion | btc Dominance: 53.8%

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

This week's cryptocurrency news you can't miss

BlackRock's bitcoin Spot ETF Sees First Day of Outflows in Nearly Four MonthsAfter seeing only positive or zero flows for nearly four months, BlackRock’s IBIT streak was snapped on Thursday. The financial vehicle saw withdrawals of just over $13 million along with most other bitcoin ETFs.

Elon Musk wins $258 billion Dogecoin manipulation lawsuit dismissedElon Musk and Tesla have scored a significant victory in court against a handful of investors who had alleged that the executive and the electric vehicle company he runs knowingly manipulated the price of DOGE for personal gain. However, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellenstein ruled in favor of Musk and Tesla.

TON Events: Network faces repeated outages amid DOGS propaganda, update on Durov's arrestPavel Durov’s arrest was just one part of the troubles affecting the Telegram-backed crypto project. The TON network went down twice in less than 36 hours due to high demand for the recently launched DOGS meme coin.

Long-term bitcoin holders discovered that the market cap exceeds $10 billion for the first timebitcoin’s long-term holders’ (LTH) realized capitalization marked a significant milestone earlier this week as it hit 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 OpenSeaThe US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) continued its crusade against crypto-related companies this week. It sent an official Wells Notice against OpenSea, alleging that 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 revealedAccording to local French media, Durov was arrested on Saturday at Le Bourget airport after disembarking from his private jet. Details were initially scant, but later updates indicated that a judicial investigation was underway against “an unidentified person” on charges including organized fraud, money laundering and selling narcotics via Telegram.

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This week, we have a chart analysis of ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, Binance Coin and Solana – click here for the full price analysis.

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