This Week in Coins: First Fortnight of Straight Losses in 2023, Bitcoin and Ethereum Dip

It was the second consecutive week of straight losses for leading cryptocurrencies. 

The start of the third month of the year comes off the back of the first two weeks of losses in 2023. Considering that the end of 2022 was a virtual freefall for the whole market, it’s too early to say whether crypto has stumbled back into the woods or not. 

The pullback this week appeared to be a reaction to news that crypto bank Silvergate delayed filing its annual 10-K report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), causing its stock price to drop 31% in after-hours trading on Wednesday. Coinbase, Tether, and a plethora of other crypto companies were quick to cut their ties to the beleaguered crypto bank. 

Bitcoin (BTC) dropped 6.3% over the last seven days and currently trades for $22,336, while Ethereum (ETH) weathered the news a bit better, only sinking 4.7% to hit $1,564, according to data by CoinGecko. 

Several leading currencies dropped in value by double-digit percentile figures, including Cardano (ADA), which fell 11.1% to $0.339492, Polygon (MATIC) dropped 14.4% to $5.94, Avalanche (AVAX) sank 15.9% to $16.51, Cosmos Hub (ATOM) depreciated 12.5% to $11.91 and Chainlink (LINK) dropped 12.7% to $6.89. 

Solana didn’t fall as far, dropping by about 10.8% to hit $20.96 at the time of writing—despite a mysterious outage this week that took the network offline for 20 hours. The Solana Foundation is currently investigating the incident. 

After posting some blistering gains last week, storage protocol token Filecoin (FILE) dropped a staggering 21% to $6.05. 

There were no significant gains among any of the leading cryptocurrencies this week. 

Regulators tighten screws

There was lots of talk in political circles across the globe that made crypto fans uneasy this week. First, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, told a Bloomberg reporter on Monday that “if the regulation is slow to come and crypto assets become a higher risk for consumers and potentially for financial stability,” the option of banning cryptocurrencies “should not be taken off the table.”

France’s National Assembly voted on Tuesday to adopt a bundle of European Union laws, including an amendment that clamps tighter requirements on new players looking to operate in the French crypto market. The bill now only requires President Macron’s signature to be approved into law. 

Stateside on Monday, Coinbase announced it was delisting BUSD, a dollar-pegged stablecoin created by rival exchange Binance. The news came two weeks after stablecoin issuer Paxos said it would “end its relationship with Binance” after getting hit with a lawsuit from the SEC over issuing the stablecoin; the SEC accuses Paxos of violating investor protection laws.

Meanwhile, the SEC’s “regulation-by-enforcement” (read: crypto clampdown) strategy continued apace this week when Robinhood announced on Tuesday that it was subpoenaed by the Federal regulator over the trading app’s “supported cryptocurrencies, custody of cryptocurrencies, and platform operations.”