Cryptos Drop Amidst Binance's Guilty Plea, FOMC Minutes

Cryptocurrency market capitalization dropped 1.7 percent in the past 24 hours to $1.39 trillion, as markets digested the latest developments in the U.S. government’s regulatory action against the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance.com. FOMC minutes released on Tuesday, which showed the Fed was in no hurry to cut interest rates also soured sentiment.

A press release by the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday showed that Binance Holdings Limited, the entity that operates Binance.com, on Tuesday pleaded guilty and has agreed to pay over $4 billion to resolve the Justice Department’s investigation into violations related to the Bank Secrecy Act, failure to register as a money transmitting business, and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Binance admitted it engaged in anti-money laundering, unlicensed money transmitting, and sanctions violations.

BNB (BNB) the native token of Binance.com ranked the 4th most valuable cryptocurrency tumbled 9.9 percent in the past 24 hours. Weekly loss exceeds 6 percent whereas year-to-date loss is a little above 5 percent. BNB dropped to a low of $224.98 in the past 24 hours, before recovering to its current level of $233.94, which is almost 66 percent below the all-time high of $690.93 recorded on May 10, 2021.

The largest corporate resolution also includes criminal charges for Binance’s founder and chief executive officer, Changpeng Zhao, a Canadian national, who has pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program. Zhao has resigned as the CEO of Binance and is being replaced by Richard Teng, a civil servant-turned-crypto executive who heads the non-US regional markets business at Binance.
Binance’s guilty plea is part of coordinated resolutions with the Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and Office of Foreign Assets Control and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Meanwhile, the minutes of the FOMC released on Tuesday also sobered the sentiment for cryptocurrencies. The minutes showed that participants felt the stance of monetary policy had to be kept sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to the Committee’s 2 percent objective over time. Nevertheless, they converged on the view that further tightening of monetary policy would be appropriate only if incoming information indicated that progress toward the Committee’s inflation objective was insufficient. The Committee agreed to proceed carefully and to base policy decisions on the totality of incoming information, considering the implications for the economic outlook as well as the balance of risks.

Overall crypto market capitalization is currently at $1.39 trillion, versus $1.41 trillion a day earlier.

Bitcoin has shed 1.6 percent overnight to trade at $36,562.81. The leading cryptocurrency is however holding on to weekly gains of 0.8 percent and year-to-date gains of 121 percent.

Ethereum however gained half a percent in the past 24 hours to trade at $2,019.99. Ether’s weekly gains are 0.2 percent whereas gains in 2023 are close to 69 percent.
5th ranked XRP (XRP), 7th ranked Solana (SOL) and 8th ranked Cardano (ADA) slipped more than 2 percent in the past 24 hours. 9th ranked Dogecoin (DOGE) erased 3.5 percent whereas 10th ranked TRON (TRX) lost 1.2 percent.

44th ranked FTX Token (FTT) is the highest gainer among the top 100 cryptocurrencies on an overnight basis with a surge of more than 36 percent whereas long-time rival Binance’s native coin BNB is the greatest laggard on an overnight basis with a decline of 9.9 percent.

88th ranked Blur (BLUR) is the other big gainer with gains of more than 25 percent.
37th ranked NEAR Protocol (NEAR), 76th ranked PancakeSwap (CAKE), 74th ranked Gala (GALA) and 87th ranked Gas (GAS) have all slipped more than 7 percent in the past 24 hours.

14th ranked Polygon (MATIC) recorded the steepest fall in the past week, slipping more than 18 percent. MATIC has declined 3.8 percent in the past 24 hours.

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