Bitcoin Market Is Cooling Downward Despite the Recent Warming of Temperatures

Unlike the recent gradual warming of temperatures, the cryptocurrency market has been on a downward trend since Bitcoin fell below $90,000 on February 25.

The cryptocurrency market has been on a downward trend since Bitcoin fell below $90,000 on February 25, in contrast to the recent gradual warming of temperatures. Around 10:50 today, Bitcoin dropped below the $80,000 mark, reaching a new low in nearly three and a half months. According to Coinglass data, the total liquidation amount across the network in the past 24 hours reached $728 million, with long positions liquidated at approximately $621 million and short positions at about $107 million. Additionally, data from Alternative.me shows that although the cryptocurrency fear and greed index has rebounded slightly compared to yesterday, it still remains in a state of "extreme fear."

However, amidst the anxious market conditions, a series of recent actions by U.S. financial regulators suggest that the previously hardline stance on cryptocurrencies is softening, and the regulatory "ice" filled with hostility from the last administration is slowly melting.

If the previous U.S. SEC led by Gary Gensler was filled with hostility towards the cryptocurrency industry, the new U.S. SEC's attitude can be described as actively embracing it. Since Gary Gensler officially stepped down on January 21, the new U.S. SEC, under the leadership of acting chair Mark Uyeda, has been working to change its image in the eyes of the public.

In the past week, the U.S. SEC has concluded investigations and enforcement actions against OpenSea, Robinhood Crypto, Uniswap Labs, and Gemini, and has officially withdrawn its lawsuit against Coinbase, planning to dismiss lawsuits against ConsenSys and MetaMask. Furthermore, Binance and the U.S. SEC submitted a joint motion in mid-month, requesting a 60-day pause in the lawsuit on the grounds that "the newly established cryptocurrency working group may impact the case," marking the first request for a pause in cryptocurrency-related litigation since Mark Uyeda took over as acting chair. As a result, the Tron Foundation and Justin Sun also jointly submitted a motion to pause the lawsuit with the U.S. SEC.

Additionally, regarding the controversial Memecoin, the U.S. SEC has changed its previously ambiguous stance and issued clear guidance stating that it "does not fall under securities but is similar to collectibles." The U.S. SEC believes that trading related to Memecoin does not involve the issuance and sale of securities as defined by federal securities law. Therefore, individuals participating in the issuance and sale of Memecoin do not need to register their transactions with the commission under the 1933 Securities Act, nor do they need to comply with the registration exemption provisions in the Securities Act. Of course, the department also pointed out that buyers or holders of Memecoin are not protected by federal securities law.

Perhaps due to the recent cooling of the market and the proactive and frequent signals from the U.S. SEC, people have begun to observe the significant changes it has made. In fact, since the establishment of the new U.S. SEC, various actions have been continuous.

On the day after Gary Gensler officially resigned, Mark Uyeda announced the establishment of a special cryptocurrency working group led by Hester Peirce, "dedicated to developing a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework for cryptocurrency assets." Subsequently, on January 24, the U.S. SEC officially withdrew the accounting standard for crypto assets SAB-121, marking the "first shot" in a comprehensive reform. After that, the U.S. SEC began to reduce the size of its cryptocurrency enforcement division, reallocating some lawyers and staff to other departments, and forming new task forces to publish ten major tasks, such as examining the status of different types of crypto assets under securities law and providing clear statements on methods for approving or disapproving cryptocurrency ETFs. Following this, we saw various news regarding the U.S. SEC's review of ETFs, such as publicly soliciting comments on the Grayscale Litecoin ETF, accepting Grayscale's 19b-4 application for the Solana ETF, accepting Grayscale's application for the XRP Trust conversion ETF, and accepting Cboe BZX's 19b-4 application to add staking functionality for the 21Shares Ethereum ETF.

All of this indicates that the new SEC will present a completely different image.

In addition to the U.S. SEC's active reforms in cryptocurrency regulation, other regulatory developments are also noteworthy.

The U.S. House Committee on Financial Services recently passed a resolution to repeal the IRS "DeFi broker rule" with a vote of 26 to 16, which is a significant positive for DeFi. It is important to note that this resolution still needs to be approved by a majority in both the House and Senate and signed by the President to take effect.

Moreover, at the recent hearing chaired by Cynthia Lummis of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on Digital Assets, legislative progress regarding stable