Bitcoin dived after approaching all-time highs, ETFs went crazy, Coinbase collapsed, and Nigeria got arrested
On February 28, Bitcoin once again rode a "roller coaster", approaching an all-time high and then diving, causing the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to stage a "0 yuan horror".
Bitcoin suddenly soared in intraday trading, breaking through the $64,000 mark, just one step away from an all-time high, but then suddenly dived, falling $5,000 within minutes, narrowing its gains from a maximum of 13% to less than 6% at one point.
The "wide opening and closing" of the market means that many investors have "lost all their money". According to Coinglass data, in the past 24 hours, a total of more than 180,000 people have been liquidated, with a total amount of $741 million.
At a time when the price of Bitcoin fluctuated violently, the Coinbase platform, the largest crypto asset exchange in the United States, suddenly went down, resulting in some users being unable to access, and some users' balances were displayed as 0.
Coinbase was quick to confirm that some users may see 0 balances on their Coinbase accounts, as well as encounter errors during transactions.
Coinbase also reassured users that they said:
Our team is investigating this issue and will provide an update soon.
Your assets are safe.
After the outage was reported, Coinbase shares retreated from a daily high of more than 6% to close up just 0.79%.
The ETF was bought up by investors, and the net worth of the owner of MicroStrategy soared by $700 million in 3 days
Since the Bitcoin spot ETF began to be listed and traded on January 11 this year, Bitcoin has experienced a brief decline, but since then it has been soaring, rising more than 40% in the past month, and nearly 20% in the previous three days alone.
During the U.S. stock trading session on Wednesday, Bitcoin suddenly surged intraday, briefly rising above the $64,000 mark, continuing to hit a new high since November 2021.
As Bitcoin approaches its all-time high, investors are flocking to ETFs.
As of the close of U.S. stocks on Wednesday, the total daily trading volume of U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs exceeded $7.5 billion, 2.5 times the previous all-time record of $3 billion, with BlackRock topping the list with $3.2 billion.
Bitcoin futures ETFs are also in full swing, with trading volumes on BITX, BITO and BITI all reaching new historical levels.
At the same time, the shares of MicroStrategy, the world's largest bitcoin holder, closed up more than 10% on Wednesday and have soared more than 40% in the past five trading days.
MicroStrategy's founder and chairman, Michael Saylor, has skyrocketed in worth nearly $700 million in three days. According to statistics, Microstrategy currently holds a total of about 193,000 bitcoins, worth nearly $11.8 billion.
Cointelegraph statistics show that Bitcoin has reached all-time highs against the Japanese yen, Malaysian ringgit, Indian rupee, New Taiwan dollar, South Korean won, Chilean peso, Australian dollar, South African rand, Norwegian krone, and Turkish lira in the past few days.
"It's crazy," said Ryan Kim, head of derivatives at FalconX, a digital asset prime brokerage.
Binance executives were arrested, and money laundering frustration resumed
Turning his attention to Africa, an arrest operation by the Nigerian national security department is also affecting the hearts of all people in the currency circle.
According to a report by the Financial Times on Thursday local time, two executives of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, were detained in Nigeria a few days ago.
Nigerian authorities are stepping up their efforts to crack down on cryptocurrency trading in order to maintain the stability of their fiat currency, the Naira. Over the past year, the naira has lost nearly 70% of its value, making it the worst-performing currency in the world.
The arrest of Binance executives comes just after Nigerian authorities announced last week that they would ban domestic telecom companies and other internet service providers from accessing cryptocurrency trading platforms. They were detained by Nigeria's National Security Adviser's Office and their passports were confiscated, the report said.
After the executives were arrested, Binance quickly halted Naira's trading with Bitcoin and Tether (USDT).
On Tuesday, Nigeria's central bank governor Olayemi Cardoso named Binance during a press conference to discuss the flow of money through cryptocurrency exchanges.
We are concerned about the persistence of certain practices that indicate the existence of illegal financial flows from these entities (cryptocurrency platforms) that are suspicious at best.
In the case of Binance, in the past year alone, $26 billion has been transferred through Binance in Nigeria through sources and users that we cannot adequately identify.
Nigeria's actions have dealt a blow to Binance, which wants to deal with money laundering.
In November last year, Binance paid a $4.3 billion fine to U.S. authorities after pleading guilty to criminal charges related to money laundering and violating international sanctions rules.