This week in Coins: Bitcoin and Ethereum modestly recover while Polygon, Filecoin, OKB post racy gains

This week in coins. Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt.

Last week was the first real red week 2023 Most of the top cryptocurrencies managed to regain their value this week thanks to an SEC crackdown on Kraken and staking that shook confidence in crypto.

Bitcoin (BTC) is up 13.7% over the past seven days to hit $24,608 as of Saturday morning, according to CoinGecko data, after briefly reclaiming $25,000 on Thursday. The world’s leading cryptocurrency is currently getting a boost the success of the ordinal numbersa popular NFT project on the blockchain.

Due to its limited smart contract functionality (compared to its closest competitor Ethereum), Bitcoin is not typically known for NFTs, but the number of ordinals minted on it has increased 130,000 since the start of the project last month.

Ethereum (ETH), the second largest cryptocurrency in the world by market cap, is up 12% in the past seven days and is currently trading for around $1,700.

Both market leaders briefly traded sideways on Valentine’s Day as investors chewed the conclusions of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report. Inflation hit 6.4% in January, beating Bureau expectations by 0.2%, but has generally been declining since June last year.

Cardano (ADA) saw a strong 12% rally after the network dropped its Valentine upgrade. Valentine improves cross-chain functionality and security for dapps on Cardano. The price of the blockchain’s native token is currently around $0.40.

Strong rallies were seen by holders of Avalanche (AVAX), up 10.4% to $19.66; Tron (TRX), up 12% to $0.07; Litecoin (LTC) is up 10% to $101, Solana (SOL) is up 14% to $23, Lido DAO (LIDO) is up 13% to $3, and Polkadot (DOT) is up 17%. to $7.31.

But three other names from the top 30 blew the rest out of the water: Filecoin (FIL) is up 55% to trade at $7.43; OKB is up 30% in seven days at $52.98; and Polygon (MATIC) was up 25% to $1.54.

None of the top 30 cryptocurrencies by market cap have seen notable losses, and virtually all of them have appreciated in value this week.

Cryptopolitics in Europe and America

Last week’s coin rally came despite the fact that regulators’ data didn’t improve.

Crypto markets shrugging off major regulatory headwinds (as well as monetary headwinds) in the near term strikes me as a little strange

— Ash Bennington (@AshBennington) February 14, 2023

On Tuesday, Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority issued a press release to say it is so crack at unregistered crypto ATMs after several of them went live in the city of Leeds, England. The FCA’s Executive Director for Enforcement and Markets Supervision, Mark Steward, said: “Crypto firms operating in the UK are required to register with the FCA for anti-money laundering purposes.”

On the same day across the Atlantic, legislators and experts met in Washington DC Discussing crypto regulation but couldn’t agree on how to go about it, with some advocating a more hardline approach than others. Notably, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler was not in attendance, despite being one of the industry’s most vocal and visible would-be regulators. The lawmaker noted that he should attend the committee’s next hearing.

On Wednesday, the European Central Bank (ECB) published guidance He told European banks that they should apply caps to all holdings even before the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) global standards come into effect in 2025 due to the inherent risk of crypto. The step occurs one week after the block is published a new bill Legally oblige banks to assign the highest possible risk rating to crypto.

And the SEC continued its crackdown this week, bringing enforcement actions big and small: a high-profile case against Terraform Labs and Do Kwon, and a small $1.4 million fine against former NBA star Paul Pierce for using EthereumMax, the same character, Kim Kardashian, was fined $1.26 million for advertising.

SEC Commissioner Hester Pierce on Thursday went to twitter to criticize their agency’s crypto custody proposal. In it, she specifically mentioned the agency’s timetable, feasibility and jurisdiction as potentially problematic and said the public needed more time to analyze and discuss it. You can hear her in-depth interview on the SEC’s approach to crypto in Decrypt’s gm podcast of December.

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