Bitcoin (BTC)’s massive gains this year have done little to bring crypto day traders back into the market, according to data provided by Bitstamp.
Since the start of the year, retail training volume on the exchange’s US platform has grown to 35% from 33%, while global retail volume has only risen from 8% to 9%.
Where are the Day Traders?
In conversation with Bloomberg, numerous pro traders claim to have lost interest in crypto despite once making tremendous profits in the space – particularly after the collapse of FTX in November 2022.
Peter To, for instance – a 34-year-old professional stock trader in New York – said he made $1 million trading Bitcoin during its bull runs in 2013 and 2017. However, the asset’s 110% rise since January hasn’t been enough to bring him back

Bitcoin is a store of value currency and inflation hedge likable to “exponential gold,” wrote Jurrien Timmer, Head of Global Macro at Fidelity, in a post to X on Wednesday.
The analyst argued that both Bitcoin and gold boast distinct but attractive risk/reward ratios right now and that both may be players on the “same team” regarding their investment theses.
Gold Versus Bitcoin: A Historic Look
As outlined by Timmer, Bitcoin began is rallying again this year in line with “the pattern of previous boom and bust cycles.”
The asset reclaimed $35,000 per BTC on Wednesday, with market participants excited over a potential spot Bitcoin ETF approval within the next two months. It’s also arguably rallied as a “flight to quality” for savers as the market loses faith in long-dated

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is calling for a conclusion to its legal battle with Terraform Labs and its co-founder Do Kwon, calling on a Manhattan judge to deliver summary judgment in the case.
In the agency’s view, the evidence “is clear, undisputed and overwhelming,” that the crypto mogul violated securities laws in the distribution of the Terra blockchain’s native cryptocurrency, LUNA, and its now defunct stablecoin TerraUSD (UST).
Do Kwon’s Lies, According to the SEC
Per the SEC’s Friday court filing, Kwon and Terraform schemed to “defraud” the public about the safety of its protocol and tokens – as well as the degree to which they were actually used.
For example, the firm falsely claimed that Terra had partnered with Chai, a popular Korean online

Shares for Jack Dorsey’s fintech giant Block (SQ) surged by 12% to $49.19 on Friday after the company published bullish third-quarter earnings figures a day prior.
That includes increased Bitcoin revenue at the company’s payment subsidiary, Cash App, which reeled in 37% more income than during the same period last year.
Block is Back
Per the Thursday report, Block’s total net revenue rose by 24% year over year to $5.62 billion. When excluding “Bitcoin revenue”, this figure shrinks to $3.19 billion, up 16% since Q3 2022.
Bitcoin revenue is generated by Cash App’s sales of BTC to customers. Only 2% of that revenue – which totaled $2.42 billion – is actually kept by the company as gross profit, amounting to $45 million this quarter.
Across the company, Block’s earnings per

MicroStrategy’s Executive Chairman Michael Saylor spoke with CNBC on Thursday about the future of regulation and corporate adoption for Bitcoin (BTC), shortly after his company announced a $5.3 million BTC purchase last month.
While the billionaire maintained that “you can never have too much Bitcoin,” he also claimed that “big banks” will be necessary for the asset to reach full maturity.
Bitcoin Needs Big Banks?
During his interview, Saylor acknowledged some of the recent failings of crypto and the industry’s largest firms.
Sam Bankman-Fried, for instance, is nearing the end of his trial for allegedly stealing billions of dollars from customers when spearheading FTX, while Binance is being targeted by authorities for supporting crypto accounts connected to Hamas

Data from previous crypto market cycles suggests that Bitcoin (BTC)’s dominance over altcoins will likely keep rising over the next several months, according to Glassnode.
In a newly published report, the blockchain and market intelligence outlined how the leading crypto asset’s dominance is shaping up against the second largest crypto, Ethereum (ETH), compared to previous years.
Ethereum Beating Gold, But Losing to BTC
When weighed against gold, Bitcoin has appreciated by 93% this year, with the former’s price per ounce staying relatively contained under $2000. ETH, by contrast, has only appreciated by 39%.
According to Glassnode, while both assets have experienced “similar magnitude downswings” throughout the year, upswing periods have seen more substantial gains for

The founders behind the once multi-billion dollar cryptocurrency, SafeMoon (SFM), have been charged with multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy by U.S. government, with accompanying charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
On Wednesday, founders Braden John Karony (aka “CPT_HODL_T_MUN”) and Thomas Smith (aka “papa”) were arrested in Provo, Utah and Bethlehem, New Hampshire, respectively. The third defendant, Kyle Nagy (aka “SafemoonDev”) remains at large.
The SafeMoon Fraud
Attorneys allege that the founders of the project deliberately lied to investors, misappropriating their purportedly “locked” SFM liquidity for their personal benefit.
“As alleged, the defendants deliberately misled investors and diverted millions of dollars to fuel their greedy

The crypto community celebrated the 15th anniversary of Bitcoin’s whitepaper on Tuesday, which marked the world’s first functional pitch for “peer-to-peer electronic cash.”
Among its celebrators was Gary Gensler – the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) so notorious for his strict enforcement actions against the crypto industry.
In a tweet on Tuesday, Gensler made mention of Satoshi Nakamoto – the anonymous author behind Bitcoin’s whitepaper who remains a mystery until this day.

“If Satoshi Nakamoto went as Satoshi Nakamoto for Halloween, would we be able to tell?” he asked. “Happy 15th anniversary to Satoshi’s famous white paper that started crypto.”

Despite his kind words for Satoshi, Gensler remained firm with the modern crypto firms. “Any crypto

Markets are turning away from bonds and into assets like Bitcoin (BTC) as “safe haven” stores of value as global war conflicts heat up, an Allianz Economist told CNBC in an interview last week.
The analyst for the $2 trillion financial services firm explained why the Treasury market has been so volatile this month, and why he believes a recession awaits the United States in early 2024.
Explaining The Treasury Selloff
According to Allianz chief economic advisor Mohamed El-Erian, the treasury market has already lost its economic, policy, and technical “anchors” – benchmark price figures toward which the market may form biases.
Furthermore, the economist expects the market supply of treasuries to continue rising as the government issues more debt, and as the Federal Reserve

While Binance remains the largest venue in the world for Bitcoin futures trading, another more regulated market is now following closely behind.
CME Bitcoin Futures now stands as the second-largest Bitcoin futures exchange in the world by open interest, signaling rising intrigue from institutions seeking Bitcoin exposure.
The Return of the CME to Bitcoin
According to data from Coinglass, there are now over 103,000 BTC in futures open interest (OI) live on the CME, worth $3.54 billion. That’s over 20% of the total Bitcoin futures OI tracked by the site, valued at $15.59 billion.
Binance, the single larger competitor to the CME, bears a similar 112.63K BTC ($3.87 billion) in futures OI, while Bybit hosts the third largest market with 74.31K BTC ($2.55 billion) in futures

Crypto exchange Kraken has confirmed that it plans to close all trading, deposits, and withdrawals for Tether USD (USDT), Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), and other reserve-backed assets in Canada.
The suspension follows a similar stablecoin clampdown at other Canadian exchanges, amid regulatory guidance pertaining to the legal standing of such tokens.
No More Value-Pegged Tokens At Kraken
According to an email received by CryptoPotato from Kraken on Friday, the firm is now “required” to suspend deposits, withdrawals, and trading in Canada for Tether (USDT), Dai (DAI), Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), Wrapped Ether (WETH), and Wrapped Axelar (WAXL).
As of November 30 at 12:00 p.m. EST, deposits and trading for each coin will end. Withdrawals will end on December 4 at 11:00 a.m. EST, with

U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo confirmed in a speech on Friday that crypto plays a relevant, but still relatively minor role in global terrorist financing operations.
His comments bear a stark contrast to claims from a massive lineup of congresspeople earlier this month, asserting that crypto is responsible for over $130 million in Hamas terrorist funding.
The Reality of Terror Financing
During his remarks about terrorist groups, sanctions, and illicit finance, Adeyomo claimed that crypto is “not the vast majority of the ways that these groups are funded.”
“The thing that we know about terrorist groups and those who look to move money illicitly is that they’re going to use any new technology to try to do that,” he said.
“The thing that we’re going to do,

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried testified for the first time during his own fraud trial on Thursday, in what expert onlookers are calling a “hail mary” to rescue himself from conviction.
The examination pertained to scandalous private Signal messages he’d shared with his former colleagues, and whether or not he was ever authorized to delete such messages.
Skimming the Terms of Service
As reported by CNN, Bankman-Fried argued that using heavily encrypted messaging apps like Signal was necessary to shield the company against “constant attempts to hack FTX. Meanwhile, he claimed used an “auto-delete” function on the app since Signal was typically a place for chatter rather than discussing policies or business records.
When asked by prosecutors if he believed deleting seven

Are Hamas terrorists really raising tens of millions of dollars using crypto? Blockchain surveillance experts at Elliptic say the truth is a bit more nuanced.
The firm released a blog post on Wednesday dissecting prior claims from the Wall Street Journal about crypto being a major source of financing for the organization, which were later cited by U.S. Congress.
Crypto Terrorism: Myth VS Fact
In its report earlier this month, the WSJ cited Elliptic in claiming that $130 million had been collectively raised by both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) through blockchain-based rails.
However, Elliptic now says that there is “no evidence to support the assertion that Hamas has received significant volumes of crypto donations.”
“Over the past few years, Hamas has begun to

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes published another macro-economic breakdown on Tuesday, focusing on why Bitcoin’s price suddenly surged this week.
The analyst argued that now is the best time for crypto traders to step out of US Treasuries, and back into BTC.
The Speech That Pumped Bitcoin
According to Hayes, the crypto community has falsely attributed Bitcoin’s rally this week to excitement about a U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF potentially receiving approval. Such excitement, he said, already occurred last week in response to false rumors, and Bitcoin’s price sank back to $27,000 as the rumor was dispelled.
“Bitcoin — along with gold — is rallying against a backdrop of an aggressive selloff in long-end US Treasuries,” wrote Hayes. “This isn’t speculation as to an ETF being approved

Bitcoin (BTC)’s explosion to a new yearly high on Monday has placed the vast majority of investors’ holdings back into profit, according to a new report from Glassnode.
The blockchain and market intelligence platform said that 4.7 million BTC flipped green after the rally, representing 24% of Bitcoin’s circulating supply.
Chaos In The Derivatives Market
The asset’s rise was coupled with a slew of short liquidations clearing 35,000 BTC worth of open-interest from the perpetual futures market on October 23, after a similar 25,000 BTC liquidation on October 17.
Glassnode compared the event to a similar short-squeeze in January, which took Bitcoin past $20,000 for the first time in months. Broken down by geography, data from K33 research showed that perpetual OI shark by

The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) removed BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF, iBTC, from its ETF list shortly after its addition on Monday.
Bitcoin’s price dropped by 3% in response, falling from $34,527 to $33,432 within 30 minutes shortly after the removal was noticed.
The drop appears to have triggered $37 million in long liquidations across the crypto market within the past hour, according to CoinGlass.
Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart speculated that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) might have influenced the decision. “I’m guessing the SEC made a call to BlackRock,” he tweeted on Tuesday.
Being listed on DTCC is a standard procedure for ETFs, typically occurring just before a fund starts trading.
BlackRock’s brief mention of the ETF on its site

While Bitcoin has nearly doubled in value since the start of the year, one of its close neighbors in the investment universe has proven a more profitable buy: mining companies.
Nearly all publicly-traded Bitcoin mining firms have soared over 100% since January 1, benefitted by both BTC’s rising value and positive business developments.
Bitcoin Miners VS BTC
Shares for Marathon Digital (MARA), one of the largest public miners by hashrate, are currently up 158% year to date.
Meanwhile, rivals like the renewables-focused Iris Energy (IREN) and Riot Platforms (RIOT) have surged 168% and 186% respectively.
Mining companies earn money by running powerful and expensive computer equipment to mine Bitcoin’s next block, to which a fixed portion of new BTC is attached. As such, as

Bitcoin (BTC) registered a yearly high above $34,000 on Monday amid ongoing excitement that a spot Bitcoin ETF approval may be on the horizon for U.S. investors. 
As of writing, the asset’s gains have triggered $327 million in liquidations across the crypto market in the last 24 hours. 
According to TradingView, Bitcoin traded for $31,629 at 22:00 UTC on Monday, before skyrocketing to $34,140 over the next 40 minutes. 
Bitcoin now trades for $33,219, which is still higher than the asset’s yearly high from prior to this week at $31,400 on July 13. At the time, crypto markets briefly surged over the excitement of Ripple’s victory in its lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 
According to CoinGlass, over 81,000 crypto traders have been liquidated in

Investment banking giant Morgan Stanley published a report on Tuesday arguing that Bitcoin (BTC)’s upcoming halving event in six months may be the dawn of a new bull market.
With reference to Bitcoin’s “four seasons,” the bank claimed that “crypto winter” may already be over.
Crypto Winter Is Over
Morgan Stanley Wealth Management defines cryptocurrency “winter” as a period of the “four-year cryptocurrency cycle” that begins after Bitcoin taps an all-time high and investors begin to sell their assets and scare off new investments. It usually lasts about 13 months before the next price trough.
This period follows the crypto Spring when Bitcoin slowly recovers from its trough, but investor interest remains low.
“Based on current data, signs indicate that crypto winter may be

Binance.US has garnered support from a major crypto lobbyist group in warding off an ongoing lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
In a new amicus brief, the US Chamber of Digital Commerce argued that the agency’s claims against the exchange are misplaced, and that its actions are turning crypto businesses away from its borders.
Regulation By Enforcement
In the Thursday filing, the lobbyists echoed previous criticisms from industry leaders that the SEC is creating a hostile environment for crypto businesses through “regulation by enforcement.”
“The trillion-dollar blockchain economy—is conspicuously avoiding the United States, finding the regulatory environment too opaque and too hostile to conduct business here,” the advocacy group wrote.
The SEC

Investment management giant BlackRock filed an amended version of its spot Bitcoin ETF S-1 application form on Wednesday, following numerous updated filings from rival firms.
The updated filing includes five additional pages of text warning of additional risks the fund’s investors may face, including risks related to Bitcoin itself.
Bitcoin Lacks Transparency, Says BlackRock
In the filing dated October 18, BlackRock modified a risk disclosure related to how its share prices can be impacted by chaotic events in the crypto industry at large. While previously addressing how fraud and security failures around major Bitcoin exchanges could affect the fund, BlackRock expanded its warning to include Bitcoin itself, whose market is “unregulated” and “lacks transparency.”
“Due to

The Biden administration is being called upon by over 100 lawmakers in the United States to clarify its efforts at combatting global terrorist financing using cryptocurrencies.
The bipartisan letter follows reports that Hamas, the Islamist organization that launched attacks on Israeli civilians earlier this month, used crypto to raise millions of dollars over the past two years.
Terrorism and Crypto
Citing the Wall Street Journal, lawmakers alleged that between August 2021 and June 2023, both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) raised over $130 million in crypto, of which $12 million was sent to the Islamist militant group Hezbollah this year.
“Given the clear and present danger posed by the financing of these and other militant organizations, we ask the

After years of delaying and stonewalling a highly anticipated spot Bitcoin ETF, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is starting to have more productive conversations about the product with hopeful applicants.
One such hopeful is Cathie Wood, CEO of Ark Invest, who said on Monday that her company has noticed a positive “change in behavior” from the regulator.
Warming Up to a Bitcoin ETF
During an interview with CNBC on Monday, Wood noted that Ark disclosed its response last week to a previous line of questions from the SEC, which sought clarifications on what risks a spot ETF could pose to investors, and measures Ark would take to address some of them.
In collaboration with 21Shares, Ark is one of twelve investment managers racing to launch a Bitcoin ETF in the

The Fantom Foundation has been drained of hundreds of millions of dollars from its crypto wallets by a phishing scammer, according to blockchain security firm CertiK.
Fantom is a smart contract and Dapp platform focused on enhanced speed, making transactions more efficient than other layer-one blockchains like Ethereum. Tuesday’s hack affects only the Fantom Foundation – not the blockchain itself.
Fantom Loses $7 Million
The foundation, which oversees development for the Fantom blockchain, lost at least $470,000 on Fantom and another $187,000 on Ethereum. According to CertiK, stolen funds have now been consolidated into a wallet holding roughly 4,500 ETH, worth approximately $7 million.
“Estimated loss is ~$7m across multiple wallets,” said CertiK.
On-chain data shows that

Larry Fink – CEO of $10 trillion investment management giant BlackRock – says crypto is a “flight to safety” asset class, comparable it to the likes of gold and US Treasuries.
In an interview with Fox Business, Fink dismissed the idea that Bitcoin (BTC)’s rally on Monday was merely due to a false rumor about his fund’s spot ETF application being approved by regulators.
“This rally is way beyond the rumor,” he said. “I think the rally today is about a flight to quality with all the issues around the Israeli war now.”
Fink added that he believes more people are running toward quality assets in general, including treasuries, gold, or crypto. “I believe that crypto will play that type of role as a flight to quality,” he said.
In June, Fink said Bitcoin was comparable to

Nishad Singh – FTX’s former director of engineering – revealed more details about the crypto exchange’s profligate spending during his testimony at Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial on Monday.
Singh pled guilty to both money laundering and campaign finance violations, breaking down his involvement in the company’s over $100 million in donations to political candidates.
Excessive and Flashy Spending
As explained by Singh, the executive came to know Bankman-Fried through his younger brother, Dave, with whom he was close friends. He began working at Alameda Research in 2017, when Sam Bankman-Fried and his partner, Gary Wang, were still formally leading the trading desk.
Singh said his impression of Sam grew sour over time. “I’ve been intimidated,” he explained. “Sam is a

On-chain data shows that a wealthy crypto investor lost $49,000 on a bad trade following false reports about BlackRock receiving approval on its Bitcoin ETF application.
As noted by analysts from Lookonchain on Monday, an anonymous whale traded $613,201 in USDC for 20.5 Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) using 1Inch shortly after the initial report dropped.
At first, Bitcoin’s price had cracked above $29,000 in light of the news. However, after sources at Blackrock confirmed the news was fake, Bitcoin’s price quickly fell back to $28,000.
Ten minutes after his purchase, the whale immediately sold all of his BTC back into dollars, but only received $563,970 USDC in return. That amounts to a $49,000 loss in just ten minutes.
Data from Glassnode shows that price volatility around the

Zac Prince – former CEO of collapsed crypto lending firm BlockFi – took the stand during Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial in New York City on Friday.
The CEO discussed the size of his loans to the exchange’s sister trading desk, Alameda Research, and what exactly he knew about the state of their balance sheet as one of its major creditors.
How BlockFi Went Bust
Per testimony summarized by Inner City Press, Prince said BlockFi lent out “five to ten billion dollars” overall, of which $50 million initially went to Alameda. Between May 2021 and May 2022, he said that amount increased from $50 million to $1.1 billion.
After that, disaster struck: the LUNA ecosystem imploded, Three Arrows Capital defaulted to the company, and rival firms Celsius and Voyager froze their platforms. This

Leading liquid staking protocol Lido Finance revealed on Wednesday that 20 Ethereum validators related to one of its infrastructure partners had been slashed of their ETH holdings.
The company said its penalties already amount to 20.04 ETH, currently worth $30,900.
What is “Slashing?”
In an update over Twitter, Lido said that the problematic validators – connected to the “enterprise-grade” Ethereum node provider Launcnodes – have already been taken offline.
The following day, Lido claimed to have identified the ”root cause” of the slashing, for which a “post mortem” will be published in the coming days. “Small details” are still being investigated.
“The Lido DAO has a cover fund of ~6,200 stETH to help mitigate the slashing impact, but it does not trigger automatically,”