- Binance, Nexo, and Gemini are among the crypto firms facing increased scrutiny from regulators.
- Despite the potentially market-moving regulatory attention, the market continues to rally with BTC and ETH reaching multi-month highs.
The cryptocurrency market has continued to surge despite increasing regulatory scrutiny of crypto firms globally. In the past weeks, regulators have been revisiting investigations into crypto giants including Binance, and most recently Nexo, Gemini, and Genesis.
According to the Washington Post report, Binance is facing a possible indictment by U.S. Federal prosecutors. In recent months, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Western District of Washington in Seattle has sent subpoenas to Binance-related investment firms.
The subpoenas directed the firms to hand over records of their communications with Binance. This is to help it in its ongoing investigations into potential violations of money-laundering rules. A Binance spokesperson reveals that the exchange is cooperative with the US and other global regulators.
In the case of Nexo, the all-in-one crypto platform is facing regulatory pressure from its home country of Bulgaria. Standart News, a local news outlet, reports that Bulgarian authorities raided the offices of the exchange earlier this week.
The raid was conducted by prosecutors, specialists from the National Investigation, and DANS employees, together with foreign agents. The authorities allege that Nexo partook in a large-scale money laundering scheme and violated international sanctions against Russia.
Nexo took to Twitter to deny the allegations, noting that it has never compromised with its very strict anti-money laundering and KYC requirements. It also criticized the raid of its office by the regulators, describing it as bordering on racketeering.
Over the years, we have turned down a lot of business because Nexo never makes compromises with regard to our very stringent anti-money laundering and know-your-customer policies. But we have always known that this is how you build a sustainable business. 1/
— Nexo (@Nexo) January 12, 2023
Meanwhile, the market also recently received news of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) bringing charges against Gemini and Genesis. The securities watchdog alleged in its complaint that the parties engaged in the offer and sales of unregistered securities through the Gemini Earn product.
Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) continue uninterrupted price surges
The crypto market has shown remarkable resilience amid the regulatory troubles of the crypto giants. The two market-leading cryptocurrencies Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) are among the tokens showing printing remarkable price gains.
BTC is up 3.98 percent in the last 24 hours, trading at around $18,900. The benchmark crypto has also reached a local high of $19,000, a price level it last traded at in November 2022.
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Similarly, ETH is up 0.49 percent on the daily chart, trading at around $1410. The price marks a 17.8 percent gain recorded year to date (YTD). Meanwhile, the entire market is again approaching a total capitalization of $1 trillion.
Notably, the market’s performance is in part thanks to bullish on-chain and macroeconomic events. It received its latest bullish spark yesterday as U.S. CPI inflation data came in lower as largely expected by market participants.
