Bitcoin (BTC) and BNB trim losses suffered on Tuesday as Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao’s guilty plea and exchange’s criminal settlement are seen increasing odds of eventual exchange-traded fund approval spot-based bitcoin ETF in the US
At the time of writing, BTC was trading near $36,400, having plunged more than 4.5% to $35,700 on Tuesday. BNB changed hands at $234, rebounding from the overnight low of $223, CoinDesk data shows. However, both coins still fell 3.3% and 11.5% in 24 hours, fueling the hangover from Tuesday’s events, in which Binance agreed to a $4.3 billion settlement for violating sanctions and streaming laws. of money. Binance founder CZ has pleaded guilty and resigned as CEO in what is considered one of the largest corporate sanctions in history, CoinDesk previously reported.
Binance unlawfully relied on U.S. customers as a major source of revenue and business activity, newly disclosed documents show, and the criminal complaint reveals years of compliance failures and deliberate obfuscation to protect these crucial but banned users. CZ’s lawyers said his sentence will be delayed by six months and he agreed to waive his right to appeal if the sentence does not exceed 18 months.
Some traders believe that CZ’s decline may be a blessing in disguise, increasing the likelihood that the US SEC will approve one or more bitcoin spot ETFs in the coming months.
“With this plea deal, expectations for a Bitcoin spot ETF could have increased to 100% as the industry will be forced to follow the rules that TradFi companies must follow. More importantly, the whitewashing of this industry will strengthen the case for Bitcoin adoption for institutional players and will likely become a safe haven asset in investors’ portfolios,” crypto services provider Matrixport said in a Telegram message.
Still, the price volatility caused by the action against Binance and CZ appears to have proven costly for leverage traders. Data from Coinglass shows that in the 12 hours since the deal was announced, $110 million in long bitcoin positions were liquidated compared to $37.2 million in short positions. In the last hour, that figure has reversed with the liquidation of $4.26 million in short positions compared to $111,000 in long positions.
BNB, which does not trade as actively as bitcoin because most users stake it, saw $3.73 million in long positions liquidated compared to $1.61 million in short positions, according to Coinglass. The data shows that options volume for BNB has increased 68% to $2.41 million, while options open interest has increased 29% to $3.47 million.
Elsewhere in the market, dYdX, the decentralized exchange’s native token, is up 7%, according to data from CoinDesk Indicies and Uniswap’s UNI token is up 1.6% on the day.
