Bitcoin price struggles to defend $21K as Coinbase faces fresh SEC ire
Bitcoin (BTC) fell to $21,000 on July 26 after it emerged that major US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase was under investigation.
$21,000 now ‘super critical’ for BTC bulls
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed a quick pullback to lower levels for BTC/USD as reports surfaced of new legal issues for Coinbase over securities trading.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission, Bloomberg originally reported, was investigating whether the exchange had allowed users to trade unregistered securities.
Part of a wider battle between the US crypto industry and regulators over compliance, this appeared to spook the market, following parallel allegations of insider trading by a former executive.
Ironically, the most euphoric events in the Bull Market were Tesla buying #Bitcoin and Coinbase IPO’ing on the exchange
Now in the last week, Tesla has sold and Coinbase is under investigation by the SEC
— Matthew Hyland (@MatthewHyland_) 26 July 2022
With that, Bitcoin was back to defending $21,000 as support on the day, with commentator Mark Cullen stressing that the level must hold for bulls to retain control.
“The 21k level for BTC is super critical for the bulls to hold if they have any hope of this regaining a bullish stance,” he told Twitter followers.
“A 4 hour proximity below there and the bitcoin ball is well and truly in [bears’] the court.”
Trader Crypto Tony saw a slightly lower level as a short-term floor, warning that a “drop deeper” was nevertheless a likely future outcome.
$20,700 is my target on this decline, following my chart yesterday. Looking for at least a drop to that level, but I think we’re sinking deeper‼️ pic.twitter.com/WXYUCWZm6O
— Crypto Tony (@CryptoTony__) 26 July 2022
For its part, Coinbase had been anything but passive in the US regulatory debate, publishing a dedicated blog post last week on why the SEC should change course.
“If the commission begins an open process where we can all provide input, we look forward to sharing our thoughts on how to respond to the important questions our petition raises, and we would encourage others to do the same,” Chief of the policy Faryar Shirzad wrote.
“We may not agree every step of the way, but it is crucial that this is an open and transparent process, where the public has a chance to have their views. Policy at this level is far too important to be made in a black box.”
Coinbase shares were down 3.7% premarket, adding to a 5.3% loss the previous day.
Trader warns that Ethereum may “take out lows” next
A similar sentiment was visible in the altcoin markets, with another account TraderSZ predicting one go back to $1000 for Ether (ETH) even before the bulk of Bitcoin’s losses materialized.
Related: Will Fed Prevent BTC Price From Reaching $28K? — 5 things to know in Bitcoin this week
ETH/USD, previously the best performer in the July crypto market rally, was trading at just over $1,400 at the time of writing. Towards the peak on July 24, the pair was down 15%.
On July 25, TraderSZ warned that both Ethereum and Bitcoin could soon challenge the lows, the latter targeting $18,500.
I don’t like the way ethusd looks…I think even if it wants to go higher it makes more sense to cash out the lows…which means btc can push lower. going to cut my btc lang. if it’s low, I’ll come back higher after the low is in pic.twitter.com/6BbfmB6VRY
— TraderSZ (@trader1sz) 25 July 2022
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