Binance founder’s jail sentence, BTC’s rollercoaster ride, spot Bitcoin ETFs hit record outflows

Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison; Bitcoin (BTC) witnessed a bumpy ride, falling below a two-month low of $56,000 before surging above $62,000; and we see Bitcoin ETFs reaching record highs.

Continuous regulatory efforts The past week has seen a number of regulatory efforts and enforcement actions, with reports circulating suggesting that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has considered Ethereum a security (ETH) for over a year. During the SEC’s investigations into certain Ethereum sales, reports confirmed that US prosecutors had opened an investigation into transactions that could violate compliance provisions on Block’s Square and Cash App divisions. Additionally, the FBI filed charges against New York-based Idin Dalpour, alleging that the individual ran a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of more than $43 million. Meanwhile, a court in Nigeria postponed the trial of two Binance executives whom authorities detained on money laundering and tax evasion charges earlier this year. The trial was expected to begin on May 2, but the court chose to postpone the hearing until May 17. Binance founder jailed, FTX exec loses mansion Reports surrounding Binance and FTX emerged this week. Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao was sentenced to 4 months in prison for his role in Binance’s AML law violations. The court rejected the Ministry of Justice’s request for a 36-month prison sentence. In the FTX case, Ryan Salame, a former FTX executive, agreed to authorities’ request to contribute $5.6 million to creditor compensation as part of a plea agreement. Salame would lose his $5.9 million mansion in the Bahamas to meet this demand. Spot Bitcoin ETFs hit record highs This week marked another down week for the market, with spot Bitcoin ETFs also falling. Cumulatively, 11 spot Bitcoin ETF products witnessed outflows of $51.53 million on April 29, with BlackRock seeing no inflows for the fourth consecutive day that day. Two days later, on May 1, ETF products saw outflows of $563 million, the highest figure since they began trading. Additionally, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) witnessed an outflow of $37 million, its first since launch. Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) has seen a net inflow of new capital from investors, according to Farside Investors (see below). This was the first daily increase since the Bitcoin ETF product launched in January. A net $63 million was added on Friday, May 3. Asset managers in Hong Kong aimed to surpass the $125 million trading volume recorded by US-based spot Bitcoin ETFs on their first day of trading. However, Hong Kong-based ETFs saw only $8.6 million in volume on April 30, which fell to $5.5 million on May 3. ETFs are scheduled to launch on April 30. Bitcoin’s roller coaster ride One of the key factors behind this underperformance was improper trading. It’s time for their launch. Notably, bearish pressure spilled over into this week, causing Bitcoin to fall below $57,000 on May 1 for the first time since late February. Following the collapse below $57,000, the bulls immediately launched a recovery move, resulting in BTC closing above $58,000 that day. Despite the subsequent recovery, the drop below $57,000 led to the same decline in the Fear and Greed Index, which entered Fear on May 2 for the first time since October 2023. As the bulls continue their recovery campaign, BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes called for a bottom, noting that a gradual price increase could be imminent to recoup previous losses. CryptoQuant CEO also confirmed that despite the downtrend and Bitcoin halving, there are no signs of miners capitulating. While Bitcoin ended April with a discouraging loss of 14.94%, its most bearish month since November 2022, Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy took advantage of the decline to buy the dip, with assets rising to 214,400 BTC, while 7 He added 122 Bitcoins worth $.8 million to his stash. Interestingly, the US labor market report that triggered a change in interest rate cut expectations from the Federal Reserve coincided with Bitcoin’s recovery effort on May 3. BTC used the report to support its campaign and rebounded from the market recovery by surging 6.46% on May 3. The psychological threshold of $62,000. Bitcoin’s rally was reflected in the entire crypto market, causing the value of the global crypto market to increase by 7.7% as of May 4. Amidst the uptrend, meme coins Dogwifhat (WIF), Floki (FLOKI) and Dogecoin (DOGE) saw an uptrend and witnessed two uptrends. -Digit gains within 24 hours. Hacks and scams appear to be on the decline Reports of crypto-related hacks and scams have also made headlines this week. In particular, one user lost $69.3 million to a scammer via an address poisoning scheme that saw the victim send 1,155 wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) tokens to a wrong address. However, despite scams and hacking schemes being common throughout April and this week, blockchain security firm Peck Shield confirmed that losses from crypto hacks and scams were only $60 million in April; This is a significant 67% decrease from March. . CertiK also revealed that funds lost due to cybersecurity threats in the cryptocurrency industry recently fell to their lowest levels since 2021.