Ovunc Kutlu
29 March 2023•Update: 29 March 2023
ISTANBUL
The price of Bitcoin jumped Wednesday by more than 5% despite a recent legal crackdown in the US on major cryptocurrency companies.
Bitcoin climbed to as high as $28,590 at 10.20 a.m. EDT for almost a 6% daily gain. The world's largest cryptocurrency by market value was trading at $28,465 at 11.46 a.m. EDT -- a 5.5% increase for the day.
Ethereum, the world's biggest altcoin by market value, also rose around 4% to as much as $1,816, before trading at $1,808 for a 3.9% gain.
Some altcoins saw prices soar around 15% in the past 24 hours, according to data from the digital asset price-tracking website, CoinMarketCap.
The value of the crypto market was up 4.1% to almost $1.2 trillion since Tuesday, data showed.
The price surge comes despite the US recently intensifying legal pressure on crypto exchange platforms.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced Monday it charged Binance, the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange platform, with "willful evasion of federal law" and "operating an illegal digital asset derivatives exchange."
"The defendants allegedly chose to knowingly disregard applicable provisions of the CEA (Commodity Exchange Act) while engaging in a calculated strategy of regulatory arbitrage to their commercial benefit," CFTC said in a statement.
The agency said it seeks disgorgement, civil monetary penalties, permanent trading, registration bans, and a permanent injunction against further violations of the CEA and CFTC regulations.
FTX's founder and former CEO Samuel Bankman-Fried was also charged by the US Justice Department with bribing Chinese officials, according to court documents released Tuesday.
The disgraced former head of the cryptocurrency trade platform "conspired to bribe one or more Chinese government officials" to regain access to his hedge fund, Alameda Research's, trading accounts that were frozen by Chinese authorities in or around November 2021, said the filing in the US District Court Southern District of New York.
Bankman-Fried, who turned 31 earlier this month, faces 13 charges involving the implosion of FTX.
