Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice opened an investigation into major crypto exchange Binance, according to a Bloomberg report Thursday. The DOJ and Internal Revenue Service are reportedly conducting a federal probe into Binance Holdings, which owns the world's largest crypto exchange by volume. Officials specializing in tax and money-laundering are on the case. Based in the Cayman Islands, Binance operates a sprawling portfolio of crypto trading, including derivatives.
A Binance spokesperson said: "We take our legal obligations very seriously and engage with regulators and law enforcement in a collaborative fashion. We have worked hard to build a robust compliance program that incorporates anti-money laundering principles and tools used by financial institutions to detect and address suspicious activity." Binance has attempted to give itself extra legitimacy through recent regulatory hires, including former Senator Max Baucus and former banking regulator Brian Brooks, who became CEO of Binance's U.S. affiliate last month.
Here is the rest of the week in review:
Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) announced it will make its listing policy more inclusive, potentially bringing in an increase of new revenue as a result. As part of the change, the premier U.S. exchange said it will list meme-based Dogecoin (DOGE) in the next 6 to 8 weeks, amid a recent explosion in popularity. Speaking on the earnings call, CEO Brian Armstrong said Coinbase is also accelerating its process for listing coins to include digital assets that have been newly created. In the future, it will aim to be the first exchange to list so-called "debut" coins that have just been minted and seeking their first day of trading volume. Armstrong said: "We're going to have to do this in the future - be the first to list a number of these coins." He added that Coinbase currently has a backlog of assets to evaluate based on their security and whether they comply with securities laws, and the firm is working on accelerating its entire coin listing process.
Renaissance Technologies sharply increased its exposure to the cryptocurrency sector in the first quarter, revealing Thursday that it amassed its largest-ever positions in crypto mining stocks worth over $140 million in total at the end of March. The legendary quant fund with $115 billion under management ended the quarter owning 1.16 million Riot Blockchain (NASDAQ: RIOT) shares, 1.56 million Marathon Digital (NASDAQ: MARA) shares, and 203,672 Canaan Creative (NASDAQ: CAN) shares, according to disclosures. On the other hand, RenTech seemingly exited its over $40 million stake in crypto bellwether MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR). The fund has chased crypto mining's upside since 2017 with occasional bets on mining stocks. But it's positions surpassed $1 million for the first time last quarter, after ending 2020 with no exposure at all. Crypto mining stocks have soared to new heights during the 2021 bull run, giving institutional investors an indirect way to speculate on crypto without actually owning private keys.
Crypto prices slumped again this week to $2.18 trillion as the correction continued. For the majors, most fell double-digits, though Cardano (ADA) and Polkadot (DOT) bucked the trend. In the top 100, the biggest losers were Ontology (ONT), down 26%, Fantom (FTM), down 26%, and Filecoin (FILE), down 25%. The biggest gainers were Revain (REV), up 98%, Polygon (MATIC), up 63%, and Harmony (ONE), up 33%. Next week traders will see if Bitcoin (BTC) stays below $50,000 and Ether (ETH) below $4,000.
The author owns a small amount of BTC.