In the early morning of December 4th, Bitcoin experienced growth fluctuations, resulting in new record highs for this cryptocurrency in 2023.
The cryptocurrency community was taken aback by the news that former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) has resigned and confessed to money laundering in a Seattle court, which has resulted in him being embroiled in legal troubles. Reports suggest that he might face a prison sentence of 18 months.
As part of the plea deal, Binance will pay a fine of up to $4.3 billion to settle the lawsuit with the US Department of Justice – becoming one of the largest corporate settlement deals in US history.
Bitcoin (BTC) only temporarily dipped to $35,600 before returning to over $38,000, despite news that most investors believed would cause a market decline.
Today, BTC officially reached the threshold of $40,250 on Binance, marking its return to this milestone after 18 months since the beginning of April 2022, before the LUNA-UST crash.
According to Markus Thielen, head of research at Matrixport and founder of DeFi Research, the return of Bitcoin this time is seen as a good “precedent” for exchanges to comply with the law, as CZ resigned with a fine of less than $10 billion and Binance was not accused of embezzling user funds or manipulating the market. This creates favorable conditions for the approval of Bitcoin Spot ETFs in the US.
Markus Thielen has predicted that Bitcoin will reach $40,000 – $45,000 by the end of this year. This is due to the growing demand for betting markets, which is attracting market makers and leading to significant growth for Bitcoin.
Given the upcoming halving event in April 2024 and the continuous increase in Bitcoin mining algorithm difficulty, many people are holding onto the belief that Bitcoin will continue to reach new heights in the coming months.
