Bitcoin Bulls fired back strongly regaining about $5,000 for the day after dropping as low as $51,000 amid growing report the U.S Treasury was clamping down on cryptocurrencies.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin traded at $56,903.06 on the FTX exchange with a daily trading volume of $76 billion. Bitcoin is up 1.15% for the day.
Anthony Scaramucci, a highly revered hedge fund manager spoke via CNBC Squawk Box program on the geopolitical risks Bitcoin faces amid its current ban in Turkey, Europe’s fast-emerging economy.
READ: Why Bitcoin could triple in value annually
“I do understand the fact that these sovereign wealth funds and so forth are not ready yet. You saw what’s going on in Turkey. They made an announcement that they’re banning the use of crypto in the country of Turkey.
That could happen in other places where the currencies are unstable, and they don’t want this introduction of Bitcoin to be a source of trading for their citizens. They feel that it will take policy away from their central banking community and the politicians.”
Such report still casts a dark cloud over Bitcoin as almost $1.4 billion of longs were liquidated across major exchanges within an hour.
READ: 1 Bitcoin will buy you a house in Nigeria’s rich suburb
Almost $1.4B (!) of longs liquidated across major exchanges within an hour. Ouch.#Bitcoin
Chart: https://t.co/SlzS0KjFbG pic.twitter.com/etvZMLTCxo
— Rafael Schultze-Kraft (@n3ocortex) April 18, 2021
Just recently Turkey’s Apex Bank disclosed that crypto assets were excessively volatile and can be used for money laundering activities. The central bank also stated that such instruments were “neither subject to any regulation and supervision mechanisms nor a central regulatory authority.”
Recall also that a growing number of Nigerian senators had many weeks ago discounted the use of bitcoin at the National Assembly on the bias that it erodes the value and use of the naira.
READ: Ripple scores early legal victory, XRP breaks above $1 for first time in 3 years
A significant number of Nigerians are holding the flagship crypto to hedge against systemic inflation and the difficulties in accessing foreign currencies, amid Nigeria’s central bank ban on Crypto transactions within the Nigerian financial ecosystem.
The futuristic price of the flagship crypto also strongly depends on the holding capacity of institutional investors with about 2% of crypto accounts controlling most of the available supply according to researcher Flipside Crypto.
This further means that just one whale could have an overbearing impact on the relatively young financial asset class.
