Bitcoin’s price reaches two-year high, Sam Bankman-Fried seeks near seven-year sentence, and U.S. government moves millions in BTC after price crosses $60K.
Bitcoin breached $60,000 for the first time in over two years after rising over 6% on Feb. 28. The last time cryptocurrency traded above this mark was on Nov. 12, 2021, when Bitcoin started its reversal, falling over 67% to the macro low of $19,297 at the beginning of April 2022. Bitcoins bullish momentum came two days after the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) broke an all-time high of $2.4 billion in daily trading volume on Feb. 26. The new nine spot Bitcoin ETFs have recorded combined trading volumes of over $2 billion for at least two days over the week.
The United States government transferred $922 million worth of Bitcoin from two cryptocurrency wallets that held funds seized from Bitfinex in 2016. The transfers occurred the same day Bitcoin (BTC) breached $60,000 for the first time in over two years on Feb. 28. The government seized the funds in 2016 after Bitfinex was hacked for approximately 119,754 BTC, worth over $7.4 billion at its current price. The hacker, Ilya Lichtenstein, laundered over $4.5 billion worth of Bitcoin from Bitfinex. Lichtenstein and his rapper wife, Heather Morgan (also known as Razzlekhan), were arrested in February 2022.
Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini and the New York State Department of Financial Services have reached a settlement that will see Gemini return at least $1.1 billion to customers of the Gemini Earn program through the Genesis bankruptcy proceeding. Gemini will also pay a $37 million penalty for multiple compliance failures that threatened the safety and soundness of the company, Superintendent Adrienne A. Harris of the NYDFS explained in a Feb. 28 statement. If approved by the bankruptcy court, Gemini said it expects Earn users to receive 100% of their cryptocurrency assets back plus appreciation on top of that.
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