BitcoinBTC, ethereum and cryptocurrencies have seen a phenomenal price rebound this year, climbing as Treasury secretary Janet Yellen warns of looming “economic and financial catastrophe.”
The bitcoin price topped $30,000 per bitcoin last month, double its November low, while the ethereum price has seen a similar 2023 rally that led founder Vitalik Buterin to issue a suprise bull run warning.
Now, as the U.S. grapples with a banking crisis that JPMorgan analysts think could become a “catastrophic” scenario, “excitement” is building in the bitcoin, ethereum and crypto market, with one investment banker asking: “Have the floodgates opened?”
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“We’re seeing a lot more maturity,” Cantor Fitzgerald’s head of crypto, blockchain and digital assets investment banking Elliot Han told CNBC, adding there’s currently “a lot of excitement” in the bitcoin, ethereum and crypto space as “more institutional players” come into the space.
“Now, have the floodgates open? No, I don’t think so. But I think you see a lot more that have come into the space. You’re definitely seeing a lot more experimentation,” Han said, pointing to regulation “slowly coming into place.”
U.S. regulators and lawmakers have zeroed in on bitcoin, ethereum and crypto this year following last year’s sell-off and the high-profile implosion of major crypto exchange FTX.
“While a well-conceived regulatory framework for crypto will improve investor confidence and encourage enterprise and job creation, the opposite—a lack of a framework for crypto—creates uncertainty and the retraction of the sector as we are seeing in the U.S. today,” Bradley Duke, co-chief exectuive at ETCETC Group, said in emailed comments.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been criticized for its “regulation by enforcement” approach to cryptocurrencies this year as politicians debate whether to adopt a crypto regulatory framework that could give legitimacy to a technology some see as inherently fraudulent.
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The 2022 crypto price crash that wiped around $2 trillion from the combined bitcoin, ethereum and crypto market sapped the energy from the crypto industry but this year’s bitcoin price rebound has reinvigorated traders, investors and companies.
Earlier this year, two of the world’s largest financial institutions with a combined $14 trillion in assets under management—Fidelity and BlackRock—continued to quietly expand into the world of crypto.
Last year, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with $10 trillion in assets under management, announced a partnership with major crypto exchange Coinbase to provide its institutional clients with access to bitcoin.
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