Yahoo Finance Bitcoin holds as Biden readies regulatory order
Bitcoin held steady on Tuesday amid two pull factors — wealth transfer in Russia and new regulatory concerns in the US.
The price of the world's largest cryptocurrency perked up to $38,982 (BTC-USD), a rise of 2.7% in the last 24 hours.
It comes after a week of sharp sell-offs that saw bitcoin slide by over 10%.
Ethereum (ETH-USD) faired even worse over the last seven days, nose-diving 12.5%.
However, the price of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap also stabilised on Tuesday, up 2.1% to ETH $2,553.
The cryptocurrency market has witnessed a turbulent rise and fall following Vladimir Putin's shock invasion of Ukraine.
Read more: Has yuan become Russia's new dollar?
The total cryptocurrency market cap lost more than $200bn in five days but now appears to be holding around $1.8tn, up 1.4% on Tuesday.
The price of premier coins, such as bitcoin and ethereum, rose over 10% amid a rush to sell rouble for crypto as sanctions rumbled Russian investors.
However, regulatory concerns have spread in the US amid reports president Joe Biden is poised to sign a new crypto order later this week, causing the price of most major coins to tank.
The order is designed to set up an individual in the US with regulatory authority to supervise the crypto market.
Watch: Economist Steve Hanke on crypto-lobbyists
Reports from the US said Biden might sign the order as early as this Wednesday.
Biden is also expected to direct the US Justice Department, Treasury and other agencies to study the legal and economic ramifications of creating a US central bank digital currency.
"We could see a significant shift in policy in 180 days and this is a likely step toward the creation of a central bank digital currency," a US source told Reuters.
Investors who had banked on a bitcoin price recovery after the multitude of Russian buy-ins were disappointed.
A total of more than $121m bitcoin long positions have been liquidated.
Read more: Club for women in crypto promises to close gender funding gap
One long term positive note came from recent Coinshare data that showed institutional investors had bought $127m worth of crypto products in the last week.
Bitcoin holders were also greeted by the shock news from blockchain tracker Whale Alert that a digital wallet containing 407 bitcoins “woke up” this week.
The wallet was last active in 2013 and investors are poised in anticipation of this trove of bitcoin being dumped on an already insecure market.
