This Week’s Currencies: Bitcoin and Ethereum Post Mega Rallies After Bank Intervention

This week in Coins. Illustration by Mitchell Prever for decoding.

after Three straight weeks of lossesPrices have turned bright green for the two largest cryptocurrencies by market cap this week.

Bitcoin (BTC) has exploded by 36% over the past seven days and is now trading at around $27,515 according to CoinMarketCap data.

In the past week, Bitcoin has fallen around 10% in response to news that both Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) serving the industry have failed.

The #2 coin in the industry, Ethereum (ETH), is back where it was before the economic downturn. ETH is up 27% over the seven days and is currently trading at $1,832.

The entire cryptocurrency market came back to life starting last Sunday night After the Federal Reserve, the US Treasury, and the FDIC announced that they would step in to support all deposits in Signature and SVB. that was the promise repeat by President Biden.

However, cryptocurrencies did not appear entirely unscathed: the industry lost its two most crypto-friendly banks, and now conflicting reports are circulating about whether the FDIC Tell potential buyers It’s Signature Bank that it will have to drop the bank’s crypto business. Former Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank claimed that the feds shut down Signature to send an “anti-crypto message” and Reuters A report late in the week seemed to corroborate Frank’s claims; The FDIC has since denied the allegations Reuters story.

In the UK, Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt announced that the UK Treasury – the UK’s finance ministry – had brokered a rescue deal in which HSBC acquired the British arm of SVB. For £1 To make the British business complete with exposure to the bank.

In addition to these interventions, investors were drawn into risky assets such as cryptocurrencies and technology stocks this week after signs emerged that the banking crisis could spill over to TradFi institutions in Europe: Credit Suisse Announced on Wednesday a $54 billion loan From the Swiss National Bank to support liquidity.

Almost all of the 30 cryptocurrencies by market cap posted significant gains this week, but some of the biggest gainers apart from Bitcoin and Ethereum were Filecoin (FIL), which rose 33% to $6.39, and Polygon (MATIC), which grew 22%. to $1.24, Solana (SOL), which rose 28% to $22.30, and BNB, which rose 25% to $344.76.

USDC – the dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by Circle – slumped at the end of last week and fell all the way to 87 cents after uncertainty over the company’s exposure to beleaguered banks. He. She settled down this week in reaction To the rescue news.