Bitcoin‘s price has once again fallen below the $40,000 mark, reaching as low as $39,431, signaling a potential bearish trend for altcoins. This follows a downward correction hinted at on January 12. In the aftermath of the Binance court hearing, the cryptocurrency market faces uncertainty.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $39,780, with fears of a further drop towards $38,500. The recent closure of a price gap on the CME exchange has set the stage for a possible decline in the cumulative value of cryptocurrencies to $1.4 trillion. The impending daily close and the opening of Asian markets could accelerate the sell-off, while spot Bitcoin ETFs have started the day on a downtrend, and Grayscale continues to transfer thousands of BTC to Coinbase due to GBTC redemptions.
The Binance hearing, which was less crypto-friendly than the Coinbase hearing, focused on the classification of investment contracts/securities and their unregistered sales. The judge, Berman Jackson, skipped prepared arguments and went straight to questioning, expressing skepticism about the necessity of a contract for an investment contract and focusing on the “scheme” language in the Howey test.
Judge Jackson was unconvinced by the Big Problems Doctrine and had doubts about the Legal Process arguments concerning fair notice. The jurisdictional boundaries between the SEC and CFTC were debated without clear resolution. In the second part of the hearing, the judge was skeptical about the BUSD stablecoin being presented as an investment contract and seemed open to the argument that Binance initially offered the BNB token as an investment contract.
However, the judge appeared uncomfortable with the idea that a token remains a security indefinitely in secondary markets, even if it was initially offered as an investment contract. The SEC’s argument that the token embodies the investment contract contradicted previous statements that the token is merely lines of code. The judge opposed mini-hearings for other tokens listed in the complaint and challenged the SEC to clarify the line between tokens that are and are not investment contracts, as it affects traders who need to know.