In the wake of both Coincheck’s hack–as well as a big one that hit the South Korean exchange Coinrail–governments in East Asia began to crack down. Over the course of a few months, China, Japan, and South Korea all announced different measures to better regulate crypto-trading. The world was watching to see if this new technology would hit the mainstream–and government crackdowns following gigantic hacks helped poison the public perception.
While its price swiftly dropped to below $65,000 after hitting the new all-time high Wednesday, Bitcoin’s latest new record is an impressive feat considering just a year ago the currency hovered around $15,000 per coin. Ethereum — the next most popular crypto — has seen a recent surge as well, and on Wednesday notched another new all-time high of its own above $4,800.

ANNALS OF CAMPAIGN FINANCE: “Alek Skarlatos, a hero soldier-turned-Republican congressional candidate, started a nonprofit shortly after his 2020 defeat in a western Oregon race, pledging to advocate for veterans ‘left high and dry’ by the country ‘they put their lives on the line for.’” But, The Associated Press’ Brian Slodysko reports, “the group, which Skarlatos seeded with $93,000 in leftover campaign funds, has done little since then to advance that cause.”
U.S.-based users could continue to use the service by browsing the site with a VPN. Binance allows its users to sign up for a limited account without KYC — i.e. providing verification documents like a passport copy — which allows trading but limits withdrawals to two Bitcoin per day. That won’t satisfy more professional traders — most of whom you’d imagine would already have an account on Binance by now — but it does leave a loophole for others.