Coindesk

Bitcoin (BTC) has dropped 10% to $86,300 this week, diving out of a prolonged period of trading between $90,000 and $110,000.The so-called bearish range breakdown has traders closely examining charts for clues about where the sell-off may drive prices next. One of the key levels under scrutiny is the "runaway gap" in CME bitcoin futures below $80,000, which formed three months ago.A gap is a blank space on a price chart between the closing or high price on a specific day and the next opening price, signifying that there was no trading activity at prices in between. When the gap appears in an established trend, it's called a runaway or continuation gap.Unlike bitcoin's spot market, which is open 24/7, CME...

Pakistan has said it will set up a national crypto council to develop legislation for the sector, following a meeting with President Donald Trump's digital asset advisors, according to a report by local news site Dawn.The council would be a dedicated advisory body that consists of government representatives, regulatory authorities and industry experts. It would oversee policy development as well as collaborate with countries to develop standardised frameworks, the report added, citing a statement from the finance ministry.Till last year, the nation's finance ministry had been opposed to regulating crypto in the country, however Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said he would look into the matter with an open mind, he said in a statement. He also stressed the importance of...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) asked for crypto industry help in tracking and blocking transactions intended to launder the $1.5 billion stolen from Bybit by North Korean hackers.The FBI published a list of Ethereum addresses that are holding or have held assets from the theft in a public service announcement on Wednesday. The announcement reiterated the country's involvement and labeled it a TraderTraitor activity. The hack had already been attributed to the North Korea-linked Lazarus group by blockchain analytics firms. The ether and ETH staking tokens were stolen in the largest ever hack of a crypto exchange last week.The illicit actors are converting some of their stolen assets to bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies "across thousands of addresses...

Ether (ETH) continued its multi-day slide on Thursday with a 7% drop in the past 24 hours as the prolonged crypto sell-off showed no signs of a pause.Bitcoin (BTC) was trading between $89,000 to $82,500 in U.S. trading hours on Wednesday, staging a slight recovery in early Asian hours to just over $86,000. The broader market tracked by CoinDesk 20 (CD20), a liquid index tracking the largest tokens, fell over 3%.Major tokens XRP, BNB Chain’s BNB, Cardano’s ADA and dogecoin (DOGE) slumped as much as 4% — with bullish bets on futures tracking majors recording over $600 million in liquidations.Litecoin’s LTC and Aptos’ APT were among the few tokens in green, rising over 10% each. APT rose as a “BITWISE...

Bitcoin's (BTC) prolonged range play above $90K has concluded bearishly this week, and how?The 12.6% drop observed in the first three days of the week (per UTC hours) marks the largest decline since the FTX bankruptcy in November 2022, according to data from TradingView.The sell-off is consistent with CoinDesk's analysis earlier this month, which noted investor disappointment over the lack of swift action from President Donald Trump's administration on creating the promised national BTC reserve and tightening fiat liquidity conditions.Institutional demand for the largest cryptocurrency and its second-largest peer, ether (ETH), weakened, pushing the CME futures market closer to backwardation, a market condition where spot prices are higher than prices for futures. Additionally, Nasdaq, the Wall Street's tech-heavy index, has...