SOL falls to six-week low, BNB biggest gainer despite reports of Binance violating Russian sanctions

SOL falls to six-week low, BNB biggest gainer despite reports of Binance violating Russian sanctions

Time Stamp: August 23, 2023 5:49 AM

Bitcoin and Ether fell during Wednesday afternoon trading in Hong Kong, along with most other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. The SOL token saw the biggest loss in the top 10, while BNB saw the biggest gain, despite reports that Binance is violating Russian sanctions.

See related article: Weekly Market Wrap: Bitcoin falls below US$26,000 following Evergrande’s bankruptcy

SOL falls to six-week low, BNB leads gainers despite reports of violating Russian sanctions

Solana’s SOL token fell 1.68% in the 24 hours to 4:30 in Hong Kong to a six-week low of US$20.79, as the day’s biggest loser in the top 10, bringing its weekly losses to 11.13%. The token is down over 41% for the year, but losing the US$20 support level could return SOL to June’s low of US$14.49.

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BNB rose 2.77% over the past 24 hours to US$215 on Wednesday, as the day’s biggest gainer, but remained close to its yearly low of US$204 registered on Tuesday. The token continues to face downward pressure amid Binance’s mounting regulatory issues and ongoing lawsuit with the SEC. 

A Tuesday report by the Wall Street Journal claimed that Binance, the world’s largest exchange, is helping Russians transfer funds from sanctioned banks into balances on their platform, adding to investor concerns. Binance denied the allegations, saying that it has no relationships with any banks in Russia, in relation to its peer-to-peer trading program.

Bitcoin rose 0.4% during afternoon trading in Asia to US$26,052 as of 4:30 p.m. in Hong Kong after it briefly fell below the US$26,000 mark earlier today.  

Ether rose 0.79% during afternoon trading in Asia to US$1,644 but fell 9.78% during the past week.

Despite the market slump, the infrastructure being built, such as PayPal’s new stablecoin, will significantly improve global crypto adoption, according to Jamie Coutts, a senior market structure analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

“Markets might not be pricing in the impact of PayPal’s stablecoin until it clearly gains traction, but it could be a key step in spurring the adoption of the Ethereum ecosystem. We expect more stablecoin innovation and issuance as global regulations accommodate this monetary

innovation, breathing life into the crypto economy,” wrote Coutts in a research note shared with Forkast.

Total crypto market capitalization over the past 24 hours fell 0.26% to US$1.05 trillion while market volume increased 26.89% to US$35.52 billion, according to CoinMarketCap data.

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