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First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Trades Flat, Altcoins Nurse Losses
The latest price moves in crypto markets in context for June 19, 2023.
Jun 19, 2023, 12:19 p.m.
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This article originally appeared in First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily newsletter putting the latest moves in crypto markets in context. Subscribe to get it in your inbox every day.
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Bitcoin held steady over the weekend, with altcoins continuing to lag behind. Bitcoin traded between $26,200 and $26,300 and ether, starting the weekend around $1,700, remains the same. Altcoins, however, underperformed bitcoin and ether, with Chainlink’s LINK, Cosmos’ ATOM and NEAR Protocol’s NEAR all losing 3% over the last 24 hours. U.S. markets are closed today, with the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market shut in observance of Junteenth.
A federal judge signed off on a temporary agreement between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, global crypto exchange Binance and its U.S. affiliate to have Binance.US take steps to ensure only local employees can access customer funds as the regulator and companies work through an SEC lawsuit. The parties announced a deal late Friday to ensure that only Binance.US employees can access customer funds in the short term, which Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District Court Columbia signed early Saturday. The judge also ordered the parties to suggest timelines for the broader lawsuit. According to the proposed agreement, Binance.US will take steps to make sure that no officials from Binance Holdings, the global exchange, have access to private keys for wallets or hardware wallets, or root access to Binance.US' Amazon Web Services tools. The U.S.-based crypto trading platform will share detailed information about its business expenses, including estimated costs, in the coming weeks.
The release of the Hinman papers last week in the SEC's case against Ripple is a boost to ether , and is likely to trigger a move to more decentralization in the crypto market, JPMorgan said in a research report Thursday. Emails tied to former SEC Director of Corporation Finance William Hinman’s 2018 speech saying ether did not look like a security were published last Tuesday by Ripple in its defense against an SEC lawsuit. Senior leadership at the SEC did not rank ether as a security in 2018, the report noted, and SEC officials acknowledged that the “fact that tokens on a sufficiently decentralized network are no longer securities creates a regulatory gap."
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KuCoin captured a record share of centralised exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the wider crypto market.
What to know:
- KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025, equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per month, marking its strongest year on record.
- This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralised exchange volume, as KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumes, which slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
- Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly split, each exceeding $500 billion for the year, signalling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
- Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activity, reinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
- Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activity, indicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.
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Kevin O'Leary says power is now more valuable than bitcoin
"Shark Tank" investor Kevin O'Leary is pivoting his crypto strategy from tokens to energy infrastructure, declaring that power generation is now the real prize.
What to know:
The big pivot: O'Leary has moved capital away from smaller tokens to focus on physical infrastructure like land, power, and copper.
- He believes power is now "more valuable than bitcoin" and has secured significant land deals with stranded natural gas in Alberta and the U.S.
- His thesis is driven by the massive energy needs of bitcoin mining and AI, noting that entities controlling power can serve either market.
- He advises investors to look at copper and gold, noting copper prices have nearly quadrupled for his projects in the last 18 months.
- He views Robinhood and Coinbase as "no-brainer" infrastructure investments, having reallocated capital from altcoins into these platforms. He describes Robinhood as the premier bridge for managing equity and crypto in one portfolio, while labeling Coinbase the "de facto standard" for businesses to manage stablecoin transactions and vendor payments once regulatory acts pass.
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