First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Holds Near $63K, Consolidating Week's Recovery

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Bitcoin traded either side of $63,000 during the European morning on Friday having retreated from its rebound to $64,400 late Thursday. BTC looks set to end the week in an upward trend having recovered from its collapse south of $57,000 last week. At the time of writing, bitcoin is priced just under $63,000, 3.1% higher in the last 24 hours. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), measuring the broader digital asset market, is up 3.6%. Solana led the gains among the CD20 constituents, climbing over 9% to $154, while DOGE is up just over 4.5% at $0.15, testament to the meme-coin season in crypto markets.

Comfortably the biggest gainer of the last week among the largest cryptocurrencies is TON$1.6131, the native token of The Open Network, which has risen from around $5.20 to just under $7. In the past 24 hours, it has jumped nearly 17% following news that viral Telegram-based game Notcoin will introduce its native NOT token on May 16. TON, which is the blockchain of choice for the messaging app's blockchain projects, has risen nearly 30% in the last week, extending its gains against other crypto majors. For context, the CD20 is up around 5.5% compared to its level of a week ago.

Binance and fellow crypto exchange KuCoin have won registration with India's Financial Intelligence Unit. They became the first offshore crypto-related entities to be approved by the anti-money laundering unit, months after being banned at the end of last year. KuCoin paid a $41,000 fine and resumed operations, while Binance is also expected to pay a penalty after a hearing with the FIU. “Binance is registered but the compliance proceedings are not completed because the amount of penalty has to be decided by me and that hearing is still going on,” said Vivek Aggarwal, who heads FIU-IND. Among the other sanctioned platforms, Kraken, Gemini, and Gate.io have all begun negotiations with the regulator.

Chart of the Day

• The chart shows cumulative notional open interest, or dollar value locked, in the active TON$1.6131 perpetual futures contracts listed on Binance, Bybit and OKX.
• Open interest has risen to a one-month high of nearly $200 million in a sign of renewed inflow of money into the market.
• TON has risen 28% in one week, outperforming the rest of the 10 largest cryptocurrencies by market value.
• Source: Velo Data

- Omkar Godbole

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