Cryptocurrency market trending lower as bitcoin straddles $42,000
SEC chair: Don't see much long-term viability for cryptocurrency, seeks investor protection in market, regulatory oversight
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Bitcoin was trading 2.29% lower on Wednesday morning.
The price was around $42,200 per coin, while Ethereum dipped below $3,000 per coin, trading at $2,911 (-4.91%) and Dogecoin stood at 20.9 cents (-0.52%) per coin, respectively, according to Coindesk.
As recently as Sept. 18, bitcoin was trading above $48,000 before it began its current downturn.
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Meanwhile, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler said Tuesday he doesn’t see much long-term viability for cryptocurrencies, underscoring the importance of protecting investors in the market and bringing it under regulatory oversight, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
Gensler likened the thousands of cryptocurrencies in existence to the so-called wildcat banking era that took hold in the U.S. from 1837 until 1863 in the absence of federal bank regulation. Before President Abraham Lincoln created the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, banks issued their own currencies, which they sometimes refused to redeem for their purported value in gold or silver.
Bitcoin was trading 2.29% lower on Wednesday morning. (istock / iStock)
"I don’t think there’s long-term viability for five or six thousand private forms of money," Gensler said in a virtual event hosted by the Washington Post. "So in the meantime I think it’s worthwhile to have an investor-protection regime placed around this."
In other cryptocurrency news, in a tweet to his Twitter followers AMC CEO Adam Aron sought the advice of his followers, asking "I sincerely want to hear your opinion, via this Twitter Poll. By year-end 2021, AMC will take Bitcoin, Etherum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash for online payments. I hear from many on my Twitter feed we should accept Dogecoin too. Do you think AMC should explore accepting Dogecoin?"
Dogecoin gained global attention as investors, including Elon Musk and Mark Cuban, talked it up.
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Its market cap of $27.5B, dwarfs Bitcoin's $792B and Dogecoin has lost over $4,295% so far this year compared to a 45% advance for the largest crypto.