Bitcoin prices have remained largely unmoved by bullish sentiment and crypto-favorable comments by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, holding steady around $30,500. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has been range-bound for the past three months, and investor sentiment has brightened. Meanwhile, Pita Limjaroenrat, a candidate to become Thailand’s next prime minister, has disclosed that he owns cryptocurrency. What does this say about politicians and crypto?
We really are seeing a clearing of the decks in cryptocurrency, said Tim Frost, the CEO of digital wealth platform Yield App, and regulation is creating a landscape that will make it easier for everybody to operate. This, combined with some more stable and promising price signals, means that now may be a very good time to think long term.
Ether was recently changing hands at $1,910, off 1.5% from Tuesday, same time. Other major cryptos spent much of the day in the red with ADA, the token of smart contracts platform Cardano, declining 3%. Litecoin, and popular meme coins DOGE and SHIB all recently dropped more than 2%. STORJ, the native crypto of the Storj cloud storage platform, rose more than 40% earlier in the day, but relinquished its gains to trade down 20% from a day ago.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink seemed to buoy crypto markets’ prospects, telling Fox Business in an interview that crypto could revolutionize finance. Last month, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, applied for a spot bitcoin ETF, spurring a mini-run of filings and re-filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by other prominent, financial services firms. The SEC has yet to approve a spot BTC ETF.
We believe that if we can create more tokenization of assets and securities – that’s what bitcoin is – it could revolutionize finance, he said, adding: Instead of investing in gold as a hedge against inflation, a hedge against the onerous problems of any one country, or the devaluation of your currency whatever country you’re in – let’s be clear, bitcoin is an international asset, it’s not based on any one currency and so it can represent an asset that people can play as an alternative.
Pita Limjaroenrat, the leader of Thailand’s Move Forward Party, and contender for Prime Minister, holds crypto, according to disclosures filed. Now to be sure, he doesn’t own a ton of crypto and has way more traditional finance assets. But this is interesting because now Pita joins the ranks of politicians holding crypto. In the United States, a total of eight members of Congress hold crypto, or shares in Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust, according to Bitcoinpoliticians.org.
To put into perspective how mainstream crypto is in Thailand, the Move Forward Party wasn’t the crypto party in the country’s recent elections. That honor goes to the Pheu Thai party, one of the other parties to form a governing coalition. The Pheu Thai party promised an airdrop of 10,000 THB (around $300) to every Thai citizen, although the Move Forward Party did make promises about integrating blockchain into government affairs to increase transparency.
Bitcoin traded sideways in the subsequent hours.