Bitcoin inches closer to all-time high as cryptocurrency tests $67,000: CNBC Crypto World

today Bitcoin blast past $66,000 inching closer to its 2021 all-time high over the weekend we stopped by eth Denver 2024 to bring you an inside look at the event and while we were there we sat down with SEC commissioner Hester Pur she breaks down the sec's approach to regulating crypto welcome to cnbc's crypto world I'm McKenzie sigalos the price of Bitcoin rising to kick off the week moving even closer to its all-time high after the rally took a breather over the weekend as of noon Eastern Bitcoin traded above $66,000 around $2,000 shy of its all-time high reached in November 2021 ether Advanced 2% to around $3500 and Bitcoin lifted other crypto tokens with it particularly meme coins with Dogecoin jumping more than 28% this morning analysts point to their performance as evidence that retail investors who've been sitting on the sideline for much of the recent crypto rally are starting to jump back into the crypto Market both Bitcoin and ether are coming off their best week in almost a year but their run was on pause over the weekend as the market digested two days of steep outflows from the grayscale Bitcoin ETF that were offset by inflows into other Bitcoin ETFs one crypto exec told CNBC that big moves now tend to happen during the normal trading week with the birth of nine new Bitcoin ETFs long-term investors are ident that the combination of increasing demand for ETFs and a tighter Supply expected after the April having event will push the price of Bitcoin to a new all-time high crypto's also been getting a slight bid from the stock market where the tech heavy NASDAQ Composite reached an alltime high on Friday some crypto focused stocks are riding the Bitcoin wave with coinbase and micro strategy Rising nearly 7% and 20% respectively the miners however are all down between half a per and 6% % as of 12 p.m. okay let's talk about e Denver 2024 which wrapped up over the weekend I was there and got the chance to speak to some of crypto's biggest developers and some firsttime attendees about why the event is attracting so much attention I'm here at e Denver 2024 at a time when things are looking pretty good for its namesake crypto Network the energy is Electric in this particular one um things are feeling very positive in the ecosystem and part of this has to do with a major upgrade coming to ethereum in a few weeks that's expected to slash transaction costs by 90% will vastly improving profitability of the companies built on the blockchain the thing that is happening with dankun is we're going to create a whole new kind of storage on ethereum that's purpose-built for layer twos like base and what that means it means that right now we pay a ton to ethereum and we're going to pay a lot less which is going to lower the fees for everyone cuz ethereum basically going to build a product perfect built for us there's also a lot of optimism that a spot ether ETF could follow the immensely popular spot Bitcoin ETFs approved earlier this year now SEC Commissioners might be attending this event but e th has really tried to keep the sense that it's underground and four coders not Wall Street I feel like the wave and the future is this but it's very early so for people of color like it's very important for us to be in these spaces and learn as much as possible in terms of the vibe on the ground here in Denver this Festival as organizers like to call it started is something intimate but it's quickly ballooned to 20,000 attendees all focused on what's next for ethereum what's also different this year more people are talking about the intersection of AI and web 3 the CEO of near was deep in the AI world before jumping into crypto he was actually one of the researchers who introduced Transformers literally the tea and chat gbt that research is what laid the groundwork for the llms of today like Google's Gemini when we started we were a i company we were doing data crowd sourcing and we actually started wanted to use blockchain because we needed to pay people for data crowdsourcing we were doing and we had you know students in China in Eastern Europe who were working for us pretty much but they didn't have bank accounts sending money from us into like Eastern Europe and China is complicated and so we actually wanted to use blockchain as a way to facilitate the data collection we spoke to several more of the biggest leaders in web 3 here in Denver and we'll be sharing those full interviews with you on CNBC crypto world all this week our main story last Thursday at the start of e Denver I moderated a Fireside interview with SEC commissioner Hester purse where she discussed the agency's approach to regulating crypto and enforcement actions against major players in the space right after that I sat down with the commissioner to continue the conversation and get her take on what needs to change for regulating crypto in the US as we're here at eth Denver 20,000 people coming into town for this event a lot of them are the coders and the the builders who are helping to develop this ecosystem now yesterday it was standing room only at your fireside chat and I think that that really speaks to the fact that you're seen as crypto's staunchest Ally Among Us Regulators um you haven't been shy about critiquing the sec's approach so far to regulating the crypto space and I guess my first question to you is just what's not working right now and What needs to change I think what's not working is that I'm here at eth Denver that these developers need to be thinking about what the regulatory structure is is because it's so unclear so I think what needs to change is that we need to develop some clear rules so that these people can do their developing um and understand what the framework is that they're working in it seems like there's a very clear direction from the top right now and so what does the SEC need to do to be become either more comfortable with crypto or change their stance is that a change at the top in terms of the chairman is it a change in the White House is it switching out Commissioners what what has to happen to the compos position of the SEC to see progress on this front I don't think the personnel has to change it's just the policy has to change and that requires having some open dialogues with people who are explaining what they're trying to build and trying to think about how that intersects rationally with our framework not just come in after the fact uh with enforcement actions and that is part of the problem right like there have been no Harden fast rules given to us by Congress certain uh you know senators and Congressmen have certainly tried to push forward on crypto legislation and in the absence of that it's really just been this regulation by enforcement approach from the SEC the cftc has been another uh agency policing the space and I suppose my question is like what what policy makes sense at this point um you've got the Safe Harbor proposal that you were floating as early as 2020 there have been competing bills is there anything that you're optimistic about in terms of legislation that might um impose hard and fast rules it will give guidance to these coders I think there's been um some good effort in Congress to try to think holistically about the space which is helpful but at bottom what we need to do is make sure that they're disclosures so that people who are buying things can figure out whether they want to buy what they want to buy and we need to take advantage of the technology which allows for an unprecedented amount of transparency um it allows for equal access those are things we should be harnessing for good instead of treating as if they're bad now earlier this month there was a I correct me if I'm wrong here but a change in the definition of what a a dealer is this broker dealer Rule and some people who work in the defi space are concerned because it seems as though it's going to rope in uh more defi developers potentially impact what they're doing with dex's as well what what changes for them I think it is in fact I was just having a conversation with some people who are worried about just that that rule and about the implications for for example liquidity pools and liquidity providers and liquidity pools and it is unknown at this moment and and when I tried at the time we adopted the rule to get some clarity around that there are a lot more questions than there are answers unfortunately now a big topic of conversation when with respect to the SEC and it's intersection with the world of crypto is a spot Bitcoin ETF debate It ultimately took a Court ruling to to get those applications to the Finish Line is it going to take the same thing for spot ether ETF to to see those applicants uh given approval well look the it it's hard for me to know we're in the process of considering some of these applications now but what I do hope is that the Court decision in the Bitcoin product just can help us take a little reset toward how we think about these crypto issues and apply precedent the same way we would apply it to non- crypto products that's what I'm hoping for you know the SEC has suffered a couple of losses in the court system there's Grace which is what we were just talking about with respect to the spot Bitcoin ETF debate there was also Ripple internally how is that going over are some people actually happy about it because it it forced the hand and it perhaps changed the direction the SEC would have taken otherwise I can't talk about ongoing enforcement actions but I can say that you know sometimes these are really difficult legal questions and we're all trying to wrestle through them but I hope we can all approach them with greater legal precision and sometimes that takes courts to help us do that the US has obviously struggled to come up with hard and fast rules we've seen other jurisdictions move faster on that front in terms of Singapore the UAE uh the EU with MAA basically these countries establishing legal Frameworks to to guide the space but it feels like the US is actually the only uh you know cop enforcing rules so is that you know is that actually a benefit of even if it if it's over policing the space as some people at this conference would say has there been a net benefit in terms of having some sort of crypto cop who is uh involved D in and helping to police the ecosystem it is helpful to have someone who's watching out for people who are taking crypto and using it as a as an excuse for for conducting frauds so certainly we played a positive role there um but I think that in on balance we really do we could better help the the ecosystem be a safer healthier place by having clear rules which would help us figure out where to spend our enforcement resources but would also fig help people figure out how to stay on the right side of the line you know so many Builders who were once quite public with our identities are are nervous about being on stage at an event like this just because it's unclear what sort of ramifications there might be if they're going to be in snared in some sort of legal action because of the work that they're doing with open source code what would you tell to somebody who's a coder who's excited about jumping into crypto but doesn't know what they're safe to actually build I'm so happy that people are willing to develop and build in this space and we will get to a better place so we just need to be thinking now about what a good rule set would look like so let's look forward to the day when when we change course when we recognize that our American values right that that really Foster Innovation and think about what that right regulatory framework would look like last question for you um what keeps you up at night when you think about what the SEC is is doing with respect to the crypto sector there's a lot that keeps me up at night but I mean it goes back to this theme of not providing Clarity and therefore driving people who might otherwise be here be building in this space to say you know what I'm going to build in some other space um I'm going to do something different with my life it's turning people away from what they otherwise might might want to do with their lives okay that's all for crypto world today but we will be back again tomorrow with more interviews from eth Denver and we will see you then [Music]

Channel: CNBC Television

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Keywords: crypto world, cryptocurrency, bitcoin, digital currency, CNBC, business news, finance stock, stock market, news channel, news station, breaking news, us news, world news, cable news, finance news, money, money tips, financial news, stock market news, stocks, crypto investing, crypto, crypto mining, bitcoin mining, crypto industry, ether, U.S. currency, U.S. economy, cryptocurrency news, Bitcoin, crypto world cnbc, blockchain, ftx, etf, ethereum, web3, ethdenver

Id: FakV_Sm_0TA

Length: 12min 7sec (727 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 04 2024