Today in crypto, traders are showing greater hesitation to buy the dip in Ether compared to Bitcoin, the US Federal Reserve will end its 2023 program supervising banks’ crypto activities. Meanwhile, Czech police arrested darknet founder Tom…
Today in crypto, traders are showing greater hesitation to buy the dip in Ether compared to Bitcoin, the US Federal Reserve will end its 2023 program supervising banks’ crypto activities. Meanwhile, Czech police arrested darknet founder Tomas Jirikovsky in a $45M Bitcoin bribery case linked to a minister’s resignation.
Ether has ‘slightly more bullish path’ than Bitcoin: Santiment
Ether holds a slight edge over Bitcoin in the short-term as social media chatter around the cryptocurrency is less overheated, says sentiment platform Santiment.
“The $ETH crowd hasn’t shown nearly as much bullishness despite significantly better performance over the past 3 months,” Santiment said in an X post on Friday amid the ETH/BTC ratio, which measures Ether’s relative strength against Bitcoin being up 32.90% over the past 30 days, according to TradingView.
Both Bitcoin and Ether have pulled back since Thursday, when Bitcoin reached a new all-time high of $124,128 and Ether came close to reclaiming its 2021 all-time high of $4,878.
US Fed to end oversight program for banks’ crypto activities
The Federal Reserve Board said that it would end a “novel activities supervision program” set up in 2023 to supervise certain activities related to crypto assets and distributed ledger technology.
In a Friday notice, the Fed said it will sunset the program created in August 2023 and return to “monitoring banks’ novel activities through the normal supervisory process.” The 2023 program said it would be “risk-focused” and include supervision of banks providing “deposits, payments, and lending to crypto-asset-related entities and fintechs.”
“Since the Board started its program to supervise certain crypto and fintech activities in banks, the Board has strengthened its understanding of those activities, related risks, and bank risk management practices,” said the Fed. “As a result, the Board is integrating that knowledge and the supervision of those activities back into the standard supervisory process and is rescinding its 2023 supervisory letter creating the program.”
Though not necessarily suggesting a scaleback in oversight of banks dealing with crypto companies, US government agencies have taken a softer approach to regulating and handling digital assets under the Trump administration.
Czech police arrest darknet founder in $45 million Bitcoin donation case
Czech police have reportedly arrested darknet marketplace founder Tomas Jirikovsky in connection with a $45 million Bitcoin donation that prompted the resignation of former Justice Minister Pavel Blazek earlier this year.
Czech police intervened in the Bitcoin (BTC) donation case that led to Blazek’s resignation on Thursday. According to Chief State Prosecutor Radim Dragoun, authorities were “securing people and things.” He added, “This is a criminal case that was recently separated by the police authority for independent proceedings from joint proceedings.”
Although the statement did not mention any arrests, local reports suggested that police detained Tomas Jirikovsky, a convicted criminal who allegedly paid 468 BTC (worth around $45 million at the time) to the minister to avoid a new prison sentence.
Jirikovsky reportedly tried to escape police by climbing onto the roof of his home during a raid on Thursday night, Deník N reported Friday.
His ex-wife confirmed the intervention, saying a neighbor alerted her to the rooftop drama. The police then apprehended Jirikovsky and took him into custody, the report said.
Jirikovsky is a Czech programmer and the architect of the illegal darknet marketplace Sheep Marketplace, which was linked to drug trafficking, weapons sales and counterfeit goods.
