Bitcoin (BTC) is trading flat at $62,200 this
week, erasing its earlier gains of 3.4% on Monday when the coin briefly touched
$64,436. As "Uptober" progresses, Bitcoin remains far from the
typical 22.0% gains seen over the last four years during this month, with the
market showing signs of stagnation.
Despite an improving news backdrop, it hasn’t
been enough to drive significant upside momentum in the crypto market.
According to Polymarket, former U.S. President Donald Trump now holds a 53.5%
chance of winning the 2024 presidential election, compared to 46.1% for Kamala
Harris, the Democratic candidate. Although other prediction platforms show a
less drastic difference, the market seems to view Trump's potential return as
favorable for cryptocurrencies, given his history of pro-crypto policies. This
may have helped buoy Bitcoin's prices earlier in the week.
Hopes for further upside were dampened by
China's National Development and Reform Commission, which announced a modest
200 billion yuan ($28 billion) stimulus package aimed at achieving the
country’s full-year economic and social goals. The market had expected more
aggressive economic support, and as a result, Bitcoin slid by 1.5% to $62,408
following the announcement.
In a curious development, HBO's new
documentary "Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery" named Peter Todd, a
core Bitcoin developer, as the Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto. Todd has
firmly denied these claims, and according to Polymarket, there is a 98%
probability that Satoshi’s identity will remain unknown in 2024.
In the ongoing FTX bankruptcy saga, the
defunct crypto exchange received court approval for its repayment plan. The
plan, hailed as a "model case" by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey,
proposes to fully repay customers using the $16.5 billion in assets recovered
since FTX's collapse in 2022. However, this has sparked controversy, as the
exchange owed $7.0-8.0 billion at the time of collapse, and the valuation of
crypto assets has soared since then. With Bitcoin’s price increasing from $16,000
in November 2022 to over $63,000 today, many customers are pushing for higher
repayments that reflect the recent surge in cryptocurrency values.
FTX said it was not possible to simply return
the crypto assets customers had deposited, because customers' assets were gone,
misappropriated by the founder Sam Bankman-Fried. With this considerations in
mind, Bankman-Fried should have a $14.0 billion profit, while the repayment
plan seem to be a complicated “model case” how to misappropriate clients’’
funds, while trading short at the bottom of the market. Sam Bankman-Fried was
sentenced to 25 years in prison for stealing from FTX customers.