As traders sought more clarity on the U.S. regulatory picture under incoming President Donald Trump, Bitcoin continued to rise on Friday, continuing its comeback from a price collapse over the New Year break.


After the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets law went into full force in late December, stablecoin Tether saw its largest market value loss since the 2022 FTX crisis, making it a major topic of discussion this week. Due to compliance issues, Coinbase Global Inc. (NASDAQ:COIN) and a number of European exchanges removed the stablecoin off their sites.

As traders locked up a fantastic run of profits for the year, a wave of selling hit broader cryptocurrency markets in the last week of 2024. However, some prudence also found its way into markets, especially on the notion that U.S. interest rates will fall at a slower pace in 2025.

Bitcoin also recovered from its year-end lows, and the expectation of more lenient restrictions under Trump kept cryptocurrency markets largely optimistic.

Bitcoin briefly surpassed $97,000 earlier in the day before climbing 1.2% to $96,852.7 by 23:41 ET (04:41 GMT).
Impact of MiCA installation on Tether

The market value of USDT fell 1.4% in the last week to roughly $137 billion, primarily as a result of the EU's adoption of MiCA.

Strict rules, including additional capital reserve and liquidity requirements, are imposed by the law on stablecoin issuers in the bloc. Stablecoin issuers must also obtain a license in order to operate in the EU, according to the regulation.

 

USDT is by far the world’s biggest dollar-pegged stablecoin, and is an integral part of the crypto market in that it facilitates a bulk of transactions. This exposure could mitigate the overall impact of MiCA on USDT, given its prevalence in the crypto market. 

Today's cryptocurrency price: altcoins increase following spectacular 2024

After a sluggish start to the year, the majority of the main altcoins recorded robust increases as the wider cryptocurrency markets continued their recent comeback into Friday.

However, despite their year-end losses, the majority of the main altcoins were sitting on fantastic profits through 2024 as investors expected that Trump's more lenient policies would attract more money to cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin.

Ethereum, the second-ranked cryptocurrency, increased 1.1% to $3,454.56, while XRP, the third-ranked cryptocurrency, increased 1.6% to $2.4405.
While Dogecoin gained 2.1% among meme tokens, Solana, Cardano, and Polygon all saw increases of 0.4% to 2%.

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