The price of Bitcoin hit a new all-time high of $29,280.05 overnight (ET) before falling back to trade between $28,500 and $29,000 for most of the day.
US exchanges are suspending or delisting XRP left and right
Binance.US and eToro are the latest platforms to suspend XRP trading in the U.S.. U.S. customers will not be able to trade XRP on eToro on January 3. Customers with existing trades at the time will have three weeks from that date to close all open positions. For Binance.US, the effective date of its XRP delisting is January 13. They join Coinbase and many other exchanges to halt XRP trading for American traders, plus Coinbase is the subject of a lawsuit from a disgruntled trader accusing the platform of knowingly selling XRP as an unlicensed security to its users.
Chinese regulators probe Ant Group’s equity investments
The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) is reportedly reviewing equity investments held by Ant Group in dozens of companies, intensifying a crackdown on billionaire Jack Ma’s financial technology empire. Regulators are considering whether to instruct Ant to divest some of its investments, mainly in technology and fintech start-ups, if they violate any rules such as creating unfair competition in the market.