Is the Crypto winter ending as regulatory fog begins to lift

Cryptocurrencies were testing year highs on Friday as a run of favourable regulatory and investment moves have started to shift momentum in markets that had been stuck in a rut for months.

Bitcoin traded at its highest price since June 2022 overnight, touching $31,818 on the Bitstamp exchange. It is up more than 90% for the year so far and nearly 30% in a month.

Second-biggest token Ether had its best session since March and Ripple, which a U.S. judge ruled could be legally sold on public crypto exchanges, soared 73%.

“The regulatory environment is changing,” said Matthew Dibb, chief investment officer at crypto asset manager Astronaut Capital. “And by what we have seen in the last 24 hours, it could be for the better.”

The Ripple ruling came together with fraud charges against the former boss of bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network, which are contested, and on the heels of moves into the market by finance firms BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) and Fidelity.

Investors say it is driving a mood shift.

The language remains somewhat unclear, he said, but finding that XRP tokens sold on public crypto exchanges were not securities under law “probably serves as a precedent.”

It unleashed a rally in smaller cryptocurrencies called “altcoins,” with tokens such as Solana, Matic and Stellar up between 15% and 50% and shares in exchange Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) up 24% to a year high.

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