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BTC's upside momentum seems to have lost some steam. On Tuesday, the number 1 cryptocurrency by market cap fell to the $41k region before bouncing back to the $43k support level that it is currently trading at (as of the time of writing). If BTC fails to rise above the $44k level in the near-term, this will likely eventuate in a retesting of the support at the $42.5k and the $41.2k regions. In a similar fashion, ETH is still struggling to break above the $3,100 level, while most major altcoins have also flipped red again after yesterday's sea of green. On the bright side, the recent rally in the crypto market, though not as long-drawn as desired, did still end up inspiring some investor confidence. Further, in what is usually a precursor to bullish BTC price actions, miners are also starting to offload their BTC holdings after a 2-month accumulation period that overlaps with BTC's price drop. In other bullish news, gold-backed tokens appear to be gaining some traction amid the sideway movements of the spot price of gold. This is likely because tokenized gold is believed by many to have an ability to significantly improve the liquidity of gold by allowing investors to own a fraction of the physical precious metal. Tether Gold and Pax Gold, the 2 gold-backed tokens available to the market, have now both witnessed a whopping 360% surge in their combined market cap from 1 year ago. In fact, these two tokens seem to actually be growing at a faster pace than the overall crypto market, as the latter's market cap has only increased by 150% (as compared to the former's combined 360%) over the past year.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it has seized about $3.6 billion in BTC that was stolen during the 2016 Bitfinex hack. This constitutes the largest financial seizure in history, and 2 individuals have also been arrested on charges of conspiracy to launder the stolen funds as well as of conspiracy to defraud the United States of America. In a statement on Wednesday, Bitfinex said that it has been cooperating with the Department of Justice throughout the investigation process, and also announced that they will be looking to claim "their rights to a return of the stolen Bitcoin.