Bitcoin Below $39K After EU Vote on Crypto Regulation

Bitcoin (BTC) was little changed Monday after a proposal that could have effectively banned bitcoin across the European Union (EU) was rejected.

The Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA), the most comprehensive digital assets legislation to date in the EU, included a provision that would have limited proof-of-work mining. The provision, however, failed to materialize and will be left out of the bill.

BTC, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was changing hands at $38,700 at press time and is roughly flat over the past 24 hours.

• “There are bullish and bearish catalysts on the horizon, but short-term risks are dominant,” Marcus Sotiriou, an analyst at GlobalBlock, said in an email to CoinDesk.

• Inflation remains among the top concerns for traders in both crypto and traditional markets. Bitcoin, often thought of as a hedge against inflation, is underperforming liquid assets like gold so far this year.

• The U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to begin raising rates on Wednesday as energy and food prices continue to soar. The consumer price index (CPI), the popular measure of inflation in the U.S., reached a four-decade high in February.

• Other popular cryptocurrencies like ether (ETH) and Solana’s SOL token are both down about 2% over the past 24 hours.