Bitcoin soared above $30,000 - what's going on?

On Wednesday, Bitcoin experienced a surge of almost $2,000, reaching its highest point since April 15th.

EDX Markets' official launch enabled the expansion of Bitcoin (BTC).

At the present time, the cost of bitcoin on the Binance.US exchange has surpassed $138,000.

The Federal Reserve's chief referred to stablecoins as money and advocated for their regulation.

The SEC was named by Berenberg as having the following "victims".

The recent official launch of the new EDX Markets crypto exchange, backed by financial giants Citadel Securities, Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab, has had a positive impact on the bitcoin market. This is further bolstered by BlackRock's SEC application to launch a spot bitcoin ETF, filed last week.

EDX Markets follows a "non-custodial model" of operation. This means that the exchange will not keep customers' digital assets on its books during trading, but will instead entrust this responsibility to third-party custodians. This model is most in line with the regulations set by regulators and can draw in larger players to the crypto market who were previously hesitant to enter it.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) received an application from BlackRock to create a bitcoin ETF, and the market responded by increasing the trading volume of Grayscale Investments' GBTC bitcoin fund fivefold, to $80 million.

After BlackRock, WisdomTree, Invesco, and Bitwise - three large investment companies - submitted applications to launch a spot bitcoin ETF.

According to Nansen, in order for a bullish rally in bitcoin to occur, regulatory clarity in the US and a steady decrease in core inflation are necessary. Despite the shallow sell-off of BTC and the decrease in the implied volatility of the cryptocurrency, it appears that the majority of the regulatory and macro negative news has already been taken into account.

A Moody's report has warned that if the U.S. fails to take a bipartisan approach to regulating cryptocurrencies, it will become "less attractive to both firms and investors". Although both Republicans and Democrats agree on the importance of consumer protection, they have different views on the regulations for the digital asset market.

Jerome Powell, the head of the Federal Reserve, declared that payment stablecoins are to be treated as money, and thus the central bank of the nation is responsible for regulating their issuance. He further stated that "allowing an uncontrolled amount of private money to be created would be a grave mistake."

Investment bank Berengerg has suggested that stablecoins and DeFi projects could be the next targets for SEC prosecution. This follows the SEC's lawsuits against the largest exchanges, and could now extend to the issuers of the two largest stablecoins - Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC).

The US Department of Homeland Security has established a task force of five federal law enforcement agencies to combat cryptocrime. This new group will be responsible for investigating crimes related to cryptocurrency and the dark web.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) experts have declared that tokenization based on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) is the future of the global financial system, while cryptocurrencies are a misguided offshoot of this development.

At the Binance.US exchange, a division of the Binance crypto exchange for the US market, 62.22 BTC were sold in a matter of seconds, causing the price of bitcoin to exceed $138,000. This sudden jump was likely due to issues with regulators and a decrease in market share.