March 1, 2022
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Bitcoin jumps 10% after US Treasury imposes new sanctions against Russian central bank 
The crypto market rose on Monday after the US Treasury Department imposed new sanctions against Russia’s central bank.
Bitcoin jumped 10.4% to $41,807.16, while ether rose 7.6% to $2,826.54. U.S. equities were down sharply earlier in the day before recovering a big chunk of their losses.
“In the past, there has been a strong correlation between traditional assets liquidating and drops in digital assets,” said Valkyrie Funds CEO Leah Wald. “However, we aren’t seeing that right now and the crucial test is to see whether this pattern holds. If it does, we could potentially be at the tipping point many have been waiting for, where bitcoin and other coins have perhaps become mainstream.”
The sanctions unveiled by the Biden administration would effectively prohibit Americans from doing business with the Russian central bank and freezes assets within the U.S.
The moves highlight the role crypto can have in military conflict. The young asset class has never had the opportunity to show its potential significance in that type of environment before, though its proponents have often emphasized it as part of their bull case for bitcoin.
Since Thursday, when the invasion by Russia began, transactions on centralized bitcoin exchanges in both the Russian ruble and the Ukrainian hryvnia surged to their highest levels in months, according to crypto data company Kaiko.
“Volume for both RUB and UAH trading pairs increased far more quickly than volume for other pairs, such as BTC-USD, which suggests the crisis is directly influencing trading behavior,” according to Kaiko.
Michael Rinko, venture associate at AscendEx, said $38,000 is the number to watch.
“This is one of the biggest accumulation phases,” he said. “You can tell the cost basis of every single holder. More people bought at $38,000 than at any other level above or below for a good margin. It’s a very key level because it could be support on way down but also resistance on way up.”
He also agreed that the conflict is highlighting the importance of the borderless and censorship-resistant qualities of bitcoin, but said it isn’t why cryptocurrencies outperformed the broader markets Monday.