We checked the current data: during March, the value of BTC increased by 22.96 per cent. Accordingly, the first quarter of 2023 turned out to be very profitable for the first cryptocurrency.

On a whole quarterly basis, Bitcoin’s exchange rate rose by 69 per cent. The growth leader among the largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation was Solana SOL, whose value increased by 104 per cent.

Read more about setting up a wallet for Solana here. Well, this material will help to send SOL into stacking with the Ledger hardware wallet.

Why Bitcoin rose

Recall that Do Kwon was the founder of the Terra ecosystem, whose collapse in May 2022 caused billions of dollars in losses for customers and investors. Kwon had long been in hiding until he was tracked down in Serbia. He then ended up in Montenegro where he tried to board a flight to Dubai using fake documents from Costa Rica.

A request for his extradition has already been filed by the United States and South Korea. And as experts believe, the prospects for success in the case have more of South Korea, which looked for Kwon since the second half of 2022. In the end, even representatives of the local prosecutor's office visited Serbia in search of the former businessman, although they did not find him at the time.

Given the recent dynamics of the crypto market, Connors told Coindesk that BTC could still be considered a “safe haven for capital” amid the economic crisis. Moreover, even compared to other popular cryptocurrencies like Etherium, Bitcoin has become a better investment on a scale this month.

Over the past month, the value of BTC has risen by more than 20 per cent compared to gold, which is up about 8 per cent, as well as ten-year US Treasury bonds, which are down 4.3 per cent. Overall, the price of Bitcoin has repeatedly surpassed the $28,000 mark over the past two weeks and is now tentatively entrenched there.

There is still no clarity in the US banking sector – after the bankruptcy of several large banks, almost 200 other financial institutions of this profile also found themselves above the abyss of collapse. At the same time, the US is “tightening the screws” on the digital asset industry, and President Joe Biden’s administration is trying to control, but not kill, crypto.

As noted above, another major factor in Bitcoin’s rise has been the action against Terra founder Do Kwon and former CEO of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX Sam Bankman-Fried. The latter had pleaded not guilty again the day before to all charges brought against him in court.

Generally speaking, the case of former CEO of the bankrupt FTX exchange Sam Bankman-Friede appears to be a huge scope of work for the FBI. According to sources, there is so much data on Sam’s personal laptop that experts are unable to analyse it. We are talking about searching, retrieving and cataloguing all Bachmann-Friede messages from different messengers. This was announced the day before by Assistant Attorney Nicholas Roos at the US Department of Justice.

Due to the aforementioned difficulties, the Justice Department has not yet been able to initiate a third-party verification process, i.e. involving others who are not working directly on the case. This process determines whether the information obtained can be used in the case against Bankman-Fried.

According to CryptoSlate sources, the lawyer for the former FTX executive has expressed concern about how prosecutors will handle the data on the laptop. However, the lawyer’s fears also allegedly relate to the possibility of a witness who could testify to advance the case. That is, the problem is not just with the laptop itself.

The scale of the work of all those involved in the trial is staggering - so far the prosecutors have provided more than 6 million pages of material related to the investigation.

During another court hearing on 30 March, Sam Bankman-Fried also pleaded not guilty to all thirteen charges against him, including the recent charge of bribing Chinese officials. The full list of charges can be found in this story.

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The charges have been brought in three rounds, the latest of which relates to the possible bribery of Chinese officials to unfreeze the accounts of Sam’s trading firm Alameda Research. Prosecutors allege that local authorities froze Alameda Research’s accounts, which held about a billion dollars in crypto.

Sam ended up paying a $40 million bribe in advance to unfreeze the accounts, and Alameda used the funds to continue dubious investments and operations. Bankman-Fried and his associates are also accused of violating federal campaign finance laws by donating millions of dollars to political campaigns from corporate funds.

All in all, the long-awaited bull run of the various markets may be closer than it appears – even renowned trader Michael Bjurri has admitted this. He has long said that global markets are “too hot” and that an unprecedented collapse is likely to occur in the coming years.

Bjurri is famous for predicting the 2008 global economic crisis and capitalizing on it. His success story is the basis for the screenplay in The Down Game. However, since then, Michael has largely made false predictions, which also affected his reputation.

Be that as it may, on Thursday Michael reactivated his Twitter account, which he often deleted. Bury posted the following tweet.

I was wrong to say sell [assets].

Prior to this, on 31 January 2023, Bjurrie published a short tweet urging “Sell”, and shortly afterwards – when markets gave out a marked rise – he deleted his account. Since then, he has frequently activated and deleted the account to publish other financial forecasts, including those related to the US banking sector earlier this month.

When the US Federal Reserve announced the compensation of SVB depositors, Bury compared the situation to the 2008 global financial crisis. The next day he said that the banking crisis could “resolve itself very quickly” and that he saw “no real danger” in the market.


We believe that the problems in the banking sector were indeed a key reason for the increased demand for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. After all, they are not only decentralised, but also at least limited maximum supply and a fixed rate of inflation. And today, even that combination is enough to opt for such an asset, because conventional money is bound to depreciate under the current central bank policies.


Stay tuned for more news in our ex-millionaires cryptochat, so you don’t miss the most important stuff. There we discuss other important news that affects the blockchain and decentralised asset industry in one way or another.