BNB was the biggest decliner during the past 24 hours, shedding 5.5 per cent to $224, and dropping 25.59 per cent on the week

Bitcoin edged up but continued to trade below $26,000 on Monday afternoon in Asia, while all other top non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies traded mixed, as investors prepare for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) crackdown on cryptocurrency exchanges.

Bitcoin added 0.21 per cent to $25,812 in 24 hours to 4 p.m. in Hong Kong, as per CoinMarketCap data. The coin has shed 3.82 per cent during the past seven days following the U.S. SEC’s lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase.

Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency, lost 0.97 per cent to $1,736, after declining 7.31 per cent over the last week.

BNB, the native token of world’s largest crypto exchange Binance, was the biggest decliner during the past 24 hours, shedding 5.5 per cent to $224, and dropping 25.59 per cent on the week. During the past week, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against Binance, its U.S. branch, and Changpeng Zhao with charges associated with securities breaches. Binance faces 13 charges in the lawsuit, including the unregistered offer and sale of the BNB and BUSD tokens and unregistered activity related to its Simple Earn and BNB Vault products and its staking program.

The Securities and Exchange Commission seems to have given no thought to the severe and cascading negative effect its actions may have on users and the sector, a Binance spokesperson said last week. We now join several other crypto projects facing similarly misguided actions from the Securities and Exchange Commission and we will strongly safeguard our business and the industry.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has also sued Coinbase, the biggest crypto exchange in the U.S., on similar charges.

We are in this environment of regulation by enforcement. I do not feel like there is a clear rulebook. The only high-level announcement they have made is that everything except Bitcoin is a security, (and) that is just not what it says in the law, and by the way, that would also kind of mean like the end of the crypto industry in the U.S, we have to go to court to contest that and we are proud to do it for the industry and for America, Coinbase’s co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong told The Wall Street Journal.

Cardano’s ADA and Polygon’s Matic were the biggest gainers during the past 24 hours. Cardano added 6.11 per cent to $0.2788, even though it shed 25.72 per cent on the week. Polygon rose 4.59 per cent to $0.6292 but dropped 29.13 per cent during the past seven days.

The total crypto market capitalization declined 0.25 per cent to $1.05 trillion and the total market volume dropped 21.12 per cent to $27.29 billion during the past 24 hours.