Bitcoin, ether, and most top traded tokens are slightly higher in markets trading mixed, but showing more gains than losses. Yesterday, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization dropped near $23,600 per token in the immediate aftermath of the latest report out of the U.S. Central Bank, which I had forgotten what's going to happen this week. That report noted slowing growth, which would normally be seen as bad news, but in our modern world of manipulated monitoring madness, it was seen by some as a boon for investors hoping for a faster return to a more supportive Federal Reserve monetary policy. That was the so called good news. While the bad news came in the form of more data suggesting that historically high levels of inflation, and the prospects of a harsh recession remain real, quote, everyone's wary of what's to come over the course of this year, Jake Boyle, chief commercial officer of crypto brokerage, Caleb and brown, told coindesk TV, continuing at this point, it looks like the stance has become more conservative on the basis that 25 basis points is less impactful than 50. But it's critical that we all remember that it's still going up, which means the solution is clearly not there. End quote, what all that means, of course, is that although the rate at which the U.S. Central Bank is raising the interest rate has slowed, it is still raising the interest rate, and it doesn't look like it's anywhere near done yet. He continued, paired with the regulatory uncertainty that the crypto space is seeming to have these days, it would be fair for us to make the assumption that there is going to be further volatility and unexpected announcements over the course of the year. And in that, peace likely not wrong. U.S. securities regulators in particular appear to be set on making 2023 of the year where they create no new rules, but seek to expand their existing authority to cover really almost anything in the world of crypto. We'll have just the latest examples of that in the headlines later. But I digress. Bitcoin's resurgence this year has convinced many analysts that the crypto bear market has ended, and the path of least resistance is to the higher side. But not everyone agrees with that. Longtime market observers at QCP capital suggest otherwise. According to the Singapore based crypto options trading giant, Bitcoin's 47% year to date rally looks like a so called bear breather within the broader slide that began in November of 2021, and the final leg of the bear market could soon resume. The analysis is based on Elliot wave theory introduced by Ralph Nelson Elliott back in 1938 in his book the wave principle. The theory assumes that asset price movements can be predicted by observing and identifying or repetitive wave pattern. Elliot found that market trends tend to unfold in 5 waves, in which waves won three and 5 R impulse waves representing the primary trend while waves two and four are retrace waves, representing a temporary breather to the preceding impulse waves. In QCP analysis, Bitcoin slide from November 2020 ones record high of $69,000 to the January 2022 low of 39,000 represents wave one, and the subsequent bounce up to 48,000 through March of 2022 represents wave two. A bear breather or temporary partial retrace of the preceding slide. The crash from 48,000 to the November 2022 lows of $15,480 per Bitcoin represents wave three, and our recent bounce so far this year constitutes wave four, a bear market breather, similar to wave two. Next up would be wave 5, which in QCP analysis could push the cryptocurrency down to the wave three low of $15,480 per token, if not deeper. But that's enough about that. Ether meanwhile is also trading up slightly this morning. Coin desk markets analyst Glenn Williams is noted that Bitcoin and ether have diverged on a different front with investors sending Bitcoin to exchanges and removing ether from them. The moves have signaled some bearish sentiment for Bitcoin and bullishness for ether. By departure from their usual correlation. And zooming out just a bit, other major cryptos were mixed this morning with Celsius native token, to his biggest loser, down more than 10%, while tokens from the polymath, neo and auger ecosystems are each down around 5%. Today's winners include tokens from the optimism, amp, urine finance, and engine ecosystems, which each are showing 15% or more gains on the day. Today's crypto coverage comes courtesy of coincidence markets analysts, James Rubin, I'm congratulating Sharia mala. Bitcoin is currently trading at $24,030 per token. That's essentially flat from yesterday up just 20 bucks per Bitcoin. While ether is trading at $1657 per eth. That's up one and a half percent at the same time period, according to the coin desk market index. And speaking of the coindesk market index, we're looking at an absolute reading this morning almost identical to yesterday, 1140, compared against yesterday's reading of 1134, which represents a little bit more than half a percentage gain across top traded tokens on the day. Now before we get to today's traditional markets update, let's take a quick look at some top headlines. First up, as promised during today's markets update, here's what looks like the latest example of regulators whose mission is supposedly to protect investors seeming to do the opposite. In a way that coincidentally maximizes their power reach and importance. A deal valued at more than a $1 billion by U.S. regulated exchange binance U.S. to purchase assets of defunct crypto lender Voyager has been opposed by New York and federal finance regulators, who said in a February 22nd filing that it could prove discriminatory and unlawful. What's more, the SEC says, elements of the proposed deal may also infringe the law given how the plan intends to repay voyagers former customers. Under the deal, quote, the transaction in crypto assets necessary to effectuate the rebalancing, the redistribution of such asset to account holders may violate the prohibition in section 5 of the securities act of 1933 against the unregistered offer sale or delivery after sale of securities. The filing by the Securities and Exchange Commission said, citing in particular the Voyager digital token issued by the Voyager company. It's a long way of saying that bankrupt Voyager, its creditors, interested buyers, and the legal system have come up with a way to lessen the damage and move towards making customers whose trust was betrayed, mostly whole. Within a U.S. regulated exchange entity in good standing. Except that the SEC and other U.S. regulators would prefer it didn't happen. They apparently don't want it to happen because they now claim, after the entity went broke and has made its way through a complex bankruptcy that one of the tokens involved is a security, or maybe a security. And because of that, can't be transferred without an explicit exemption from the regulators, and even then the only people who would be allowed to hold that token would be accredited investors, who, after initially receiving the securitized token, would not be allowed to transfer it except to another accredited investor, and even then, not until after a year has passed. You may be asking yourself, what does this actually have to do with the Voyager bankruptcy resolution? Well, not much, except that it'll make it worse, harder to accomplish and potentially kill the deal altogether for what appears to be a feather in the U.S. regulators cap. Unfortunately, this is becoming par for the course, quote, it is the debtors burden to present credible evidence that the provisions of the plan are feasible and not in violation of applicable law. The SEC said. Coin desk Jack schlier has more on this one. In related news, the everything is a security obsession continues with the latest lawsuit filed by the office of the New York State attorney general against crypto exchange coin X that happened yesterday, arguing that it is actually an unregistered securities broker, and commodity broker dealer under state law. New York State's top attorney alleges that koinex did not register as an exchange with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission or SEC, did not register as a broker dealer with the commodity future trading commission, or with New York regulators, prior to offering services in the state, the complaint said. And despite that, the company said it was an exchange on its website and offered services similar to those with national security exchanges or other similar