Bitcoin gained 6% on Wednesday, breaking its five-day losing streak, as the cryptocurrency reached $29,000 for the first time in a week. Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, rose 4.5%. The moves up come as concerns over U.S. banking stability ramp up again, with shares of First Republic Bank dropping 50% on Tuesday after the San Francisco-based lender revealed that customers pulled more than $100 billion from their accounts last month. The slide stressed U.S. markets, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1% and tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 fell almost 2% on Tuesday.

Bitcoin's weekly chart

Joseph Seibert, who was head of digital assets at Signature Bank, and four members of his Signet team have joined Fortress Trust, a Nevada-based chartered trust company that specializes in cryptocurrency and Web3. Signature Bank, which was a crypto-friendly institution, was shut down in March after depositors withdrew large sums of money following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, another bank with crypto ties. Signet was a payments platform that was popular with Signature's institutional crypto customers.

Talos, a crypto trading platform for institutional investors, is working with Coinbase Prime to expand access to digital assets for customers of both firms. With rising demand from institutional investors for more secure and efficient trading platforms, the agreement offers Talos customers access to Coinbase Prime for spot liquidity and custody services, according to a press release. The pact will also give Coinbase Prime customers access to Talos’ trading and connectivity products.

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Two weeks after Etheruem's Shapella upgrade, the crypto options market is signaling a higher perceived risk of downside volatility in the smart-contract blockchain's native token, ether, than in market leader bitcoin.

On Tuesday, options tied to ether and bitcoin signaled a bias for puts, which are bearish bets that offer the purchaser protection against price slides. However, the demand for puts in the ether market was stronger than in the bitcoin market.

While ether's one-month bearish out-of-the-money puts traded at a five volatility points premium to bullish out-of-the-money calls, bitcoin's out-of-the-money puts traded at a three-point premium to calls, according to options 25-delta risk reversal data tracked by crypto derivatives analytics firm Block Scholes.

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– Omkar Godbole

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