Investing.com – Bitcoin prices gained on Wednesday, while reports that the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) has officially appointed its first senior advisor received some attention.
Bitcoin was trading at $7,588.1 by 1:13AM ET (05:13GMT) on the Bitfinex exchange, up 2.5% over the previous 24 hours.
Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, gained 3.6% to $600.1 on the Bitfinex exchange.
Ripple’s XRP token climbed 3.9% higher to $0.66677 on the Poloniex exchange.
Meanwhile, Litecoin added 3.5% to $120.55.
Valerie A. Szczepanik would assume the role as associate director of the division of corporation finance and senior advisor for digital assets and innovation of the SEC, according to a statement on Monday, which added that Szczepanik would be responsible for applications of US securities laws to “emerging” digital asset technologies such as initial coin offerings and cryptocurrencies.
“I am excited to take on this new role in support of the SEC’s efforts to address digital assets and innovation as it carries out its mission to facilitate capital formation, promote fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and protect investors, particularly Main Street investors,” Szczepanik said in the release.
Elsewhere, Hong Kong-based Bitfinex halted its service today due to a cyberattack, reports on Wednesday suggested.
“The previous outage was caused by issues with one of our infrastructure providers. While the platform was recovering, the attack caused extreme load on the servers,” the crypto exchange explained on its website.