Bitcoin price struggles to defend $21K as Coinbase faces new SEC wrath

cointelegraph.com:

Bitcoin (BTC) fell to $21,000 on July 26 after it emerged that major United States cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase was under investigation.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed a swift reversion to lower levels for BTC/USD as reports emerged of fresh legal problems for Coinbase over securities trading.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Bloomberg originally reported, was looking into whether the exchange had allowed users to trade unregistered securities.

Part of a wider battle between the U.S. crypto industry and regulators over compliance, the move appeared to frighten the market, coming amid parallel allegations that a former executive conducted insider trading.

Ironic the peak euphoric events of the Bull Market were Tesla buying #Bitcoin and Coinbase IPO'ing on the Stock Exchange Now in the last week Tesla has sold and Coinbase is under investigation by the SEC

With that, Bitcoin was back to defending $21,000 as support on the day, with commentator Mark Cullen stressing that the level must hold for bulls to stay in control.

“The 21k level for BTC is super critical for the bulls to hold if they have any hope of this regaining a bullish posture,” he told Twitter followers.

Trader Crypto Tony eyed a slightly lower level as a short-term floor, warning that a “drop deeper” was nonetheless a likely future outcome.

$BTC / $USD - Update $20,700 is my target on this drop, following my chart yesterday. Looking for at least another drop to that level, but i do think we drop deeper ‼️ pic.twitter.com/WXYUCWZm6O

For its part, Coinbase had been anything but passive in the U.S. regulatory debate, last week releasing a dedicated blog post on why the SEC should change course.

“If the Commission starts an open