Investing.com - Cryptocurrency prices advanced on Monday, with most major virtual coins gaining more than 1%. Bitfinex received some attention after reports on the weekend said it obtained a banking partner in HSBC.
Bitcoin traded 0.3% higher to $6,604.6 at 12:40AM ET (04:40 GMT) on the Bitifinex exchange.
Ethereum gained 1.0% to $227.83 in the previous 24 hours.
XRP rose 2.9% to $0.48828 on the Poloniex exchange, while Litecoin inched up 0.3% at $58.194.
“Bitfinex is now banking with HSBC through a private account of Global Trading Solutions. Very good fit if you ask me. It’s also worth mentioning that all EUR, JPY and GBP deposits are paused but Bitfinex ‘expects the situation to normalize within a week’” said Larry Cermak, former editor at Diar and head analyst at The Block on Saturday.
HSBC is the first proper banking partner Bitfinex has obtained since Wells Fargo in 2017, according to reports.
In other news, exchange platform giant Coinbase is losing its vice president and head of institutional investments, Adam White, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. White has been with the company since it was founded in 2013.
The news came just one day after the San Francisco-based company hired Jonathan Kellner, former CEO of Instinet, as managing director of its institutional coverage division. Kellner is expected to take over most of White’s duties.
“While we’re extremely sad to see him go, we’re also confident in that group’s ability to keep executing on the vision that he laid out to be the most trusted venue for institutional investors to trade cryptocurrencies,” the Coinbase representative said in a statement emailed to Bloomberg.
Elsewhere, Spencer Bogart, partner at cryptocurrency and blockchain venture firm blockchain Capital, said the crypto markets is about to rebound from recent weaknesses. Bogart told CNBC in an interview that “bitcoin is close to bottoming.”