Description

The value of the global crypto­cur­rency mar­ket has reached $4tn for the first time, as investors anti­cip­ate bil­lions of Wall Street dol­lars flood­ing into the sec­tor after the pas­sage of land­mark US digital asset legis­la­tion.

The price of bit­coin hit a record high of more than $123,000 this week, while other tokens such as ether and Solana’s SOL also jumped.

The rally pushed the com­bined mar­ket value of all crypto­cur­ren­cies above $4tn yes­ter­day, accord­ing to digital asset data pro­vider CoinGecko.

The rises came amid a flurry of US legis­la­tion that con­sti­tuted “one of the most sig­ni­fic­ant moves” towards main­stream adop­tion of crypto, accord­ing to Mark Palmer, an ana­lyst at invest­ment bank The Bench­mark Com­pany. “Insti­tu­tional funds, which have been on the side­lines wait­ing for exactly this type of clar­ity, will flow into the space,” he said.

Con­gress on Thursday passed the socalled Genius Act, which reg­u­lates stable­coins pegged to sov­er­eign cur­ren­cies, typ­ic­ally the US dol­lar.

Sep­ar­ate rules over­see­ing digital asset mar­ket struc­ture and ban­ning cent­ral bank digital cur­ren­cies were also passed by the House of Rep­res­ent­at­ives, but still need to be voted on by the Sen­ate.

The industry has achieved a huge turn­around since 2022, when its value fell to about $800bn after the fail­ure of crypto exchange FTX. As the price of bit­coin dropped to about $16,000, many investors pulled out of the mar­kets, arguing that crypto was too risky.

The industry has since benefited from the enthu­si­astic sup­port of US Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump, who has launched or backed sev­eral tokens and appoin­ted crypto-friendly offi­cials in Wash­ing­ton.

Crypto investors pre­dict that the stable­coin legis­la­tion will pave the way for Wall Street banks, money man­agers and other com­pan­ies to invest in digital assets or cre­ate their own tokens. The heads of Bank of Amer­ica, Citi and JPMor­gan have sig­nalled that they will cre­ate their own stable­coins once the Genius Act is signed into law.

Trump is also pre­par­ing to sign an exec­ut­ive order that would open up the $9tn US retire­ment mar­ket to crypto and other altern­at­ive invest­ments.

However, crit­ics have warned that tying crypto closer to tra­di­tional fin­ance poses grave risks in the event of another mar­ket crash.

Demo­crat sen­ator Eliza­beth War­ren said that the Genius Act “lacks the basic safe­guards neces­sary to ensure that stable­coins don’t blow up our entire fin­an­cial sys­tem”.

1.cryptocurrency

词性：名词
释义：加密货币，一种通过密码学技术运行的数字货币，不依赖中央银行。
例句：Bitcoin is the most well-known cryptocurrency.
（比特币是最知名的加密货币。）

补充说明：它的特点是去中心化、匿名性强、基于区块链技术。

2. sovereign

词性：形容词 / 名词
作为形容词：主权的、独立自主的
作为名词：君主，元首（如国王或女王）

例句（形容词）：China is a sovereign country.
（中国是一个主权国家。）
例句（名词）：The sovereign addressed the nation.
（君主向全国发表讲话。）

常见搭配：sovereign debt（主权债务）、sovereign wealth fund（主权财富基金）

3. so-called

词性：形容词
释义：所谓的，用于表示某个名称或说法未必真实、带有怀疑或讽刺意味。
例句：These so-called experts don’t seem to know what they’re talking about.
（这些所谓的专家看起来并不懂他们在说什么。）

注意：带有轻微的贬义或质疑色彩。

4. pave the way for

词性：动词短语
释义：为……铺平道路；为……创造条件，多用于新政策、新趋势、科技突破等场景。
例句：The discovery paved the way for new treatments for cancer.
（这一发现为癌症新疗法铺平了道路。）