Ether, the second largest crypto by market cap, behaved similarly, dropping from its previous support comfortably above $1,600 to about $1,546, a 6.6% decline from Wednesday same time, that was part of a wider market downswing. The drop-off after a five-week spike began after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong tweeted Wednesday that his firm had heard rumors the SEC wanted to ban retail investors from engaging in crypto staking, the income-generating technique at the core of running blockchains including Ethereum.
