Here’s what happened in crypto today

Today in crypto, Bitcoin’s price action is raising concerns of possible market manipulation, according to Samson Mow, the US Senate has confirmed Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary, and FTX initiated its first round of creditor repayments and set May 30 as the next payment date, with an April 11 deadline for claim verification.Bitcoin’s price movement “looks very manufactured”Bitcoin’s price action is raising concerns of possible market manipulation as the cryptocurrency continues trading in a tight range despite billions of dollars in institutional inflows.Bitcoin has been range-bound for over two months, trading between the $92,400 support and $106,500 resistance since Dec. 18, 2024, Cointelegraph Markets Pro data shows.Bitcoin managed to briefly escape this range after US President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, when it briefly rose to the $109,000 all-time high before dropping back into its previous range.Bitcoin’s range-bound price action may be manufactured based on the trajectory of the past months, according to Samson Mow, CEO of Jan3 and founder of Pixelmatic.“It seems like it’s some sort of price suppression,” said Mow during a panel discussion at Consensus Hong Kong 2025, adding:“If you look at the price movement, we peak, and then we stay steady and chop sideways. And it’s good, you can say it’s consolidation, but it just looks very manufactured.”“The very tight range in which you’re trading just doesn’t look natural at all,” Mow added.Trump pick Lutnick in as commerce secretaryThe US Senate has confirmed Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary in a 52-45 vote, putting in place President Donald Trump’s pick to run the Department of Commerce.Lutnick immediately stepped down as the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, an investment firm with ties to Tether, a point that Senator Elizabeth Warren publicly pressed him on last month, questioning his “deep personal ties” to the major crypto stablecoin issuer.He’ll now head the nearly 47,000-employee-strong Commerce Department that has people in every US state and in over 86 countries who do everything from gathering business data, looking after patents, drumming up foreign investment, and even forecasting the weather.Lutnick said in December 2023 that he was a “fan” of crypto, particularly Bitcoin (BTC), pointing to Bitcoin’s halving cycles and lack of a centralized entity as two main reasons he sees value in holding it.FTX announces next repayment round for MayFTX has announced plans for upcoming repayments to creditors of the bankrupted crypto exchange after initiating its first round of reimbursements on Feb. 18.According to a Feb. 18 announcement, the next repayment distribution will take place on May 30, 2025 for holders of allowed claims of “Class 5 Customer Entitlement Claims and Class 6 General Unsecured Claims.” It includes customers who had assets on the platform when it collapsed and other creditors, such as vendors and trading partners.FTX’s next repayment round requires creditors to have verified claims by April 11 —the record date to qualify for distribution.According to Sunil Kavuri, an FTX creditor and advocate, the round of repayments that will start in May will include claims for a value above $50,000. These creditors will need to choose a distribution agent by April 11, Kavuri added.Under FTX’s recovery plan, 98% of creditors are expected to receive at least 118% of their claim value in cash. In May 2024, the exchange estimated the distribution’s total value to range between $14.5 billion and $16.3 billion.