The long-term vision of XRP has often been debated within the crypto market, where price speculation and retail trading tend to dominate the narrative. The proponents of the asset argue that XRP’s core purpose extends beyond short-term market cycles. Instead, they view it as a key component of the emerging concept of the Internet of Value, and enable the seamless transfer of money and assets across global networks as easily as information moves across the internet. XRP’s long-term significance has never been rooted in retail speculation, but in its potential fit-in-purpose utility within an emerging Internet of Value infrastructure. Analyst Rob Cunningham has mentioned on X that the world markets advance toward regulated digital commodity venues, clearer token classification, and tokenized movement of value across interoperable rails. Thus, assets designed for fast settlement, liquidity bridging, and neutral transfer between networks become relevant. How The Internet Of Value Requires Interoperable Assets Cunningham noted that regulatory developments such as the Clarity Act framework are not designed as an XRP bill, and no law can guarantee XRP adoption. However, clearer market structure legislation could address one of its long-standing challenges in the US: legal ambiguity, which is an inference from the legislation’s structure and purpose, not a promise. Related Reading: Cardano Founder Shares What To Expect For XRP If The Clarity ACT Is Passed Analyst Cunningham frames this transition as the “shipping container moment” for finance, meaning the financial world is standardising the movement of value, similar to how it standardised the movement of goods. When this shift happens, the winners are rarely the loudest brands, but it’s the rails, standards, and protocols that reduce friction across the system. From this perspective, the growth of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) adoption signals a deeper transformation of truth, and settlement and ownership are being re-architected at the protocol level. Cunningham views this trend as a “sound-money renaissance” focused less on nostalgia and more on restoring transparent rules and reliable measurements for digital finance. Related Reading: Pundit Explains How XRP Becomes A Global Reserve Asset In that broader macro context, the debate around the Clarity Act reflects a decision about whether the US will lead the digital asset transition through clear legislation or allow innovation to remain in regulatory ambiguity. Meanwhile, the XRP implications become strongest in a world that requires neutral, fast, and interoperable value transfer under well-defined rules, where the macro-direction is increasingly favourable, as the regulated utility will ultimately matter more than the narrative cycle in the market. A Liquidity Shift Is Unfolding In The XRP Market A notable shift is emerging in the XRP market liquidity. Crypto commentator XFinanceBull revealed that the data from exchange heatmaps shows that Upbit has recently moved into the top position for XRP trading volume, surpassing major global platforms such as Binance and Coinbase. This development shows that market liquidity is positioning before the broader narratives become recognised. According to XFinanceBull, the surge in XRP activity on a South Korean exchange suggests that regional traders are betting on the network. Featured image from Freepik, chart from Tradingview.com
The firm used USDC on Ethereum and PayPal USD on Solana for insurance premium payments, testing how stablecoins could reshape settlements.
Coinbase launched regulated crypto futures trading to Coinbase Advanced users across 26 European countries through its MiFID-regulated entity.
Why did NYSE parent ICE choose to invest in and partner with crypto exchange OKX? What exactly is ICE trying to achieve here?
The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.
Coinbase Financial Markets will provide 24/7 access to over 20 futures contracts as the exchange expands its prime brokerage offering.
Ripple Prime institutional clients can now trade Coinbase's bitcoin, ether, solana and XRP futures in a regulated U.S. market.
The complaint centers on custody disclosures tied to bankruptcy risk, whether Coinbase listed tokens that could be securities and deficiencies in the company’s AML program.
Data shows the Bitcoin Coinbase Premium Gap spiked as the asset rallied toward $74,000, a potential sign that the platform’s institutional users were backing the run. Bitcoin’s Coinbase Premium Gap Shot Up To $61 During The Rally In a new thread on X, CryptoQuant community analyst Maartunn has talked about the latest BTC rally and what could be behind it. “Several data points show aggressive institutional demand driving the breakout,” noted Maartunn. One such metric is the Coinbase Premium Gap. Related Reading: Bitcoin Historically Bottoms Between These MVRV Levels—Where Are They Now? This indicator measures the difference between the Bitcoin price listed on Coinbase (USD pair) and that on Binance (USDT pair). The metric’s value essentially tells us about the difference in buying/selling behaviors on the two cryptocurrency exchanges. Coinbase hosts an American-centric traffic, with institutional entities being among its main customers, while Binance is used by traders from around the globe. As such, when the Coinbase Premium Gap is positive, it can be a sign that the US-based institutions are applying a higher buying pressure (or lower selling pressure) than the world users. Earlier, the indicator had a notable red value, suggesting that the asset was trading at a discount on Coinbase, but recently, it has seen a shift into positive. From the above chart, it’s visible that the Bitcoin Coinbase Premium Gap saw a sharp increase alongside the latest BTC price rally, implying that accumulation on Coinbase drove the asset to a higher value than the global market. At the peak of this surge in the positive territory, the indicator hit a value of $61. “That means BTC traded $61 higher on Coinbase vs other exchanges, a strong signal of U.S. institutional buying pressure entering the market,” explained the analyst. Another factor that points toward institutional involvement in the rally is Hyblock data. As is visible in the graph below, Hyblock shows a rise in Time-Weighted Average Price (TWAP) orders from the $10,000 to $1 million cohort. A TWAP order is a trading algorithm that divides a large order into smaller pieces, executing them at regular time intervals. “TWAP orders are typically used by large players accumulating without moving the market too aggressively,” said Maartunn. The $10,000 to $1 million cohort purchased $750 million worth of Bitcoin via such orders alongside the rally. Related Reading: Altseason Mentions Hit Extreme Lows: Is Dogecoin About To Benefit? While institutions have shown demand, the analyst has warned of a risk brewing below the surface: the increasing amount of leverage in derivatives markets. As displayed in the chart, the Open Interest, an indicator tracking the total amount of derivatives positions, has rapidly gone up for both Bitcoin and the altcoins. “If supportive bids slow down, overleveraged positioning can unwind quickly, increasing volatility,” noted Maartunn. BTC Price At the time of writing, Bitcoin is floating around $72,600, up nearly 6% in the last seven days. Featured image from Dall-E, chart from TradingView.com
Crypto-linked equities outpaced the broader market rally, with Gemini shares jumping about 34% and Coinbase climbing roughly 15%.
The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.
Crypto-related equities saw large gains at the Wednesday open, rebounding from Tuesday's selloff.
Tom Duff Gordon also called for regulators to allow rewards, adjust reserve requirements, and pursue international equivalence agreements.
BNY Mellon to act as administrator, transfer agent and cash custodian for Morgan Stanley’s proposed Bitcoin Trust.
The Cathie Wood-led firm bought around $4.09 million worth of Coinbase shares and $12.06 million in Robinhood shares.
Dimon argued stablecoin issuers paying interest should meet bank standards as talks continue in Washington about the CLARITY Act.
Last year, Coinbase relaunched the noncustodial Base App with social features like Creator Coins that have since been phased out.
The Bitcoin and Ethereum prices plunged sharply over the weekend as missiles flew across the Middle East, exposing just how quickly geopolitical crises can send shockwaves through the financial markets. A joint US and Israel strike on Iran triggered a violent selloff that wiped out billions of dollars from the crypto market in a matter of hours. Fresh reports now indicate that Bitcoin and Ethereum are beginning to recover. Still, with geopolitical tensions continuing to escalate, it remains uncertain whether this renewed momentum can be sustained. Bitcoin Price Recovers After US-Israel War Fueled Crash Geopolitical shockwaves rattled global financial markets this past weekend as a joint US and Israeli military operation against Iran sent Bitcoin into a sharp but brief decline, wiping out millions of dollars in long positions before a partial recovery took hold. Notably, BTC plummeted to nearly $63,000 overnight following the coordinated strikes on Iranian military targets. Related Reading: Bitcoin Has Officially Entered Bearish Territory, And It’s Headed To $35,000; Chart Shows Within 45 minutes of Israel launching its assault, Bitcoin shed $2,500 in value, while more than $200 million worth of long positions were liquidated in just one hour. The broader crypto market saw roughly $72 billion wiped out amid the chaos. The sell-off was swift and severe, with major exchange players including Binance, Coinbase, and trading firm Winternute offloading more than $3.5 billion in Bitcoin within a 20-minute window. This further added downward pressure to the already declining and volatile market. Despite the carnage, Bitcoin has since climbed back above $66,000, according to CoinMarketCap data, though volatility remains elevated as the Middle East conflict shows no signs of immediate resolution. Market analysts were quick to explain the technical reasons behind BTC’s price decline. One expert noted that Bitcoin did not crash for no reason. She explained that because it was the most accessible and highest volume asset that trades around the clock, it was significantly exposed to weekend fear and panic selling compared to other major asset classes. Ethereum Price Rebounds After Massive Sell-Off Ethereum also took a hit alongside Bitcoin following news of the US-Israel war. ETH dropped roughly 10% within just one hour of the news breaking, falling below $1,900 and erasing all the gains it had made when it briefly touched $2,000 last week. At its lowest point, Ethereum fell to around $1,850 before rebounding back above $1,950. Related Reading: Are Institutions Killing Bitcoin And Ethereum? Here’s How They’ve Fared Since Companies Got Involved Notably, the crash triggered sharp declines in Ethereum derivatives markets, with millions of dollars in liquidations. A large percentage of those liquidations came from long positions, suggesting that traders who had bet on Ethereum rising were hit the hardest. In the broader context, the Ethereum price was already experiencing a downturn, meaning the geopolitical shock had compounded an already painful downtrend for ETH holders. In addition to Ethereum, other altcoins, such as XRP, saw major sell-offs as geopolitical tensions rose. Featured image from Pixabay, chart from Tradingview.com
Ryan VanGrack says states are misrepresenting federal law as they move to block prediction markets.
The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency proposed rules that would govern stablecoins, including apparent limits on rewards that may affect Coinbase.
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (COIN) could be one of the biggest corporate beneficiaries of the United States’ first comprehensive crypto legislation, the GENIUS Act, which was signed into law in July 2025 and established a federal framework for stablecoin issuance and oversight. Coinbase Stablecoin Revenue Jumps 48% According to Bloomberg analysts Paul Gulberg and Samuel Radowitz, the new framework may significantly strengthen Coinbase’s fast-growing stablecoin business, particularly if adoption of dollar-backed tokens expands into mainstream payments. Related Reading: Bitcoin May Be In A Price Slump—But Adoption Is In A Bull Market In 2025, Coinbase generated an estimated $1.35 billion in revenue tied to stablecoins, a 48% increase from $911 million in 2024. That segment represented 19% of the company’s total annual revenue, underscoring how important stablecoins have become to the exchange’s overall business model. Unlike trading fees, which tend to rise and fall sharply alongside crypto market volatility, stablecoin-related income is derived from interest earned on reserves backing Circle’s USDC. Those reserves are primarily invested in US Treasuries and other low-risk instruments, producing yield. Coinbase receives a significant share of that interest income, making the business more predictable and generally higher margin than transaction-based revenue. The importance of this revenue stream became particularly evident in late 2025. During a period when Bitcoin (BTC) and broader crypto prices declined sharply, and Coinbase’s fourth-quarter revenue dropped 20%, income generated from stablecoins remained comparatively stable. Paul Gulberg and Samuel Radowitz argue that this consistency could become even more meaningful if regulatory clarity accelerates broader USDC adoption. GENIUS Act Expected To Accelerate USDC Growth The GENIUS Act is central to that outlook. By providing a national regulatory structure for stablecoin issuers, the legislation could remove barriers that have limited the use of USDC in areas such as cross-border payments and merchant settlements. If businesses and financial institutions adopt stablecoins more widely for real-world transactions, the overall supply of USDC could expand substantially. An increase in USDC circulation would require additional reserves to back those tokens, which in turn would generate more interest income from the underlying Treasury holdings. Because Coinbase shares in that yield, greater adoption directly translates into higher potential revenue. Bloomberg analysts estimate that under favorable conditions, Coinbase’s USDC-related revenue could grow by two to seven times its current level. Related Reading: Expert Forecasts $5 Trillions Pouring Into Crypto Post CLARITY Act Passage Yet, reaching the upper end of that projection depends on whether Coinbase can continue offering rewards to customers who hold USDC. If customer reward mechanisms remain in place, analysts believe USDC adoption could accelerate more rapidly. However, even if those programmes are limited or scaled back in the ongoing negotiations on the CLARITY Act, the clearer regulatory environment created by the GENIUS Act is still expected to support meaningful growth in stablecoin usage. At the time of writing, the exchange’s stock, trading under the ticker name COIN, surged towards $185 during Wednesday’s trading session, marking a 22% increase in the 24-hour time frame. Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com
Bitcoin has lost nearly 30% of its value since January. Yet Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is making the case that it remains one of the most powerful tools ordinary people have to fight rising prices. That gap between the pitch and the reality is hard to ignore. Related Reading: Bullish Signal? Coinbase Bitcoin Premium Turns Positive After Months In Red Armstrong laid out his argument in a post on X, and later repeated it at the World Liberty Forum, an event hosted by the family of US President Donald Trump. The logic is straightforward: inflation quietly destroys the purchasing power of cash. Wealthier people protect themselves by moving money into stocks, real estate, and Bitcoin. People without access to those same options get hit hardest and have no way out. Inflation is a regressive tax on the poorest people in society, since they only hold cash. Once people have wealth, they can afford and get access to inflation-resistant asset classes (stocks, bitcoin, real estate, etc). Expanding financial access and opportunities globally to… — Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) February 23, 2026 A Fair Point, Pushed Too Far? It is a legitimate observation. Economists have made similar arguments for years — that inflation acts like a hidden tax on those with the least. Armstrong is not wrong about the problem. The prescription, though, is harder to defend. Bitcoin does not move like a slow, grinding inflation rate. It can drop 20% in a single week. For someone with no financial cushion, that is not protection. That is exposure to a different kind of loss — one that can happen far faster than any inflation rate ever could. The volatility is not a minor detail. It is the central flaw in the argument. The Law That Could Shift Things The more grounded part of Armstrong’s message involves legislation. The CLARITY Act, currently being debated in Congress, aims to define how digital assets are regulated in the US — which agencies hold authority and under what conditions. US Senator Bernie Moreno said lawmakers are pushing to pass the bill by April. Armstrong, speaking at the forum, called a balanced version of the bill a potential win for crypto firms, banks, and consumers alike. Talks have focused on stablecoins and whether they can offer competitive yields without running into existing banking rules. Related Reading: Crypto Funds Bleed $4 Billion As Investors Step Back – Here’s Why Keeping Pace With China Armstrong also raised the stakes internationally. China is advancing a government-backed digital currency that pays interest. His message to US regulators was direct: fall behind on stablecoin policy, and America loses ground in a competition it should be leading. It is a real concern — even if his inflation argument leaves something to be desired. Featured image from Pixabay, chart from TradingView
Coinbase says Bitcoin’s near-term path may hinge on two price zones: roughly $82,000 on the upside and $60,000 on the downside. In a new X post outlining its BTC “practical playbook,” the exchange argues that combining structural support/resistance bands with options gamma exposure sharpens the trading map for whether BTC is more likely to mean-revert, break out, or accelerate lower. The core framework starts with Coinbase’s previously shared heatmap of “real supply and demand levels,” built by aggregating market structure pivot points and volume into price bands. In that setup, the densest support cluster sits near $60,000, while the first dense resistance band sits around $82,000. Coinbase describes those areas as zones where market interest has already been established and where “significant pools of resting liquidity typically gather.” Why Bitcoin Gamma Changes The Read This week’s addition is gamma exposure (GEX), which Coinbase frames as a way to map how options dealers’ hedging flows may either absorb volatility or amplify it. The firm calls the options market a “hidden liquidity provider” and says GEX helps investors decide whether conditions favor range trades or breakout trades. Related Reading: Bitcoin Nears Death Cross That Preceded Final Bear Market Legs Coinbase explains the mechanism in practical terms: when dealers are long gamma, their hedging tends to lean against price moves; when they are short gamma, hedging can reinforce the move. “In positive gamma regions, the dominant hedging behavior often looks like a shock absorber because if BTC rises, dealers sell spot (or sell futures) to stay hedged. If BTC falls, they buy to rebalance. That ‘sell strength / buy weakness’ pattern reduces realized volatility and increases the odds of consolidation and ‘pinning’ around nearby strike clusters.” It then contrasts that with the negative-gamma regime. “In negative gamma regions, the dominant hedging behavior can flip into a trend amplifier. Rising BTC prices force hedgers to buy more while falling prices force hedgers to sell more. That ‘buy strength / sell weakness’ loop can turn ordinary breaks into fast repricing and liquidation-style cascades.” After layering GEX onto its pivot map, Coinbase’s conclusion is straightforward but consequential. “$82k remains the first gate to unlock further upside, while $60k appears to be the shelf that must hold to prevent accelerated downside,” the post says. It ties that to a “pronounced negative gamma band” in the $60,000–$70,000 region and “meaningful positive gamma pockets” around $85,000 and $90,000. Related Reading: Bitcoin COT Data: Smart Money Goes Net Long With ‘Urgency’ That combination shapes the regime expectations. Coinbase says downside into $60,000 can accelerate because negative gamma may amplify selling pressure, while upside toward $90,000 may be more prone to grinding and pinning as positive gamma hedging dampens momentum. How Coinbase Frames The Setups The playbook’s scenario analysis reflects that asymmetry. Around $82,000, Coinbase treats first-touch rejection as a credible risk in a dense supply zone, especially without a clear macro catalyst. If BTC fails there, it says mean reversion becomes the higher-probability expression and warns breakout chasers can get trapped. By contrast, a clean break above $82,000 is not defined by a brief spike but by “acceptance” — reclaiming the level, holding it, and using it as support. Coinbase argues that would suggest supply has been absorbed and raise continuation odds into higher liquidity bands, while still acknowledging the positive gamma pocket above could increase chop risk. The $60,000 zone is framed even more carefully. Coinbase says it prefers long exposure only after a reclaim signal if BTC flushes into that area, rather than trying to catch the initial move lower, because negative gamma can make the path “violent and prone to overshooting.” If $60,000 fails and BTC cannot reclaim it, Coinbase says the break could mark another “regime change” where downside extends faster than discretionary dip buyers expect. At press time, Bitcoin traded at $65,026. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
The move pits Coinbase against Robinhood as it pushes to become an “everything exchange.”
Yahoo Finance will add “Trade [asset] on Coinbase” buttons to each asset page, Coinbase’s Mark Troianovski told The Block.
Bitcoin flipped a small but notable technical switch this week when the Coinbase premium moved back above zero, ending a run of negative readings that began after heavy selling on February 6. Related Reading: XRP Fell Nearly 70% — Could History Repeat With An 835% Surge? Coinbase Premium Flips Above Zero According to market data published on February 23, 2026, Bitcoin was trading around $66,150 on Binance futures at one point, showing a brief hourly uptick of 0.40%. Yet other spot indexes told a different slice of the story: CoinMarketCap listed BTC near $65,070 and flagged a roughly 3% drop for the day. Those gaps are normal: futures, spot feeds, and aggregate trackers can diverge. What matters here is the premium’s direction — it had been negative for much of February and then crossed into positive territory. Coinbase Bitcoin Premium has flipped positive for the first time since the Feb 6th bottom. It looks like institutions are done with selling for now. pic.twitter.com/rUYgxO2Fo8 — Ted (@TedPillows) February 23, 2026 Why Traders Care About The Premium Coinbase is widely used by big US buyers, so a positive premium is read by many traders as a hint that domestic spot demand is outpacing offshore pressure. But a flip above zero is only a starting signal. The size of the spread, how long it holds, and whether exchange inflows back up the move are the things that turn a signal into a trend. Small, short-lived flips can be caused by temporary liquidity differences or quick arbitrage trades. Larger, sustained spreads are the ones that tend to matter to portfolio managers. Geopolitics And Market Mood Market watchers are also pointing to broader factors. Rising tensions between the US and Iran, along with talk about tariff adjustments linked to US President Donald Trump, have driven investors toward safer assets in recent sessions. That mood has at times pushed BTC below important technical cushions near $65,000, and some sessions saw brief dips under $64,000 before a few calm windows allowed minor rebounds. When fear spikes, crypto often feels it first. Derivatives, Volume, And Technical Levels Futures activity on Binance and other platforms stayed busy, even if volume didn’t show the sort of surge that precedes big breakouts. Reports put daily trading volume near $45.71 billion while market cap sat close to $1.30 trillion. Funding rates, open interest, and exchange inflows are being monitored closely; each can either confirm or undercut the message from the Coinbase premium. A rising open interest that aligns with a growing premium would be more persuasive than a lone spread tick. Related Reading: Bitcoin Buying Spree Nears Century Mark, Saylor Hints Encouraging Signs A Coinbase premium turning positive offers a hopeful signal after weeks below zero, but it doesn’t confirm a sustained rally. Investors will be tracking how large the spread is, whether Coinbase sees significant inflows, and if funding rates and open interest support the move. Traders are likely to wait through the next sessions for clear signs before considering the market stabilized. Featured image from Gemini, chart from TradingView
President Trump’s proposed tariffs and U.S. tensions with Iran have weighed on broader risk sentiment.
The Bitcoin’s recent pullback may look concerning on the surface, but according to Brian Armstrong, the move has more to do with the market psychology than with any deterioration in fundamentals. After a period of strong performance, shifting sentiment and broader market uncertainty are playing a larger role in BTC’s price movement than structural weaknesses within the network or its long-term value proposition. Why Bitcoin’s Core Strengths Remain Intact A crypto expert known as Walter Bloomberg on X has revealed that the Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong believes Bitcoin’s recent slide is temporary and is driven primarily by market psychology rather than weakening fundamentals. Related Reading: Standard Chartered Lowers Bitcoin Forecast: Predicts Price Dive To $50,000 Before Rebound Speaking to the Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC) at the World Liberty Forum in Florida, Armstrong pushed back against the speculation linking the decline to potential Federal Reserve (Fed) leadership changes or emerging risks such as quantum computing. Instead, Armstrong explained that the move reflects investors locking in profits and reacting to what they believe others are thinking. He described the downturn as likely temporary, noting that Coinbase is repurchasing shares and buying more BTC at a lower price. Armstrong emphasized that crypto market cycles are normal, reiterating that BTC remains the best-performing asset of the past decade and that the company continues to focus on long-term growth. Is This The Early Stage Of Another Supply Shock? Bitcoin whales have accumulated more than 200,000 BTC despite the ongoing selling pressure. Analyst Darkfost highlighted that while whale inflows to exchanges have increased recently, their overall holdings have continued to grow. Thus, inflows typically reflect short-term behaviour and can generate immediate selling pressure. Related Reading: Bitcoin Whales Flood Binance As Correction Deepens: On-Chain Data Shows The chart below provides a medium-term perspective by tracking the evolution of the whale-held supply on a monthly average basis. After a sharp drop in this average to nearly -7% on December 15, whale behaviour appears to have shifted over the past month, with their holdings increasing by 3.4%. During this period, the BTC supply by whales grew from 2.9 million BTC to over 3.1 million BTC, representing an accumulation of more than 200,000 BTC. Meanwhile, the last time whale accumulation of this magnitude occurred was during the April 2025 market correction. At that time, this wave of accumulation had helped absorb selling pressure and supported the rally that pushed BTC from $76,000 to $126,000. However, with BTC still consolidating around 46% below its recent all-time high, the current level may be viewed as an attractive accumulation zone. Darkfost noted that it is not surprising to see some whales taking advantage of this opportunity. As selling pressure remains significant, this whale demand may not yet be sufficient on its own to fully counterbalance the broader market. Featured image from Pixabay, chart from Tradingview.com
XRP is attracting institutional money and a burst of bullish positioning, even as much of the crypto industry remains stuck in a risk-off tape. According to a CoinShares report, XRP is the best-performing crypto token this year, attracting around $150 million in fresh capital, while Bitcoin and Ethereum have registered cumulative outflows of around $1.5 billion. The […]
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Coinbase CEO Brain Armstrong said updated market structure legislation may offer banks other benefits to get them on board with allowing stablecoin rewards.