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Centralized exchange Crypto.com has partnered with KG Inicis, South Korea’s largest payment gateway and value added network (VAN) provider, to offer crypto payment options to foreign visitors in Korea. Related Reading: Crypto-Linked Crime Jumps In Basque Country — But What Does It Mean For Traders? A New Korean Alliance Crypto.com announced today that this partnership with KG Inicis aims to “scale the digital asset payments ecosystem by enabling digital asset payments for foreign travelers”. This will be achieved by the creation of Crypto.com Pay, an app that will allow said travelers to spend digital assets on everyday goods and services at Korean merchants and K‑commerce platforms plugged into KG Inicis. https://t.co/vCNztATkNg is partnering with KG Inicis, the largest Payment Gateway and Value Added Network provider in South Korea, to enable digital asset payments for foreign travellers via https://t.co/vCNztATkNg Pay. Read more here: https://t.co/mcQ9Cifnce pic.twitter.com/zAsSMFRkO7 — Crypto.com (@cryptocom) March 17, 2026 Everyone Benefits This is not a minor feat for the Korean CEX. KG Inicis is Korea’s number one integrated payment platform, processing over 400 million transactions a year and commanding roughly 40% of the local payment gateway market, giving Crypto.com immediate access to large‑scale real‑world payment rails. The move reduces friction from foreign exchange (FX) fees and card charges for tourists by letting them pay directly in crypto, while merchants can still settle in either fiat or digital assets. Therefore, this deal is a win-win scenario for all the parts involved. The announcement also states that both companies “will also explore further business collaboration”, clarifying that these will be “subject to compliance with local regulations, including promotional activities, co-marketing opportunities, and the creation of new products and services”. Strategically, the Korean CEX is layering this on top of its broader South Korea push, which already includes regulatory registrations and a plan to roll out retail trading via its app. A Country On The Crypto Move As South Korea tightens oversight with an expanded Travel Rule and bank‑like expectations for exchanges, getting a regulated, domestic payment gateway on board with a deal like this is not a workaround, but rather a strong regulatory signal. Related Reading: Bitcoin Price Hits $74K As Geopolitical Tensions Spike, Is BTC Poised For a Fresh Leg Down? South Korea is positioning itself as a structured but pro‑innovation hub, moving toward spot Bitcoin ETFs and formal digital asset frameworks while stepping up enforcement against non‑compliant platforms. Embedding crypto into mainstream payment gateways like KG Inicis suggests regulators are more comfortable with token usage when it sits on top of existing, supervised financial infrastructure. For traders, this kind of real‑world integration tends to support the medium‑term thesis for large‑cap assets and payment‑focused tokens tied to the Crypto.com ecosystem, even if the immediate price impact is muted and dependent on tourist adoption metrics and Korea’s next regulatory steps. At the moment of writing, BTC’s price reaches $74k. Source: BTCUSD on Tradingview Cover image from Perplexity, BTCUSD chart from Tradingview

Mastercard is set to acquire stablecoin infrastructure firm BVNK in a deal worth up to around $1.8 billion, pushing deeper into crypto rails and 24/7 payments. Related Reading: Crypto-Linked Crime Jumps In Basque Country — But What Does It Mean For Traders? A Multi-Billion Crypto Purchase TradFi continues to demonstrate that they don’t want out of the crypto rails, and stablecoins appear to be the safest pathway they have found to adapt to the times. Bloomberg reported this Tuesday afternoon that the purchase of the London‑based fintech startup also includes $300 million in contingent payments. This deal follows four months of a failed $2 billion between BVNK and Coinbase Global Inc. This acquisition is Mastercard’s most recent push into tokenized bank deposits and stablecoins. In an April 2025 press release on its stablecoin strategy, Mastercard said it is “advancing the future of payments, finance and technology with new, global end‑to‑end stablecoin acceptance and payments capabilities,” positioning stablecoins as part of its core network rather than a side experiment. On March 11, Mastercard launched a global initiative that brought together “more than 85 industry leaders” in digital assets and payments, such as Binance, Crypto.com, Kraken, Paypal and Solana, to connect on‑chain innovation with existing payment rails. The Reign Of Stablecoins Stablecoins have become the dominant crypto use case for value transfer, with growing share of on‑chain volume versus speculative trading. A report from Plasma states that stablecoin transaction volume exceeded $33 trillion by late 2025, describing a shift from speculative trading towards utility and payment use cases, calling stablecoins “core financial infrastructure of DeFi”. Related Reading: Bitcoin Price Hits $74K As Geopolitical Tensions Spike, Is BTC Poised For a Fresh Leg Down? That explains why big payment networks and banks are racing to lock in stablecoin settlement rails to defend fees and relevance in cross‑border and B2B payments. As Bloomberg puts it, not only Mastercard but also Visa Inc. are “positioning themselves to remain the payment players of choice as emerging technologies become more prominent”. On a press release issued this past January 12, BNVK announced its partnership with Visa to bring stablecoin payments to the Visa Direct platform, as covered by our sister website Bitcoinist. Traders do well to remember that stablecoin‑centric tokens and payment/infrastructure names can gain narrative momentum as “crypto payments” flips from story to execution. The risk, however, is that since the integration, regulation, and execution timelines are slow, the trade in the near term is narrative‑driven rather than fundamentals‑driven. At the moment of writing, BTC’s price reaches the highs $73k. Source: BTCUSDT on Tradingview Cover image from Perplexity, BTCUSDT chart from Tradingview

The wallet sat quiet for almost two years. No trades, no movement — just billions of Shiba Inu tokens parked on-chain while the market did what it wanted. Then, on March 15, it all moved at once.   A Long Wait That Ended In The Red Blockchain data from Arkham Intelligence shows that a wallet identified as “0xbOe8” sent roughly 14.5 billion SHIB to crypto exchange OKX last Sunday. The tokens first moved to an intermediary wallet before landing in OKX’s hot wallet. When the dust settled, the investor recovered just $84,640 — a fraction of the $506,830 originally spent. The math is brutal. That works out to a loss of about $422,190, or 80% of the entire investment. For nearly two years, the wallet showed almost no activity. On-chain records indicate the only movements during that period were small spam transfers — nothing that looked like active trading or any attempt to cut losses early. The original purchase was made on Binance in March 2024, when SHIB was deep in a rally that pushed the token to a high of around $0.000045. Buyers at that level were betting the momentum would carry further. It didn’t. Bought At The Peak, Held Through The Drop Since that March 2024 high, SHIB has shed roughly 82% of its value. The token now trades around $0.0000063. At its lowest point this past February, the price had fallen to about $0.0000051 — an 85% drop from where this investor got in. Holding through that kind of decline takes either conviction or inertia. Based on the on-chain record, this wallet did nothing for close to two years. No partial sells, no rebalancing. The position just aged while the price eroded. When the wallet finally moved on Sunday, the token ended up at OKX — widely seen as a signal that a sale was imminent or already executed, given that hot wallets on exchanges are typically used for active trading. Related Reading: Another Bitcoin Buy Coming? Saylor Sparks Speculation With ‘Orange Dots’ Post The Flip Side Of The Same Coin Not every SHIB holder has a story like this one. Reports note that some early buyers turned small initial amounts into life-changing returns, though those cases largely belong to an earlier era of the token’s history. The meme coin launched in 2020, and its biggest gains came in 2021, when prices spiked by several thousand percent. Featured image from Pethelpful, chart from TradingView

BNB Chain is consolidating as a prominent platform for real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, offering low transaction fees and swift settlement to its substantial retail user base in one of crypto’s fastest-growing sectors. Related Reading: The End Of Ethereum’s Downtrend? Key Indicator Flashes First Bullish Signal Since September BNB Chain’s RWA Ecosystem Thrives Real-world assets have emerged as one of the fastest-growing sectors in the industry, providing investors with direct access to stocks, funds, and commodities through blockchain technology. According to RWA.xyz data, the sector’s total distributed asset value is currently $27 billion, an 8.5% increase over the past month and a 375% Year-over-Year (YoY) surge, with the BNB Chain quietly emerging as one of the leading networks in the sector. Notably, the network’s RWA ecosystem has exponentially grown since the start of 2025, from $3.6 million in January 2025 to $2 billion by December 2025. Crypto market intelligence firm Messari recently shared that BNB Chain’s total RWA value surged 228% Quarter-over-Quarter (QoQ) in Q4 2025, and 554.6% up YoY. By the end of Q4, BNB Chain ranked as the second-largest blockchain by total RWA value, surpassing Solana. Remarkably, it has grown another billion in value in Q1 2026, crossing the $3 billion mark for the first time last week. As of March 16, the network has $3.04 billion in distributed asset value, jumping 34.5% in the last 30 days and ranking only behind Ethereum. In addition, it is currently leading all chains on net flows, with $747 million over the past 30 days, $300 million ahead of Ethereum, and $450 million ahead of Solana. Last week, the network’s RWA ecosystem reached another significant milestone after surpassing 40,000 asset holders. Asset holders grew 360% Year-to-Date (YTD) from 8,700 to 40,946, indicating growing demand for on-chain exposure to traditional markets. Meanwhile, BNB Chain’s stablecoin holders are up 7.5% over the past month to 59.3 million, ranking second among all networks on this metric, only behind TRON. After having experienced a remarkable 121.4% growth in 2025, the network’s stablecoin market capitalization stands at approximately $14.2 billion. USYC, BUILD Lead RWA Landscape Circle’s interest-bearing stablecoin US Yield Coin (USYC) performance has driven most of BNB Chain’s RWA momentum. The token has overtaken BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) and become the largest tokenized US Treasury product, with $2.29 billion in supply. Last July, BNB Chain launched USYC on the network, accepting the token as off-exchange collateral for trading on Binance. By Q4, the network led in USYC’s global adoption, with over $900 million of its then-$1 billion supply on the BNB Chain. Now, the token accounts for 74% of the network’s RWA market share, with $1.91 billion of the supply on the network and a total value of $2.13 billion. Beyond Circle’s USYC, the BNB Chain has also seen other major developments on its RWA landscape. Notably, BlackRock’s BUIDL expanded to the network in November, offering exposure to tokenized US dollar yields. Related Reading: XRP Gearing Up For 1,300% Rally? Analyst Sets Bold $48 Target For Next Bull Run The fund, which is also accepted as off-exchange collateral for trading on Binance, ranks second in the network RWA ecosystem with a total value of $506 million, at the time of writing. Meanwhile, Franklin Templeton’s Benji Technology Platform, Matrixdock’s gold-backed XAUm, and Ondo Finance tokenized stocks have recorded strong performances, with a cumulative value of $394 million on the network. Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com

Michael Nadeau, founder of The DeFi Report, says he remains bullish on Hyperliquid over the long run, but argues the latest move in HYPE looks mistimed. In a post on X, he said the market is leaning too hard into the bullish narrative just as on-chain activity and positioning data begin to soften. Nadeau’s central point is not that Hyperliquid is broken. It is that the recent strength in HYPE may have outrun what the underlying data currently supports. “I’m a fan of both @Globalflows and HYPE, but think he’s early here,” Nadeau wrote. He added that HYPE had “been strong in the bear market (outperforming BTC) because of its token economics + the ‘TradFi/Oil futures’ narrative,” before arguing that “the reality is that Hyperliquid looks like a ‘risk-off’ chain, just like the rest of crypto.” Bullish Hyperliquid Long Term, But Not Now That distinction matters. Hyperliquid presents itself as a high-performance layer-1 built for a fully on-chain financial system, with on-chain order books for perpetuals and spot markets. Bulls have also focused on HYPE’s design: Hyperliquid says trading fees are directed to the community, while its assistance fund converts fees into HYPE and burns those tokens, and stakers can receive trading-fee discounts. In other words, when Nadeau mentions “token economics,” he is referring to the structural features that have made HYPE attractive even in a difficult market. Related Reading: Weiss Crypto Flags 3 Key Risks For Hyperliquid And HYPE He also briefly points to the “TradFi/Oil futures” narrative, which has become one of the more powerful stories around Hyperliquid in recent weeks. The platform’s pitch is that it can extend crypto’s 24/7 market structure into more traditional assets, and oil-linked perpetuals on Hyperliquid saw a burst of attention during the recent geopolitical shock around Iran, when traders used the venue to price crude outside normal exchange hours. That backdrop helped feed the idea that Hyperliquid was becoming a real-time macro trading venue rather than just another crypto chain. Nadeau’s pushback is that the numbers no longer line up neatly with that narrative. “Fees are down 56%. Volumes are down 55%. Open interest is down 44%. Bridged assets are down 32%,” he wrote, adding that there had been “very few inflows over the last 30 days.” These numbers are key. Fees and volume speak to how much actual trading is happening. Open interest tracks how much derivatives exposure is still outstanding. Bridged assets are a rough signal for how much capital is moving onto the network. He sharpened the point further by saying, “The reality is it’s the same 50k users on HYPE that we saw last year.” That is a blunt way of framing the concern: price may be running on narrative expansion while user growth and capital inflows remain comparatively flat. Related Reading: Hyperliquid Looks Like Solana At $20 Last Cycle, Daniel Cheung Says Nadeau then shifts from fundamentals to market structure. He says oil futures volume on Hyperliquid peaked on March 9 and has trended lower since, undercutting one of the main catalysts behind the move. At the same time, he argues HYPE is “locally overbought,” citing an RSI of 67 and says the token is running into resistance at its 50-week moving average, a longer-term technical level many chart watchers treat as an important trend line. His skepticism extends to PURR as well. PURR, now trading on Nasdaq as Hyperliquid Strategies Inc., describes itself as a digital-asset treasury company focused on accumulating HYPE and giving US and institutional investors exposure to the token. Nadeau called buying that vehicle in a “risk-off bear market” a “head-scratcher,” especially because, in his view, there is still little evidence that traditional finance is urgently chasing HYPE exposure. He noted that HYPE is up 93% since January 20, while PURR has gained 87% over the same period. The net result is a measured warning, not a bearish capitulation. Nadeau is still “bullish long term,” but for now he is “fading the recent action.” For traders, that leaves a clear takeaway: the long-term Hyperliquid thesis may still be intact, but in his view the short-term setup no longer offers an especially attractive entry. At press time, HYPE traded at $41.031. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

Circle, the firm behind the widely-used stablecoin USDC, has seen its stock, trading under the ticker CRCL, rise above $123 for the first time since October of last year.  This surge was accompanied by a new upgrade from Clear Street, which upgraded Circle’s stock from a “Hold” to a “Buy” and raised its price target from $92 to $136 in a research note released on Monday. USDC Adoption Soars Amid Increased Demand Since the beginning of February, adoption of Circle’s USDC stablecoin has increased significantly, indicating a growing interest from financial institutions and consumers in stablecoins.  This uptick contributed to a 7.5% jump in Circle’s stock price on Monday, currently trading at around $123 at the time of writing. Year-to-date, Circle shares have climbed 46%, reflecting a positive trend in the company’s performance. Related Reading: Bitcoin Price Hits $74K As Geopolitical Tensions Spike, Is BTC Poised For a Fresh Leg Down? Several factors appear to be fueling this rally. According to a recent report from Barron’s, the ongoing conflict in Iran has disrupted banking and exchanges in the Middle East, which may have contributed to the increasing use of USDC for remittances and cross-border transactions. Clear Street analyst Owen Lau noted that during this volatile period, the market capitalization of USDC continued to rise, suggesting that the demand was driven primarily by its practical utility rather than speculative investment. The report also highlights a growing trend where financial institutions are tokenizing funds—digitizing these assets to trade on blockchain networks. Although USDC is not the sole settlement currency for such platforms, its regulatory compliance and wide compatibility make it an attractive option.  Additionally, USDC is gaining traction in prediction markets, particularly with Polymarket’s anticipated expansion into the US, which could further boost demand as numerous trades in these markets are settled in USDC.  Regulatory Clarity Seen As Key Driver For Circle Another significant development that Circle investors are optimistic about is the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in facilitating transactions. As AI agents increasingly perform tasks like booking travel and executing contracts independently, the need for digital wallets capable of instant settlement will grow.  Circle’s Arc blockchain protocol is being designed to serve as an infrastructure to support these types of automated payments, further enhancing its utility in the financial ecosystem. Lau emphasized a critical distinction that investors often overlook: the performance of speculative crypto assets is not necessarily indicative of the adoption trajectory for payment stablecoins.  “A central misperception among investors is conflating the fortunes of speculative crypto assets with the adoption trajectory of payment stablecoins,” he stated. Related Reading: Analyst Predicts Dogecoin Price Will ‘Pump Hard’ Soon, Here’s Why The report asserts that regulatory clarity has the potential to drive even more institutional investment into digital assets. Currently, there is a debate within the banking sector and the crypto industry concerning whether the CLARITY Act should permit stablecoin holders to earn yields on their deposits.  With calls from President Trump for various stakeholders to reach a compromise, Clear Street anticipates that the CLARITY Act may pass before the summer ends, which could further contribute to the stock’s positive performance along with broader crypto prices. “Our conversations with institutional allocators consistently highlight regulatory uncertainty as the primary barrier to increasing crypto exposure,” Lau concluded.  Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com 

As the crypto market bounces, a key indicator has flashed a key bullish signal on the Ethereum (ETH) daily chart, suggesting the end of its six-month downtrend could be near. However, some analysts have warned investors of a possible bull trap and a subsequent reversal to new lows. Related Reading: WLFI Holders Face New 6-Month Lockup Rule To Gain Voting Power Ethereum Eyes Trend Reversal Ethereum kicked off the week by breaking above $2,200 for the first time in weeks, reaching a one-month high of $2,320 on Monday morning. The cryptocurrency has been trading between $1,825 and $2,150 since the early February crash, failing to break out of this range despite multiple attempts. Over the past week, the King of Altcoins has bounced 20% from last Sunday’s lows, printing seven consecutive green candles in the daily timeframe. Amid this performance, ETH has weekly closed above the $2,000-$2,150 area, setting the stage for a potential retest of the one-month resistance as support. Market observer MacroCRG affirmed that ETH is currently the strongest out of the big three: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. Notably, it has rallied over 9.7% and 14.5% in the weekly and daily timeframes, recording the strongest performance among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. In addition, it has moved above the 50-day Moving Average (MA) for the first time in 56 days and is back into the 12H Ichimoku Cloud for the first time in 55 days. Analyst Ali Martinez shared that another key indicator used to identify the current market trend had flashed its first bullish signal in six months, which “just signaled the end of the downtrend.” According to the X post, the SuperTrend indicator has flipped from Sell to Buy for the first time since September, highlighting the cryptocurrency’s price breakout and institutional demand. As he noted, in the last two instances in which the SuperTrend showed a Buy signal, Ethereum rallied 52% and 174%, with the latest move leading to its August all-time high (ATH) of $4,946. “We’ve survived the grind from September to March,” the analyst asserted. “The next key levels to watch are $2,400 and $2,600.” Breakout Or Bull Tap? Market watcher Ted Pillows also underscored ETH’s recent performance, asserting that now that $2,150 was reclaimed, “there’s not much resistance for Ethereum until the $2,400 zone.” However, he warned that the bullish momentum may be short-lived, suggesting a bull trap could be unfolding and a reversal toward its potential market bottom could follow the ongoing price move. “IMO, ETH could tap the $2,400 zone, as I have been saying for days, before a reversal to new lows,” the X post reads. Related Reading: XRP Gearing Up For 1,300% Rally? Analyst Sets Bold $48 Target For Next Bull Run The analyst explained that Ethereum has been trading sideways, consolidating between two key liquidity clusters: one around $2,200-$2,600 and another around $1,400-$1,700. He suggested that both liquidity clusters will be taken out in the near future. “First, Ethereum could rally towards the $2,400 level to wipe out late shorts. Then, ETH will start its reversal and hit new lows,” he cautioned. Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com

Alliance DAO co-founder Qiao Wang claims Zcash may be “the last possible 1000x in crypto.” His argument is not framed around a near-term catalyst, but around a long-duration macro and technology thesis in which privacy becomes the final major unresolved market gap in digital assets. Why Zcash Could Be The Last 1000x Posting on X on March 15, Wang wrote, “continue to believe that Zcash is the last possible 1000x in crypto. Gov overreach, money printing, rise in socialism, quantum. All massive multi-decade tailwinds.” He paired that with an investment posture that sounded more like a Bitcoin-style conviction trade than a tactical altcoin call: “as with btc, don’t trade it. Accumulate during periods of apathy and hold it for 10-20yrs.” continue to believe that zcash is the last possible 1000x in crypto. gov overreach, money printing, rise in socialism, quantum. all massive multi-decade tailwinds. as with btc, don’t trade it. accumulate during periods of apathy and hold it for 10-20yrs. — qw (@QwQiao) March 15, 2026 The core of Wang’s reasoning is scale. In a follow-up post, he argued that “there’s still lots of possible 10x’s and maybe 100x’s, but a 1000x requires an extraordinarily large tam.” In other words, the bar for that kind of return is not just technical novelty or strong narrative. It requires a market large enough to absorb a multi-decade re-rating. Related Reading: Arthur Hayes Bets On MSTR, Metaplanet And Zcash As Bitcoin Liquidity Turns That idea was quickly reinforced by others in the thread, most notably Helius Labs CEO Mert Mumtaz, who pointed back to a privacy thesis he published in November under the title, “The Last 1000x in Crypto: A Privacy Thesis.” His summary was blunt: “Bitcoin started with three problems: i) legitimacy, ii) programmability and scale, iii) privacy. Bitcoin solved i) by becoming a trillion dollar asset, Solana/Ethereum solved ii), and iii) is the last remaining piece.” Mumtaz’s broader argument is that crypto’s biggest order-of-magnitude gains historically came from solving foundational deficits in the original Bitcoin design. First came legitimacy, then programmability and scale. Privacy, in his view, is the remaining open branch. Related Reading: Zcash Foundation Investigation Closed: SEC Decision Sparks 12% Jump In ZEC Price He wrote that “improvements will continue to happen on this programmability/scale branch and the Bitcoin branch, but I’m not sure we’ll see another 1,000x improvement. That is to say, I think future improvements are marginal, not order of magnitude in scale.” By contrast, he argued, “the privacy branch is the last thing remaining for asymmetric upside.” Why Zcash rather than privacy tech in the abstract? That part of the conversation turned less on code and more on credibility. Awa Sun Yin, co-founder of Anoma and a board member at Shielded Labs, recounted a rumor that circulated “in the trenches” late last year: that someone influential enough to get a meeting with the US president had been moving through political circles arguing that Bitcoin and crypto lacked privacy because “holdings and balances were visible to everyone – and seizable,” and recommending Zcash instead. Awa said the key point was not whether the story was true. “What’s relevant is that when you read or hear this story, you have an easy time believing it,” Awa wrote. “Whereas the story wouldn’t be believable if the person were recommending Monero or any other privacy coin instead of Zcash.” At press time, Zcash traded at $231.59. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

The Ertzaintza (Basque Country police) says crypto is now present in a growing share of tech‑enabled crimes in Euskadi. More Than 500 Crypto Crimes In A Small Region In a report from last Monday, northern Spain’s Ertzaintza stated that they logged 541 crypto‑linked complaints in 2025, all of them undergoing investigation right now. The cases include 13 investigations into alleged fraud offenses and multiple other money laundering, embezzlement, fraud, scams and asset concealment related offenses, with crypto mainly as a rail to move or hide funds rather than the only target. Related Reading: Bitcoin Price Hits $74K As Geopolitical Tensions Spike, Is BTC Poised For a Fresh Leg Down? A Growing Trend The Basque Country situation is not an outlier, but rather a micro‑case of a broader European pattern of growing cases of cryptocurrency-related crimes. The European’s Union Police Agency (Europol) has called crypto‑enabled fraud and laundering a “significant burden” for law enforcement, with Spain regularly cited in large pan‑European operations. Spain has recently carried various operations dismantling multi‑million‑euro pyramid schemes and cross‑border laundering networks that used bitcoin and other coins to wash funds for thousands of victims. The 2026 Crypto Crime Report by blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs estimated that illicit wallets received 158 billion dollars in 2025, up 145% year‑on‑year, yet that was only ~1.2% of total crypto transaction volume and a smaller share than in 2023, as reported by our sister website Bitcoinist. A Country Of Extreme Crypto Surveillance Spain is widely known in the crypto community as one of the countries with the thighter and most asphixiating regulations for crypto. Since 2021, CEXs like Binance and Coinbase are forced to share customer information with the Spanish Government under the Law on Measures to Prevent and Combat Tax Fraud. On top of the already strict reporting rules for foreign-held assets and harsh penalties for mistakes, lawmakers are now backing a proposal that would move crypto gains into the general income tax base, exposing high earners to rates of up to 47% on their digital asset profits. Related Reading: Bitcoin And US Election Cycles: An Age-Long Romance That Says $400,000 Is Possible What This Means For Traders Markets tend to price in regulatory and enforcement risk: short‑term headline spikes rarely change bitcoin’s long‑term trend by themselves, but harsher tax and AML moves in key jurisdictions like Spain can hit liquidity and local volumes. For traders, increased enforcement in places like the Basque Country means more KYC friction but also cleaner counterparties and a stronger institutional case over time. With scams clustering around promises of outsized yield, serious market participants should treat police warnings as a sentiment signal, not an existential threat to the asset class. BTC’s price trends to the upside on the daily chart. Source: BTCUSD on Tradingview Cover image from Perplexity, BTCUSD chart from Tradingview

The Bitcoin and Ethereum prices continue to struggle, with BTC dropping to as low as $70,000 over the weekend. This comes as tensions between the U.S. and Iran continue to escalate, with no sign of a ceasefire happening anytime soon.  Bitcoin and Ethereum Prices Struggle as Iran War Drags On Bitcoin and Ethereum prices remain under pressure as the war in Iran enters its third week. Tensions escalated over the weekend with attacks on the U.S. embassy in Iraq, according to a Fortune report. The U.S. embassy had indicated that these attacks were carried out by Iran-aligned terrorist ‌militia groups.  Related Reading: Bitcoin Crash Far From Over? Analyst Shares How Painful Bear Markets Can Get Notably, the attacks on the U.S. embassy came amid America’s airstrikes on Iran’s Kharg Island, a key oil terminal for the country. The Bitcoin and Ethereum prices notably fell following the U.S. strikes on the Island. The strikes sparked concerns that it could further drive oil prices higher, which is bearish for BTC and ETH.  Brent crude oil futures have already risen to as high as $106 today, according to TradingView data, in response to U.S. strikes on Kharg Island. Oil prices could also continue to rise as the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil chokepoint, remains effectively closed. About 20% of the global oil supply passes through the Strait, which is why its closure could spark a massive supply shock and lead to new highs.  Market analyst XWIN Research warned that Bitcoin could face significant outflows if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, which would put pressure on not just BTC but the Ethereum price and other crypto assets. In an interview on ABC’s ‘This Week,’ U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright warned that there are no guarantees that oil prices would fall in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, the Bitcoin and Ethereum prices are also facing pressure, with the Fed unlikely to cut interest rates at this week’s FOMC meeting. There are also concerns that the FOMC could further delay in cutting rates due to the rising oil prices, which threaten to drive inflation higher.   Peter Brandt Predicts That A Rally May Be On The Cards Veteran trader Peter Brandt has suggested that Bitcoin could see a relief rally even amid the U.S.-Iran war. In an X post, he shared an accompanying chart showing BTC could reach as high as $88,000. BTC and the Ethereum prices may already be seeing this relief rally, with these crypto assets up over 3% and 7%, respectively, today.  Related Reading: Ethereum Topples Bitcoin By 3x In Major Metric, But Can Price Still Reclaim $5,000? Crypto analyst Julio Moreno had earlier warned that the crypto market is still in a bear market despite any potential relief rallies for the Bitcoin and Ethereum prices. Expert Benjamin Cowen echoed a similar sentiment, noting that BTC often spends more time going up than down. He added that when the flagship crypto goes down, it goes down very quickly, sets a low, and then trends up for a week before going lower. Featured image from Pixabay, chart from Tradingview.com

A $5 million staking threshold that grants select investors direct contact with World Liberty Financial’s leadership team is drawing attention as the Trump-backed crypto project reshapes how power flows inside its governance structure. Related Reading: XRP Faces Systematic Rigging, Major Holder Says The new rule is part of a broader proposal that passed with overwhelming support last Friday, setting the stage for big changes in how decisions get made at the project. Token Lock-Up Rule Takes Effect WLFI token holders who want voting rights will now need to lock up their holdings for 180 days. The proposal closed with 99.12% approval from 1,800 votes cast. But the numbers tell a more complicated story — more than 76% of those tokens came from just 10 users, raising questions about how broadly the vote actually represented the project’s community. A 2% annual yield is offered to stakers who participate in at least two governance votes during the lock-up window. Those who already have tokens locked are not affected and may continue voting without interruption. WLFI said the change is meant to ensure that only investors committed to the project’s future can weigh in on its direction. The six-month requirement is framed as a filter for serious, long-term participants rather than short-term speculators. Big Stakes Come With Big Perks Investors willing to stake 50 million WLFI tokens — valued at roughly $5 million — are being offered something beyond yield: direct access to WLFI’s executive and business development team. WLFI spokesman David Wachsman told Reuters that the access point is the business development team and company executives, not individual founders, and that it stops short of guaranteeing any formal partnership. Still, the tiered structure creates a clear divide between everyday token holders and those with deeper pockets. The project’s leadership roster includes some well-known names. Eric Trump and Barron Trump are listed as co-founders in the WLFI Gold Paper, alongside Zach and Alex Witkoff, sons of Steven Witkoff. Zach Witkoff serves as CEO. Bank Charter Bid Still Pending Beyond governance, WLFI has broader ambitions in the financial sector. The project applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in January for a national trust bank charter tied to its stablecoin, USD1, and is still waiting for a ruling. The stablecoin is central to WLFI’s goal of supporting decentralized finance applications and other projects aligned with preserving the US dollar’s global standing. Related Reading: Strategy’s Bitcoin Bet Now $3.35 Billion In The Red As Saylor Tells Investors To Wait CEO Zach Witkoff has floated plans to expand into asset tokenization, with real estate and oil and gas among the areas being explored. Reports also indicate the project is weighing the creation of a publicly traded company to hold its WLFI tokens. Six governance snapshot votes have been completed so far, covering issues from making the token tradable to expanding USD1’s reach. This latest proposal marks a shift toward tightening who gets a seat at the table going forward. Featured image from JrKripto, chart from TradingView

The crypto market’s fear gauge hit 15 — deep inside “Extreme Fear” territory — yet the biggest Bitcoin holders quietly moved in the opposite direction. Related Reading: Strategy’s Bitcoin Bet Now $3.35 Billion In The Red As Saylor Tells Investors To Wait Whale Wallets Grow Their Share Of Total Bitcoin Supply According to crypto analytics platform Santiment, wallets holding between 10 and 10,000 BTC increased their collective share of total supply to 68% last week, up from 68% seven days prior. Whales were not buying blindly. Santiment disclosed the accumulation happened as Bitcoin held steady around $71,000 — a price level that large holders appear to have treated as an entry point worth acting on. While that shift may look small on paper, Santiment flagged it as a meaningful directional change after weeks of selling pressure. Bitcoin was trading around $71,470 at the time of the report, up about 6% over the prior week. Source: Santiment The timing stands out. Just over a week earlier, whale behavior told a very different story. Reports indicate that in the two days leading up to March 6, large wallet holders had offloaded 65% of the Bitcoin they accumulated between February 23 and March 3 — a mass exit that coincided with Bitcoin briefly touching $74,000 before pulling back. A Bottom Signal That Depends On What Retail Does Next Santiment says the renewed accumulation by large holders is encouraging, but the picture isn’t complete yet. What analysts are watching now is whether everyday investors — those with smaller wallets — start trimming their holdings. Data shows that historically, Bitcoin has tended to hit its floor not when big money walks away, but when ordinary buyers give up and sell. “Markets rarely reward the majority consensus immediately,” Santiment said in its weekly report. If retail participation stays elevated or keeps climbing, analysts say that could signal more downside ahead rather than a recovery. That caution is reinforced by on-chain analyst Willy Woo, who recently said Bitcoin remains “solidly in the middle of its bear market” when viewed through a long-range liquidity lens — a read that cuts against any near-term optimism. Related Reading: Bitcoin Climbs Back To $73,000 As Short Squeeze Wipes Out $246M In Futures Bets ETF Inflows Offer A Counterpoint To Bearish Sentiment Not everything in the market is pointing down. US spot Bitcoin ETFs posted their first five-day inflow streak of 2026, pulling in roughly $767 million across the week. That kind of sustained institutional interest is harder to dismiss, and it adds a layer of complexity to what is otherwise a cloudy short-term outlook. Whether whale accumulation marks the start of a sustained recovery or just a brief pause in a longer slide will likely depend on how retail investors behave in the days ahead. Santiment says it wants to see small wallet holdings decline while large wallet positions continue rising — the classic pattern of coins moving from uncertain hands into more committed ones. For now, that shift has started. Whether it holds is another question. Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView

Decentralized exchange (DEX) Hyperliquid (HYPE) is experiencing a notable surge in its key metrics, positioning itself as a preferred trading platform amid rising tensions in Iran.  This increased activity has propelled HYPE to outperform the market’s leading cryptocurrencies, boasting a major 23% gain over the past week. However, market analyst Ali Martinez has indicated that HYPE investors may soon encounter a new buying opportunity.  New Sell Signal For Hyperliquid The analyst highlighted that on March 8, the TD Sequential had signaled a buying opportunity for HYPE, which was subsequently confirmed as the token experienced a price increase of 28.23%, rising from approximately $30 to a high near $38.53. However, as of March 13, the same indicator is now flashing a sell signal, prompting Martinez to caution that increasing selling pressure could lead to a short-term retracement to around $34.  Related Reading: Hyperliquid (HYPE) Under The Lens: These 3 Metrics Point To Severe Undervaluation Currently trading at $36.37, this would represent a decline of approximately 6.5%, in addition to a recent 2.5% pullback observed over the last 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.  For Martinez, this potential pullback may serve as a strategic buying opportunity before the expected upward momentum resumes. Ambitious Projections For HYPE Adding to the altcoin’s bullish outlook, research firm DCo released a new valuation framework for HYPE. They modeled four scenarios based on the potential market capture of the $1.74 trillion daily Total Addressable Market (TAM) that Hyperliquid could attain through its HIP-3 protocol.  Utilizing a three-year discounted cash flow (DCF) framework, each scenario assumes a gradual capture rate: 20% in Year 1 (2026), 50% in Year 2 (2027), and 100% by Year 3 (2028), reflecting the gradual process of building market share. In a bear case scenario, where Hyperliquid captures just 0.01% of the market, HIP-3 could generate $32 million in annual fees at full ramp-up based on the conversion-adjusted TAM.  When combined with baseline revenue projected at $1.35 billion and considering the terminal value from Year 3 total revenue, the DCF results in an estimated enterprise value of approximately $18 billion, which could result in HYPE reaching a new record of $60 per token.  Under the base case of 0.10% market capture, Year 3 revenue from HIP-3 would climb to roughly $322 million, resulting in a total revenue of about $1.7 billion and an enterprise value nearing $22 billion. This would imply a token price around $72. $190 In Most Optimistic Case  In the bullish scenario, with a 0.50% capture, the Year 3 HIP-3 fees would reach $1.6 billion, contributing to a total revenue of $3.0 billion. This would yield an enterprise value of $38 billion, corresponding to an implied price of about $124, representing a fully diluted valuation of around $124 billion.  The most optimistic case, positioned at a 1.00% capture, projects total Year 3 revenue of $4.6 billion, with an enterprise value of $59 billion and HYPE potentially valued at $190. Related Reading: Bitcoin Historically Surges 54% On Average Post-US Midterm Elections, Binance DCo’s analysis reveals that, even at a default 20% discount and 20x multiple, the current price of $37 is considerably lower than the bear case valuation of $60.  This suggests that the market has not fully appreciated the potential contributions from HIP-3 and is undervaluing the inherent value of Hyperliquid’s crypto exchange business. Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com 

As XRP anticipates a potential rally toward a key short-term resistance level, an analyst has set a bold target for the cryptocurrency’s long-term performance, suggesting that the altcoin could soar by over 1,300% during the next bull run. Related Reading: Ethereum Eyes $2,100 Retest As BlackRock Debuts Staked ETH ETF XRP Targets $48 In Next Bull Run On Friday, XRP joined the broader market rebound, experiencing a 3.5% surge and reaching a one-week high of $1.45. Over the past month, the cryptocurrency has been oscillating between $1.20 and $1.50, hovering above the upper area of this range. Amid this performance, analyst Ali Martinez shared a bold prediction for XRP’s price in the next bull run, suggesting a massive rally could unfold in the coming years based on a multi-year pattern. According to the chart, the altcoin has been forming an ascending triangle pattern on the monthly chart since 2018, when it rallied around 1,500% over two months to its old all-time high (ATH). XRP has traded between the $3.30 horizontal resistance and the ascending trendline over the past eight years, marking the bottom and peak of each rally during the last two cycles. The analyst suggested the altcoin could continue to move within this pattern until the next bull run and potentially rally 1,350% to the $48 target once it breaks through the multi-year resistance. Similarly, market observer Chard Nerd shared XRP’s macro chart but highlighted a potential retest of a resistance-turned-support instead. He noted that the cryptocurrency broke out of a multi-year symmetrical triangle pattern when the price soared past its eight-year resistance during the Q4 2024 market rally. Per the post, XRP could test the pattern’s neckline, currently around the $0.70-$0.80 area, as support in the coming months before beginning to recover from the bear market lows. Is A March-April Rally Brewing? In a Friday video analysis, Chart Nerd also shared a short-term outlook for XRP, highlighting its attempt to break out of a one-month symmetrical triangle on the daily timeframe after today’s pump. As he explained, the altcoin’s price has been compressing between a major level of resistance and a major level of ascending support over the past five weeks, which could target a 25% rally in the next few weeks as it approaches the tighter range of its apex. The apex does have a date (…) we’re looking towards the end of March, 25th of March, where XRP could, if it rejects from this $1.42-$1.43 level, (…) get really tight and compressed into a corner to look for a decision. The analyst suggested that the pattern’s upper boundary has been a major level of resistance throughout February, which could squeeze XRP’s price “into this apex towards the end of March” before potentially choosing its next direction. Related Reading: Bitcoin ‘Sandwiched’ Between Two Key Zones As Price Tops $71,000 – Major Move Ahead? If XRP breaks out of this apex to the upside and reclaims the $1.50 horizontal resistance, it will validate a move toward the $1.80-$2.00 area, which he previously called “a critical inflection point,” by the end of March or start of April. Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com

Goldman Sachs has quietly built one of the largest known institutional positions in XRP, holding close to $154 million through various exchange-traded fund products — a figure that places the Wall Street giant ahead of hedge funds and trading firms that have also begun staking out exposure to the digital asset. Related Reading: Ghana’s Crypto Push Begins As 11 Companies Enter SEC Sandbox Institutions Move In As Retail Pulls Coins Off Exchanges The Goldman position was disclosed alongside smaller holdings from Millennium Management, which reported about $23 million in XRP ETF exposure, and Citadel Advisors, which holds roughly $4.50 million. Companies including Jane Street and DRW Trading Group also reported positions. The breadth of names involved points to growing institutional acceptance of XRP as a regulated investment vehicle, even as the coin’s price has declined sharply since the funds launched. The XRP ETFs have actually held up pretty well despite the massive pullback in price. They’ve taken in a cumulative $1.4 billion since launch. pic.twitter.com/Bjtmb0y40D — James Seyffart (@JSeyff) March 10, 2026 XRP was trading near $2.50 when spot ETFs began trading in November 2025. It has since dropped to around $1.38 — a fall of 44%. Despite that slide, cumulative inflows into XRP ETFs have reached $1.4 billion, according to Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart. The continued buying has raised questions about who exactly is behind the money flowing in and what their time horizon looks like. On-chain data from CryptoQuant shows a spike in XRP withdrawals from Binance. Between February 21 and March 7, the exchange recorded between 12,500 and 20,000 withdrawal transactions. Each surge was followed by a sharp drop in activity before picking back up again — a pattern analysts say may reflect investors moving coins off trading platforms and into longer-term storage. Supply On Exchanges Tightens As ETF Demand Holds Steady When large amounts of any asset are pulled from exchanges, the pool of coins available for immediate trading shrinks. Combined with steady ETF inflows, some market observers see the trend as a signal that available supply is being absorbed from multiple directions at once. Whether that dynamic will push prices higher remains to be seen. XRP has been consolidating between $1.31 and $1.42. Broader crypto market sentiment has stayed bearish, and analysts say that is likely keeping a lid on any near-term price movement. Related Reading: Bitcoin Crosses 20 Million Coins Mined — And Only 1 In 20 Remains Away from price action, activity on the XRP Ledger has been climbing. Daily transactions on the network have reached roughly 2.7 million, driven in part by real-world asset tokenization projects building on the chain. The total value of tokenized assets on the network has approached $461 million. Network Activity Climbs Even As Price Stays Flat The contrast between rising network usage and a stagnant price has been a recurring theme for XRP. Supporters point to the on-chain growth as evidence of real utility developing beneath the surface. Critics note that activity metrics and price do not always move in the same direction, at least not right away. Featured image from Vecteezy, chart from TradingView

US president Donald Trump is gearing up to host his second memecoin-holder exclusive event at his Mar-a-Lago state in Florida on April 25. Another Edition Of The Memecoin Black-Tie Gala Following the same pattern as his now famously May 22 “gala dinner”, that required roughly $148 million in cumulative token holdings for entry, $TRUMP saw a spike of as much as 10%, surpassing the $3 threshold hours after the team’s announcement of the event. SATURDAY, APRIL 25 AT MAR-A-LAGO! The Most Exclusive Crypto and Business Conference in the World & Gala Luncheon with PRESIDENT TRUMP and 18 other SUPERSTARS. Strictly Limited to only 297 attendees. Are You In? Register Here: https://t.co/MBo3UBrzje pic.twitter.com/CWOVNK1kbU — TrumpMeme (@GetTrumpMemes) March 12, 2026 The official site promises attendees the chance to “Meet and Learn from 18 of the World’s Most Influential SUPERSTARS,” reinforcing the token’s access‑and‑status pitch rather than a clear utility story. The previous dinner announcement triggered an intraday price spike of about 50–60% in $TRUMP as traders rushed to buy enough tokens to qualify, briefly lifting the token after an 80–88% drawdown from its launch highs. This led to some critics framing the first event as “crypto corruption” and “pay‑to‑play,” with protesters outside Trump National Golf Club calling out conflicts of interest and demanding the guest list. Related Reading: Hyperliquid Rockets as Oil Touches $100: Arthur Hayes Reveals Why A Slight Change Of Strategy Despite this structure mirroring last year’s “top 220 holders” eligibility scheme, the new memecoin gala widens participation: access is now gamified via a time‑weighted snapshot. 297 holders will attend, with the top 29 earning VIP reception rights based on their $TRUMP balance at the April 10, 2026 Snapshot Day. To keep VIP bonuses between April 10 and April 26, wallets must maintain at least their snapshot balance. Balances that slip below can still get conference and luncheon access but lose VIP perks, nudging whales to lock in holdings through the event window. This slight change of strategy continues to encourage concentration and reduces circulating float into a known catalyst date, a setup that often fuels sharp but short‑lived memecoin squeezes. The CLARITY Act Still On The Horizon This new edition of the US President’s luncheon lands as Trump publicly backs the CLARITY Act, a long‑discussed crypto market‑structure bill expected to be reviewed in April, but unlikely to move out of the Senate Banking Committee before late 2026, according to Senator John Thune. The delay deepens the gray zone where political memecoin experiments like $TRUMP can thrive, while still drawing ethics and conflict‑of‑interest criticism. Related Reading: Binance Warning? Leverage Explodes As Crypto Tracks A World On Edge What This Memecoin Gala Means For Traders For traders, the April 10 snapshot to April 26 window is the key volatility band: structural incentives to hold or accumulate into the date could support a reflexive bid, but history around Trump events shows that insiders and early whales often sell into those spikes. Despite the buzz, $TRUMP trades around 3.9 dollars, down roughly 81% from the 15–$20 band during last year’s event window and nearly 97% below its $77 all‑time high from June 2025. With $TRUMP still 97% below its peak and heavily narrative‑driven, the luncheon looks more like a tactical headline trade than a fundamental reset, suggesting rallies into the event may again be better liquidity exits than long‑term entries for late‑arriving memecoin speculators. TRUMP’s price trends to the upside on the daily chart. Source: TRUMPUSDT on Tradingview Cover image from Perplexity, TRUMPUSDT chart from Tradingview

The US Treasury (OFAC) has sanctioned six individuals and two entities tied to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) IT‑worker schemes that allegedly generated nearly $800 million in 2024. US Vs. DPRK Over Crypto Fraud Crypto is once again at the center of Washington’s latest sanctions push. On an official press release on March 12, the US Treasury announced that they have blacklisted a North Korean IT‑worker network accused of routing nearly $800 million through digital assets to fund weapons programs in 2024. The Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, quoted on the announcement, warned that “The North Korean regime targets American companies through deceptive schemes carried out by its overseas IT operatives, who weaponize sensitive data and extort businesses for substantial payments”. Related Reading: Binance Warning? Leverage Explodes As Crypto Tracks A World On Edge How The North Korean Crypto Scheme Worked According to the OFAC’s statement, these North Korean IT networks relied on front companies in Vietnam, Laos and Spain to move IT‑worker revenue into cryptocurrency, convert it, and route funds back to Pyongyang. As the statement claims: DPRK-facilitated IT teams commonly rely on fraudulent documentation, stolen identities, and fabricated personas to conceal their true identities and gain employment with legitimate companies, including those in the United States and allied countries.  The DPRK government reportedly appropriates the majority of the wages earned by these overseas IT workers, generating hundreds of millions of dollars to support the regime’s WMD and ballistic missile programs, in violation of U.S. and United Nations sanctions.  In certain instances, DPRK-affiliated workers have also covertly introduced malware into company networks to extract proprietary and sensitive information. Amongst the companies signaled by Washington are Amnokgang Technology Development Company, that manages overseas DPRK IT delegations and other illicit procurement and Vietnam‑based partner (Quangvietdnbg) whose CEO converted around $2.5 million into crypto for North Koreans between mid‑2023 and mid‑2025, with $800 million in 2024 alone. Other facilitators opened bank accounts, enabled crypto transactions, and laundered IT‑worker proceeds on behalf of North Korean procurement figures, like Kim Se Un. The OFAC warns that both US and foreign financial institutions face secondary‑sanctions risk if they keep touching flows linked to the newly designated actors, which effectively isolates their remaining fiat and crypto on‑ramps. Related Reading: Hyperliquid Rockets as Oil Touches $100: Arthur Hayes Reveals Why What This Means For The Crypto Market This is but the newest chapter on a long saga of North Korean cyber and IT operations repeatedly leaning on crypto, mixers and OTC brokers to launder billions in stolen or fraudulently earned funds, which regulators now say directly supports its weapons programs. Even as Treasury has recently acknowledged that mixers and privacy tools can have legitimate uses, the new designations show that they are still ready to aggressively sanction any intermediaries that route significant illicit crypto flows for state actors like the DPRK. Despite episodes like this usually not moving Bitcoin’s price on their own, they do add to the regulatory overhang that can cap risk appetite around privacy coins, mixer‑adjacent protocols and lightly regulated offshore venues. For majors like BTC and ETH, stricter enforcement against DPRK‑linked networks tends to be framed as “cleaning up the rails,” which can support institutional adoption over time even if it generates headline risk in the near term. The regulatory tail risk remains highest around privacy‑focused tools, offshore venues and tokens that depend on opaque liquidity paths. At the same time, every DPRK‑linked enforcement wave nudges more volume toward KYC’d exchanges and transparent stablecoin and BTC pairs, which is where long‑term liquidity and institutional flows are likely to concentrate. BTC’s price trends to the upside on the daily chart. Source: BTCUSD on Tradingview Cover image from Perplexity, BTCUSD chart from Tradingview

Real-world asset (RWA) tokenization on the Ethereum network and the XRP Ledger has been ramping up over the last few years. This has become more prominent with a shift toward bringing more real-world assets (RWA) into the crypto industry, to allow access to more ‘stable’ investment options. But despite the Ethereum network and the XRP Ledger being the leading names that come to mind when people talk about RWA, they are surprisingly not the network with the most RWA users. Ethereum And XRP Are Not In The Top Rank Of Users The Ethereum network currently remains the leader when it comes to the total value of RWA assets held on the chain, sitting at over $15.4 billion at the time of this writing. However, it is not the leading network when it comes to the number of RWA holders. Data from the RWA.xyz website shows that RWA holders on the Ethereum network sit at just over 153,000, putting it in third place. Related Reading: XRP Price Could Stage 1,500% Rally To $20 If It Mirrors This 2017 Move The Solana network has actually recently surpassed Ethereum in terms of RWA asset holders after crossing the 157,000 threshold this week. But despite this, it is still not the leader coming into second place with this figure. Instead, the network with the highest RWA holders is the Plume network, which, surprisingly, rarely comes up in RWA conversations. According to the website, there are over 263,000 RWA holders on the Plume network. This is a considerable gap between the other networks, beating second and third place by over 100,000 users each. However, when it comes to total value (excluding stablecoins) on the network, Plume falls well behind, landing at 11th place, with $340 million. XRP, on the other hand, has a surprisingly low number of RWA users, despite the tokenization push by Ripple. The website’s data presents an underwhelming 3,795 RWA users on the XRP Ledger, although with a considerable RWA Total Value of $1.94 billion. Related Reading: Bitcoin Candlestick Structure That Led To Crash To Below $20,000 Last Cycle Just Appeared Again Other chains with good motion in the RWA space include the likes of BNB Chain. BNB Chain currently boasts more than 39,500 RWA users, with $2.656 billion in total value. Stellar and Polygon are also moving on the list with 9,317 and 15,470 users, respectively. Presently, the RWA sector has a total represented value of $336.08 billion, with the majority of it, $301.04 billion, held in stablecoins. When it comes to assets that are represented on the blockchains (33) that serve this sector, it comes out to $26.43 billion in distributed asset value, the majority of which is controlled on the Ethereum blockchain. Featured image from Dall.E, chart from TradingView.com

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has expanded its digital assets offering and debuted its staked Ethereum (ETH) Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) on Nasdaq. Amid the news, the King of Altcoins is attempting to break out of its local range to challenge its bearish outlook. Related Reading: BNB Chain Dominates 40% Of Global Stablecoin Transactions With Small-Value Transfers BlackRock Debuts Staked Ethereum ETF On Thursday, BlackRock introduced the iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHB) on Nasdaq to “provide investors with exposure to spot ether while potentially generating income by staking a portion of its ether holdings.” The ETH-based fund expands the asset management giant’s digital asset suite, which includes the largest Exchange-Traded Products (ETPs) of their kind, the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) and the iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA). As reported by NewsBTC, BlackRock submitted an S-1 form with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its ETHB fund in December. The registration statement revealed that the fund sought to stake 70% to 90% of its Ethereum holdings and distribute staking rewards to stakeholders at least quarterly. The fund is set to share 82% of staking rewards with investors, while the remaining 18% will be split among the trust, custodians, and its staking service providers. BlackRock chose Coinbase Custody Trust as the custodian for the Trust’s ETH holdings, while Anchorage Digital Bank will serve as an available alternative custodian for the Trust’s ether holdings. Meanwhile, the Bank of New York Mellon is the Trust’s cash holdings custodian and administrator, according to the fund’s prospectus. In the official statement, Jessica Tan, Head of Americas for Global Product Solutions at BlackRock, affirmed that “Investors are increasingly allocating to digital assets as part of their strategic portfolio construction, and ETHB provides access to income and exposure to the asset in a convenient, transparent way.” “We continue to innovate to meet client demand and expand access, while providing the transparency and risk management clients expect from BlackRock,” she continued. ETH Price Holds Amid Breakdown Fears Following the news, ETH’s price broke above the $2,090 level to reach a one-week high of $2,095 before retracing. Analyst Ted Pillows noted that despite market volatility, the cryptocurrency has held the $2,000 psychological barrier throughout the past three days. “The macro uncertainty is still there, but Ethereum’s overall strength is good,” he said, adding that the King of Altcoins needs to reclaim the crucial $2,150 area for a rally. He forecasted that Ethereum could see a “10%-15% quick rally” once this level is reclaimed. Meanwhile, Rekt Capital underscored a critical level on ETH’s weekly and monthly charts. As previously reported, ETH is currently testing its multi-year uptrend, a structural support that has held since mid-2022. Last month, Ethereum marginally closed below its multi-year support, opening the possibility for this level to become resistance on March’s monthly close. On the weekly timeframe, ETH has recorded four consecutive closes below the trendline, suggesting the market is likely beginning to treat this key level as resistance instead of support. “Structurally, this behaviour resembles the early stage of a breakdown process, where price initially loses support, rallies back into it and begins treating the level as resistance,” the analyst explained, but emphasized that the breakdown is not confirmed yet. Related Reading: Hyperliquid Rockets as Oil Touches $100: Arthur Hayes Reveals Why Therefore, Ethereum could invalidate the bearish scenario if the price closes the week above the multi-year uptrend and successfully tests it as support. “A successful reclaim could then open the door toward the green resistance region above, which has historically acted as a major pivot in Ethereum’s broader trend,” he concluded. Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com

Binance’s futures-to-spot ratio has jumped to a 1.5-year high, its highest level since mid-2023. But why? What The Binance Data Says About The Market New data from CryptoQuant analyst Maartuun shows that Binance’s derivative volume is dwarfing spot trading, as the futures/spot ratio has risen to around 5.1. This means that for every $1 traded on spot, about $5 are traded on futures. Most “price discovery” and liquidity is happening in the derivatives order books, not in simple buy‑and‑hold spot markets. Binance-Futures/Spot Volume Ratio. Source: CryptoQuant When the ratio is high, it usually signals that short‑term, leveraged speculation and hedging dominate over straightforward accumulation. Price tends to react more violently to liquidations, funding swings and positioning than to organic spot demand. A rising Binance futures/spot ratio tells us that the market is being run by traders who want speed, leverage and hedging, not by quiet spot accumulators, so volatility and event‑risk matter more than usual right now. Related Reading: Binance Strikes Back: Why It Is Taking The Wall Street Journal To Court Historically, spikes to 1.5‑year highs have coincided with periods where Bitcoin was at or near important macro levels and the market was “trading the narrative” via derivatives, either amplifying rallies or turning corrections into sharp squeezes. As stated on the article posted on May 22 last year, “this pattern often reflects short-term sentiment and positioning rather than long-term conviction”. Therefore, we shouldn’t necessarily read this as pure “euphoria”: it can just as well be hedging and defensive positioning as it is outright speculation. Derivative Market Leader: Exchange Perpetual Futures Trading Volume. Source: CryptoQuant What The Data Says About The World The latest leg of Middle East conflict (U.S.‑Israel vs Iran, risk around Hormuz and oil flows) has injected a clear “geopolitical risk premium” into global markets. Bitcoin and crypto have been hit in these shocks with fast, deep wicks. BTC dropped to around 63k on the February strike headlines before snapping back above 70k, showing markets, following human’s fears and own volatility, react violently but then re‑normalize once the worst headlines pass and the sentiments calm down. Spot Market Leader: Exchange Spot Trading Volume. Source: CryptoQuant Binance research notes that, right now, markets are stuck between multiple unresolved themes. AI‑driven margin pressure, fragile private credit, and now high geopolitical risk, all while inflation and U.S. macro data keep the Fed “higher for longer” narrative alive. That mix (energy risk, sticky inflation, potential for tighter financial conditions) makes long‑horizon risk‑on trades less attractive, so investors lean into instruments they can size up or down quickly, like Binance futures, rather than parking capital in spot. Related Reading: Bitcoin Price Holds Near $70K As Markets Brace For Key Event In a calmer, low‑vol world, spot demand tends to dominate. However, in a world of wars, oil scares and uncertain central banks, derivatives on Binance take over as traders seek speed, leverage and hedging. BTC’s price trends to the downside on the daily chart. Source: BTCUSDT on Tradingview Cover image from Perplexity, BTCUSDT chart from Tradingview

Weiss Crypto is making a two-sided case on Hyperliquid’s HYPE token: bullish on the protocol’s fee-driven tokenomics, but clear that investors should not mistake momentum for the absence of risk. In a series of posts over the past days, the research outlet argued that HYPE’s buyback-and-burn structure remains a core strength even as token unlocks, competition and regulation stay firmly on the table. Hyperliquid Faces 3 Key Risks And The Bullish Case The cautionary note was direct. “But there are some HYPE risks investors should take into consideration,” Weiss Crypto wrote on Wednesday, before naming three areas to watch. The first is supply expansion from contributor unlocks. “April will see the release of 9.92 million HYPE tokens, relatively modest compared with the platform’s trading activity.” Even framed as modest, the point was clear: fresh supply still matters, especially for a token whose bullish narrative depends heavily on shrinking circulation. Weiss also pointed to market structure risk. “Right now, Hyperliquid has the clear first-mover advantage. But that doesn’t mean a powerful disruptor can’t emerge.” That gets at a familiar tension in crypto trading infrastructure. Early dominance can look durable, particularly when liquidity, activity and attention reinforce each other, but it can also invite direct attacks from better-capitalized or more aggressive rivals. Related Reading: Arthur Hayes Predicts Hyperliquid’s HYPE Is Headed To $150 By August 2026 The third risk is regulatory. “US residents will likely stay geoblocked on the official front-end — and sector growth subdued — until regulation clears.” In other words, Weiss sees the addressable market as constrained for now, not because the product lacks traction, but because access and broader sector expansion remain tied to unresolved policy conditions. That warning landed alongside a much more constructive argument about HYPE itself. In a separate post built around an infographic, Weiss called the token design “Tokenomics done right.” The graphic described what it labeled “The powerful feedback loop,” a flywheel in which rising platform activity leads to more trading, more protocol fees, more token buybacks, and less circulating supply. The centerpiece of that thesis is fee deployment. According to the infographic, “97% of trading fees used to buy HYPE tokens.” From Weiss’s framing, that mechanism is what turns platform usage into direct token support. As activity grows, “buyback accelerates,” “circulating supply declines,” and the token’s “appreciation potential” increases alongside the possibility of drawing in still more activity.Weiss also highlighted the scale of the mechanism with a headline figure: “During 2025 alone, the protocol burned roughly $1 billion worth of HYPE tokens.” That number sits at the center of the bullish case. Related Reading: Hyperliquid Looks Like Solana At $20 Last Cycle, Daniel Cheung Says Another Weiss post tried to show that demand in action during a market stress event. “On Sunday, as tensions escalated in the Middle East, Hyperliquid hit a major milestone. It processed $1B+ in oil-related trading volume. Why? Because traditional oil markets were closed for the weekend. Decentralized markets never sleep.” Weiss paired that post with Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan’s earlier observation that when President Donald Trump announced an attack on Iran at 2:30 am Sunday, US, European and Asian markets were closed, while “HYPE was open.” Taken together, the message from Weiss is not complicated, but it is nuanced. The outlet sees Hyperliquid as a live example of crypto infrastructure capturing flows when legacy markets are unavailable, and it views HYPE’s fee-and-burn design as unusually strong. At the same time, it is signaling that even a token backed by an active buyback loop is still exposed to unlock calendars, rival platforms and the slower-moving reality of US regulation. At press time, HYPE traded at $37.87. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

Daniel Cheung, co-founder of Syncracy Capital, says Hyperliquid’s native token HYPE is beginning to resemble Solana’s setup before its last major run, arguing that the protocol has become the clearest center of real trading activity in crypto. In a series of posts on X over the past month, Cheung laid out an increasingly aggressive thesis: Hyperliquid is not just outperforming within crypto, but could emerge as a broader financial trading platform with appeal beyond the sector. Cheung’s most direct comparison came this week. “HYPE at $35 feels similar to SOL at $20 before its last cycle rally,” he wrote, framing Hyperliquid as an early-stage winner before a broader market expansion. He tied that view to what he sees as the protocol’s current market position: “Hyperliquid is currently the main chain where trading activity is happening and the only chain bringing new users into crypto right now given its offering around 24/7 markets.” Related Reading: Arthur Hayes Predicts Hyperliquid’s HYPE Is Headed To $150 By August 2026 What Cheung appears to be invoking is Solana’s move from a battered late-2022 asset into one of the cycle’s biggest winners. After trading around $8 at the end of 2022 and still hovering near $23 in September 2023, SOL eventually climbed to a fresh all-time high of $295.83 in mid-January 2025. From a $20 reference point, that would imply a rally of roughly 1,379%. That argument is notable because it does not rest primarily on meme-driven activity, which has often powered attention cycles elsewhere. Cheung said Hyperliquid is “gaining significantly more media attention and respect” because its use cases are “centered around much more than dogshit memes.” In his telling, that gives the project a stronger foundation if speculative conditions improve again. Across several posts, Cheung repeatedly described Hyperliquid less as a single-app crypto trade and more as a category-defining trading venue. On Feb. 28, he wrote, “Becoming more clear by the day that Hyperliquid is the financial trading platform of the future and that generational wealth will be made longing this coin. Think this has a chance to flip Robinhood, Interactive Brokers etc… Hyperliquid is out innovating peers.” Related Reading: Apollo Crypto Explains Why Hyperliquid Is Its Top Altcoin Holding That is a large claim, and Cheung presented it as a product and market-structure thesis rather than a short-term price call alone. His view appears to hinge on two linked assumptions: first, that perpetual futures become a much larger category than the market currently prices in, and second, that Hyperliquid captures a disproportionate share of that expansion because it is already where users are trading. He made that point more explicitly on Feb. 12, when he said investors were missing “two things” in the current market. The first was that “HYPE is the most exciting startup not in AI and will eventually flip COIN and HOOD.” The second was that “the perps category will be bigger than anyone expects,” adding that another asset, LIT, looked deeply undervalued relative to HYPE on a fee basis. Cheung’s posts also make clear that timing matters. On March 9, he said “HYPE to $120+” would be “pretty easy once the crypto bull market comes back,” before adding: “We are close.” That suggests his target is not based on Hyperliquid operating in isolation, but on the idea that a renewed bull phase would amplify an already strong relative position. Notably, BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes recently argued that HYPE could reach $150 until August this year. At press time, HYPE traded at $36.16. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

Bybit blocked more than $300 million in unauthorized withdrawals during the final quarter of last year — a figure that puts February’s total crypto theft losses in sharp relief. Related Reading: Bitcoin Crosses 20 Million Coins Mined — And Only 1 In 20 Remains According to security firm Nominis, close to $50 million was stolen across the entire crypto industry last month, a fraction of what Bybit alone says it turned away in just three months. Attackers Home In On Human Error The drop from January’s $385 million in losses might look like progress, but security researchers say the more significant story is where the attacks are coming from. Social engineering — scams that trick people into handing over access — caused more cumulative damage in February than traditional software exploits did. Phishing campaigns climbed sharply during the month, with criminals sending fraudulent messages designed to get users to click malicious links or sign transactions they shouldn’t. The most common method was authorization abuse. Victims were manipulated into granting wallet permissions without realizing what they’d approved. Once those permissions were in place, attackers could move funds out freely. Private individuals bore the brunt of these attacks, not exchanges or large protocols. One Breach Drove Most Of The Damage A single incident accounted for most of February’s losses. Step Finance, a portfolio analytics platform built on Solana, was drained of approximately $30 million. Strip that one event out, and February would have been remarkably quiet by recent standards. The broader numbers back that up. Blockchain security company PeckShield put February losses at $26.5 million — the lowest monthly figure since March 2025. PeckShield credited stronger risk controls and better security practices across the industry for part of the decline. Big Losses Still Loom Over The Industry Even with a quieter month on the books, the industry’s annual toll remains staggering. Data from Chainalysis shows crypto hacks cost the industry $3.4 billion last year. That figure underscores how much ground still needs to be covered before theft can be called a contained problem. Related Reading: Bitcoin ETFs Break 5-Month Streak With 2nd Consecutive Week Of Inflows Bybit’s own numbers offer a window into how much active work that requires. The exchange said its fraud systems flagged roughly 350 high-risk addresses and stopped around 8,000 users from falling into potential scams — all in a single quarter. Reports indicate that while large-scale protocol attacks appear to be easing, the rise in scams targeting everyday users signals that criminals are simply redirecting their efforts. Better smart contract audits and stronger on-chain monitoring may be closing one door. But as long as people can be deceived into approving the wrong transaction, another door stays open. Featured image from Trillium Mutual Insurance, chart from TradingView

While large institutional flows dominate total stablecoin volume, small-value transfers make up most stablecoin transactions on BNB Chain, which has eclipsed other blockchains by transaction count and has become one of the leaders in the sector. Related Reading: Dogecoin Risks More Pain As Price Retests Critical Support – Analyst Warns Of 37% Breakdown BNB Chain Tops Global Stablecoin Transactions By Count As stablecoin activity continues to grow, BNB Chain has emerged as one of the leading networks in the sector, positioning itself ahead of competitors like Ethereum, Tron, and Solana in transaction share, especially for smaller-value transfers predominant in emerging markets and retail use. Recent data shows that BNB Chain is leading the stablecoin sector by transaction count, handling roughly 40% of global transactions while only holding 5% of the total stablecoin supply. This figure illustrates the high transaction velocity achieved through its low fees and faster block times, facilitated by recent upgrades, and active DeFi protocols like PancakeSwap and Venus. On-chain data platform Dune also revealed that BNB Chain is currently leading in monthly unique stablecoin senders among all blockchains. The data shows that the network saw 15.1 million unique senders in February alone, surpassing Tron’s 8.8 million, Ethereum’s 5.4 million, Solana’s 4.8 million, Arbitrum’s 2.5 million, and base’s 2.1 million. This signals that, in terms of everyday stablecoin activity like trading, payments, and remittances, BNB Chain is currently the most active network for users. While Ethereum remains the dominant chain for stablecoins, the BNB chain leads in annual stablecoin growth, as reported by NewsBTC, with the BNB Smart Chain (BSC) soaring 133% Year-over-Year (YoY). In addition, it doubled its stablecoin market capitalization to $14 billion at its 2025 peak, also recording the highest daily active users across blockchains. Recently, it also recorded $21.7 billion in stablecoin transfers in a single day, marking a yearly peak. ‘The Normies’ Lead Stablecoin Transactions Growth Forbes recently highlighted the key role of fiat-pegged tokens in crisis economies, affirming that stablecoins have subtly become parallel currencies in emerging nations where local currencies are not a reliable store of value. The Orbital Stablecoin Premium/Discount Index for Q4 2025, cited by Forbes, shows the gap between what people pay for digital dollars and what they should cost, with regions such as the Middle East and North Africa averaging a 16.35% buy premium. Small stablecoin transactions under $10,000 grew exponentially in 2025, going from 316 million to 3.2 billion. “Most of that growth came from emerging markets, where a less-than-$0.05 transaction fee on chains like BNB Chain or Polygon costs less than the bus fare to the nearest bank,” the news media outlet detailed. Notably, 82% of stablecoin transfers are under $1,000 on the BNB Chain, while 99% of them are below $10,000, with an average transaction cost of $0.050. According to the report, two-thirds of merchant stablecoin payments come from exchange accounts, and more than 50% of crypto users in emerging markets entered through Binance or OKX. Related Reading: Bitcoin Stabilizes, But Glassnode Warns Spot Demand Is Still Weak Nina, BNB Chain’s Director of Growth, told Forbes that the chain’s substantial transaction volume relative to its smaller share of total value accurately reflects its user base: “The normies.” “Our audiences are not necessarily all occupied institutions, but a lot of micro payments and retail users,” she explained. Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com

While some market observers remain optimistic about Dogecoin (DOGE)’s long-term prospects, an analyst has identified a bearish continuation pattern in the short-term chart that could lead to another major correction for the memecoin. Related Reading: Why A U.S. Court Says Binance Is Not (Yet) Liable for Terrorist Crypto Flows Dogecoin Bottom May Be Lower On Monday, Dogecoin bounced 3% from Sunday’s lows and reclaimed the $0.091 level, which had been lost over the weekend due to recent market volatility triggered by the Middle East conflict. The cryptocurrency has traded between $0.086-$0.100 over the past two weeks, reaching an intraweek high of $0.104 last Wednesday before erasing the bounce and plunging to its local lows alongside the rest of the market. During this performance, market observer Ali Martinez noted that the cryptocurrency has been consolidating in a descending triangle since the mid-January correction, signaling that a potential bearish trend continuation could be around the corner. DOGE established a floor around the $0.088 level, the chart shows, representing a nearly 37% decline from the pattern’s top. Meanwhile, the descending trendline resistance is currently around $0.097. According to the analyst, the memecoin is setting up for a 37% move to the downside, targeting the $0.060 area if the price falls below the pattern’s base and loses its support role. The analyst had previously cautioned that Dogecoin could identify its next significant support level around this level if selling pressure persists. Notably, the $0.060 level served as a macro resistance and support level, marking the bear market bottom in 2022 and a pivotal bounce level during the market recovery in late 2023. Analysts Optimistic About DOGE’s Macro Chart Despite weak performance and bearish price forecasts, other market observers expressed a more optimistic outlook for Dogecoin in the mid- and long-term. Analyst Trader Tardigrade advised investors to zoom out on DOGE’s chart, suggesting that the memecoin’s broader perspective appears “insanely bullish.” In an X post, the analyst highlighted a massive bullish pennant on Dogecoin’s monthly chart, signaling a major breakout is likely. According to the chart, the pattern has been forming since the 2021 breakout, and the cryptocurrency has retested and held the lower boundary as support twice over the past five years, leading to a major rebound after each retest. Now, Dogecoin has retested this level a third time, managing a monthly close about the lower boundary in February. This has set up a potential price recovery rally if history repeats. “When this breaks to the upside, expect a massive surge. The setup is ready.” Meanwhile, analyst Bitcoinsensus suggested that the memecoin could be preparing for a massive rally based on its performance throughout this market phase. As he detailed, DOGE’s price action has been unfolding in “mini cycles” since the 2022 bottom, leading to higher rallies each time. Related Reading: WAR Token Explodes 100%, Then Crashes 20% In Sudden Sell-Off The structure has consisted of accumulation, markup, and pullback phases, resulting in 190% and 480% rallies in early and late 2024, respectively. Now, as Dogecoin continues to accumulate for the third time, it could see a breakout toward the $0.75 area in the coming months if it breaks out of its one-year downtrend line and the “mini cycles” pattern repeats. Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com

Arthur Hayes is making a high-conviction bet on Hyperliquid, arguing in a new essay that HYPE could climb to $150 by August 2026 even if the broader crypto backdrop stays weak. His case rests on a familiar exchange-token playbook, but updated for a market where decentralized perps, not centralized venues, are increasingly capturing the most valuable trading flow. Why Hayes Thinks Hyperliquid Can Reach $150 Hayes frames Hyperliquid as the standout asset in a sluggish or sideways market because exchanges can keep generating fees regardless of whether prices are rising. In his telling, that matters even more for Hyperliquid because 97% of protocol revenue is used to buy back HYPE from the market. “Hyperliquid, the dominant perp DEX, is the largest revenue-generating project that isn’t a stablecoin,” he wrote. “No other project in all of crypto hands as much money back to token holders as Hyperliquid.” His target implies roughly a 5x move from about $30 at the time of writing. To get there, Hayes says Hyperliquid would need to lift 30-day annualized revenue to $1.4 billion, a level he says the platform previously reached in August last year. His model also assumes the market will rerate the token from around 12 times earnings to roughly 25.2 times, still below or near the range he cites for major traditional exchange names. Related Reading: Apollo Crypto Explains Why Hyperliquid Is Its Top Altcoin Holding A large part of the thesis is that Hyperliquid does not need an overall expansion in crypto derivatives activity to grow. It only needs to keep taking share from centralized exchanges. Hayes argues that a 3.97 percentage-point increase in market share would be enough for Hyperliquid to return to that $1.4 billion annualized revenue run rate. The engine for that next leg, in his view, is HIP-3, Hyperliquid’s permissionless perpetuals listing framework. Users who stake 500,000 HYPE can launch markets using the platform’s matching and margin engine, and Hayes points to early traction in silver, gold, the Nasdaq 100 and the S&P 500. “In only four months, HIP-3 volumes account for close to 10% of total Hyperliquid revenues,” he wrote. “Permissionless listings were always the holy grail of DEXs, and the rapid growth in trading volumes proves this is how Hyperliquid will differentiate itself from the pack.” That is why his model assumes HIP-3 revenue rises 160% over six months. He also flags HIP-4, which he says should enable permissionless prediction markets, as a possible upside kicker not included in the base case. Competition is the main objection Hayes tries to neutralize. He argues that headline volumes across perp DEXs can be distorted by wash trading, points farming and other incentives, making raw volume a poor measure of real usage. Related Reading: Next “Binance Killer”? Hyperliquid Now Dominates DeFi Derivatives, New Report Shows His preferred metric is ADV-to-OI, or average daily volume relative to open interest, because open interest requires real capital to be posted. On that basis, he says Hyperliquid has the most “real” volume among the top five perp DEXs. He also says order-book snapshots for Bitcoin perps showed Hyperliquid was usually the cheapest place to execute size once slippage was included. Hayes also spend time on token supply overhang, another issue that had made him tactically bearish late last year. He notes that the team distributed close to 20% of awarded tokens in November and December, but only about 1% in January and February. “With that out of the way, the team drastically reduced distributions in order to help HYPE rebound,” he wrote, while acknowledging that this part is speculative. Even his stress case stays constructive. Hayes says that if the market only pays a 12x earnings multiple and the team receives 9.91 million HYPE per month, but revenue still recovers to $1.4 billion annualized, the token would still be worth about $58, or roughly 75% above current levels. At press time, HYPE traded at $33.237. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

For crypto this week, the story is not a token-specific catalyst. It is whether an oil shock tied to the US-Iran war turns into a broader inflation problem just as the market gets February CPI on Wednesday, March 11, followed by the second estimate of fourth-quarter US GDP and the delayed January PCE report on Friday, March 13. Crypto Watchlist This Week The market opened the week with energy first, everything else second. President Donald Trump said ending the war with Iran would be a “mutual” decision with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, signaling no obvious near-term off-ramp, while Brent crude surged as high as $119.50 a barrel and WTI to $119.48. Reuters reported that Iraq, Kuwait and the UAE had begun reducing oil production as the conflict and shipping disruption through Hormuz intensified. Notably, the oil supply shock is the largest in history. BREAKING: The world is now experiencing its largest oil supply shock in history, losing nearly 20 million barrels of oil supply per day. Top oil supply shocks: 1. Hormuz Closure (NOW): -20 million b/d 2. Iranian Revolution (1978): -5.5 million b/d 3. Yom Kippur War (1973): -4.5… — The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) March 9, 2026 That is why the macro transmission matters so much for bitcoin and the entire crypto market. In a speech published Monday, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva put it plainly: “We are seeing resilience tested yet again by the new conflict in the Middle East. Important oil and gas facilities have suffered damage and stoppages; shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has fallen by 90 percent. If the new conflict proves prolonged, it has clear and obvious potential to affect market sentiment, growth, and inflation.” She added that every 10% increase in oil prices, if sustained through most of this year, could add 40 basis points to global headline inflation. Meanwhile, US oil prices staged one of their biggest reversals in history on Monday when hat G7 countries were reported releasing 400 million barrels of crude oil from reserves. BREAKING: US oil prices are currently attempting one of their biggest reversals in history. At 10:30 PM ET, US oil prices were up as much as +30% on the day. Then, FT reported that G7 countries are considering releasing 400 million barrels of crude oil from reserves. Less than… pic.twitter.com/G1uRHvkFxX — The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) March 9, 2026 Wednesday’s CPI print is the first hard test. The last US CPI release, for January, showed headline inflation up 0.2% month on month and 2.4% year on year, with core CPI at 2.5% year on year. The February report is due at 8:30 a.m. ET on March 11, and market previews are looking for something in the 2.4%-2.5% annual range, with core inflation broadly steady near that zone as well. In other words, the baseline is not a dramatic reacceleration on paper; the problem is that markets now have to judge those numbers against an oil backdrop that worsened sharply after the survey period. Crude oil is approaching $110, up ~$50 in the past month. This comes as Goldman Sachs said in a weekend investor note that a sustained $10 rise in oil prices for three months could push U.S. CPI to around 3% by May. https://t.co/5vLjHAvab9 pic.twitter.com/JfTOQzwAll — Shay Boloor (@StockSavvyShay) March 8, 2026 Friday is more layered. The GDP release is not a fresh quarter, but the second estimate for Q4 2025. The advance estimate showed US growth slowing to a 1.4% annualized pace from 4.4% in Q3. As BEA wrote in the initial release, “Real gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 1.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2025. The contributors to the increase in real GDP in the fourth quarter were increases in consumer spending and investment. These movements were partly offset by decreases in government spending and exports.” Some market calendars look for a small upward revision to 1.5%. The bigger crypto-sensitive number may still be the delayed January PCE report, also due Friday. December headline PCE rose 0.4% month on month and 2.9% year on year, while core PCE rose 0.4% on the month and 3.0% on the year. Current previews for January point to headline PCE holding near 2.9% year on year, with core ticking up to around 3.1%. Bitcoin was trading around $67,409 on Monday, after dipping as low as $65,618 on Sunday. That leaves it squarely in macro territory. Currently, Bitcoin’s fortunes remain tied to broader risk appetite and the tech complex, while the Iran-driven oil surge has pushed yields and the dollar higher and dimmed hopes for near-term rate cuts. The immediate read-through is straightforward: if CPI and PCE come in firm while oil stays elevated, liquidity expectations likely deteriorate further and crypto remains under pressure. If the inflation data stay contained despite the war shock, bitcoin and the broader market may get room to reprice away from pure stagflation fear. At press time, the total crypto market cap was at $2.3 trillion. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

Strategy, the company that has built its identity around hoarding Bitcoin, is now sitting on paper losses — and buying more anyway. The company’s average purchase price sits at roughly $75,985 per coin, well above where Bitcoin is trading today at around $66,850. Related Reading: WAR Token Explodes 100%, Then Crashes 20% In Sudden Sell-Off That gap has pushed Strategy’s net asset value below 1, meaning the stock is worth less than the Bitcoin it holds. It is a sharp reversal for a company that long commanded a premium over its own treasury. Another Round Of Buying Despite that, co-founder Michael Saylor posted the firm’s Bitcoin accumulation chart on X over the weekend with the message, “The Second Century Begins” — his recurring signal that another purchase is coming. Strategy’s most recent buy came in the final week of February, when the company added 3,015 coins for more than $200 million, bringing its total haul to 720,737 Bitcoin. At current prices, that cache is worth roughly $48 billion. The Second Century Begins. pic.twitter.com/stZzNhLgay — Michael Saylor (@saylor) March 8, 2026 Debt And Equity Keep Fueling The Buys The company has not paused its buying despite a broad market decline. Strategy continues to fund its purchases through debt and equity offerings — a model that works smoothly when Bitcoin is climbing, but draws harder scrutiny when prices fall. With its NAV now below 1, some investors are getting Bitcoin exposure at a discount through the stock, which is a dynamic that rarely worked in Saylor’s favor before. Data from SaylorTracker shows the depth of the current shortfall. The company’s unrealized loss grows wider with each dip in Bitcoin’s price, yet the firm shows no sign of changing course. Saylor has made clear in past statements that Strategy is not a short-term trade but a long-duration bet on Bitcoin as a reserve asset. Pressure Builds Across The Bitcoin Treasury Space Strategy is not alone in feeling the squeeze. According to reports, the broader Bitcoin treasury sector could see consolidation in 2026, with cash-generating businesses moving to absorb companies that simply accumulate coins without producing revenue. Related Reading: Stablecoin Market Breaks Records — USDC Controls 70% Of $1.8 Trillion Volume Wojciech Kaszycki, chief strategy officer at treasury firm BTCS, said companies trading below net asset value are under real pressure. Consolidating with another player, “sometimes two plus two equals six or more,” he said. Saylor has brushed off that path. He said mergers and acquisitions take too long and carry too much uncertainty, noting that deals which look attractive at the start can look very different six to nine months later. Whether another purchase is confirmed remains to be seen. But if history is any guide, the chart post rarely comes without a filing to follow. Featured image from mybrokerone.com, chart from TradingView

Bitcoin is slipping to a seven‑day low as oil is screaming higher on Iran war fears. But the real action is unfolding somewhere else entirely: Hyperliquid, where a new class of traders is turning to its tokenised oil perps. Hyperliquid And Its Oil Perps At The Center Of The Oil Panic As the Iran war scare and Strait of Hormuz risk ignite a fresh oil panic, Brent crude has ripped to about 118–119 dollars a barrel, its highest level since 2022. Over the weekend and into Monday, Bitcoin did not act as a crisis hedge: it dropped as much as roughly 2.4% to around $65.6k, a seven‑day low, even as oil exploded higher. In this context, on‑chain, traders rotated into Hyperliquid’s tokenised oil perpetuals, where crude surged about 18% in a week and contract volume and open interest jumped more than 18x and 5x as conflict headlines hit. Related Reading: WAR Token Explodes 100%, Then Crashes 20% In Sudden Sell-Off “Pandora’s Box Is Open” The fears that stem from the current geopolitical chaos do not know or care about Wall Street’s business hours. Our convulsed times seem to finally have outgrown TradFi, as traders search for alternatives to act as fast as their unrest demands. Jung Hyunsun, CEO of Hyperliquid treasury firm Hyperion DeFi, told DL News that the “Pandora’s box is open”. As traders run into tokenised oil perps, Jung believes that: The narrative around onchain financial services is changing. He points out that tokenised traditional assets like oil, metals and currencies have made up as much as 30% of Hyperliquid’s daily volume during peak periods, turning the DEX into a direct venue for macro trades rather than a “DeFi casino”. Jung adds that, while pseudonymous accounts make it hard to quantify, more traditional finance desks are quietly using Hyperliquid for hedging and price discovery, echoing comments from Coinbase’s Kenny Chan and CF Benchmarks’ Gabe Selby about the surge in tokenised asset trading. Related Reading: 43% of Bitcoin Supply Is In Loss As Market Nears Bear Territory What This Means For Bitcoin As Iran war jitters are forcing Bitcoin to trade like any other high‑beta risk asset, with flows rotating into gold rather than BTC during the first leg of the conflict, Hyperliquid and similar derivatives DEXs now blur the line between “DeFi casino” and full‑stack macro venue, letting traders express views on war, energy, FX and crypto from the same on‑chain interface. For Bitcoin, the question is no longer just “Is it digital gold?” but: Is it losing its monopoly on the crypto‑macro narrative to infrastructure layers that move faster and list anything, from barrels and basis trades to outright war risk? The irony, however, its apparent: all this activity hasn’t saved the native HYPE token, which still trades just over 30 dollars, nearly 50% below its September high. HYPE's price trends to the downside on the daily chart. Source: HYPEUSD on Tradingview Cover image from ChatGPT, HYPEUSD chart from Tradingview

A Blockstream executive made waves on social media Saturday with a striking comparison: US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds have pulled in roughly the same amount of cumulative investor money as gold ETFs collected over their first 15 years — and Bitcoin did it in less than two. Related Reading: Stablecoin Market Breaks Records — USDC Controls 70% Of $1.8 Trillion Volume The Numbers Behind The Claim Fernando Nikolić, Blockstream’s director of marketing, posted the observation on X, adding that the milestone came during a period when Bitcoin had dropped 46% from its peak and spent several months trending downward. His point was that institutional money kept flowing into Bitcoin products even as prices fell hard. The claim drew attention because gold ETFs had a significant head start in the market — more than a decade — before Bitcoin products even existed. spot bitcoin ETFs matched 15 years of cumulative gold ETF inflows in under two years gold had a fifteen year head start and bitcoin caught it in twenty months absolute cinema ???? and this happened during a 46% drawdown btw during five red months while most of your timeline… pic.twitter.com/TuK5E2WZsq — Fernando Nikolić ???????? ???? (@basedlayer) March 8, 2026 The data backing the broader story comes from SoSoValue, which tracks daily and weekly flows into US spot crypto ETFs. According to that data, Bitcoin ETFs brought in around $568 million this week. The prior week saw roughly $787 million come in. Back-to-back positive weeks like that haven’t happened since early October last year — a stretch of about five months during which money was consistently leaving these funds. Before the recent stretch of inflows, the bleeding was significant. Reports indicate Bitcoin ETFs shed approximately $3.8 billion across five straight weeks of net withdrawals. The worst single week came around January 30, when investors pulled out close to $1.50 billion in one stretch. Day-By-Day, The Picture Gets Messier The weekly totals look clean. The daily breakdown does not. This week, Bitcoin ETFs took in $458 million on Monday, another $225 million on Tuesday, and a strong $462 million on Wednesday. Then the direction flipped. Thursday brought $228 million in outflows, and Friday saw close to $350 million leave the funds. The week ended positive, but just barely held together in the final sessions. Ether ETFs followed a similar pattern on a smaller scale. The funds recorded their second straight week of net inflows, collecting around $23.56 million after posting a little over $80 million the prior week. That two-week run marks the first consecutive weekly gains for Ether products since early October. Before that, five uninterrupted weeks of withdrawals drained more than $1.38 billion from those funds, with the week ending January 23 alone accounting for roughly $611 million in redemptions. Related Reading: Bitcoin ETFs Bleed $349M In A Day As Whales Dump, Small Buyers Step In: Analysts A Rebound With Uneven Footing Two positive weeks for both Bitcoin and Ether ETFs signal a shift, but the daily choppiness tells a more complicated story. Large inflows early in the week gave way to sizable redemptions by Thursday and Friday — a pattern that suggests some investors remain cautious even as fresh money enters. Featured image from Online Casinos, chart from TradingView