Trading activity around XRP has picked up sharply, with new data from Bitrue showing a significant jump in spot purchases. According to the exchange, XRP spot buy volumes recently climbed 212%, with buying pressure more than doubling the sell side. The spike comes as institutional interest in XRP has been steadily building, particularly following the …
The lifting of the ban on retail investors accessing crypto ETNs was seen as a major win in the adoption of crypto investments due to the possibility of it being added to products like ISAs.
A single large sell order triggered a 30% flash crash on decentralized perp exchange Lighter even as bitcoin was climbing elsewhere.
A prominent market commentator has projected that the Bitcoin price could climb as high as $500,000, citing the reappearance of a long-observed moving average ribbon pattern on the monthly chart. The forecast, shared by Egrag Crypto on X, ties price structure to specific time windows in 2026 and 2028, arguing that technical alignment is outweighing short-term market narratives.pl Bitcoin Price Ribbon Setup Signals Expansion Phase At the center of the $500,000 prediction is the reformation of a multi-layer moving average ribbon on the one-month timeframe. The chart provided by the analyst shows the 33 EMA, 66 MA, 80 EMA, and 100 EMA compressing and beginning to expand in a configuration that has historically marked major cycle transitions. Related Reading: Pundit Gives Reasons Why XRP Price Will Hit $10 In 2026 This structure is not presented in isolation. In previous cycles, similar ribbon compressions were followed by decisive impulsive advances. The analyst points to an earlier period on the chart when the price consolidated within the ribbon before accelerating sharply upward, forming a pattern that now appears to be repeating. Because this setup mirrors prior cycle behavior, he characterizes it as a fractal, indicating structural similarity across different market phases. The ribbon’s position relative to current price action reinforces the broader thesis. Bitcoin remains structurally above the layered averages, a condition that in earlier cycles preceded sustained upside rather than distribution. When price reclaimed and held above this cluster in the past, expansion phases followed. Based on those historical expansion multiples, the analyst outlines an intermediate target near $150,000 and extends the upper boundary of the move toward $500,000. This framework deliberately shifts focus away from sentiment-driven fluctuations. Instead, the moving averages are treated as objective markers of where Bitcoin stands within its long-term cycle, forming the analytical foundation for the half-million-dollar projection. Timing Window Points To 2026 And Late 2028 Alignment Building on the structural case, the forecast also incorporates a defined timeline. The chart highlights October 2026 as a key waypoint, aligning with a potential continuation phase if the emerging ribbon fractal develops in line with historical precedent. Beyond that initial window, a second period is identified around the end of the third quarter or the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2028. The analyst references election cycles as a contextual factor, suggesting that macro narrative and technical structure could converge during that timeframe. Related Reading: The Multi-Year XRP Bull Market That Could Change Everything Forever The projected path on the chart reflects this staged process. Rather than a single vertical surge, it outlines a series of consolidations followed by accelerations, echoing previous cycles before peak expansion. By integrating price structure with calendar timing, the projection frames the $500,000 target as the culmination of a repeatable cyclical pattern. In this context, the ribbon fractal is positioned not as speculative optimism, but as the structural roadmap underpinning the analyst’s expectation of a potential surge toward half a million dollars. Featured image created with Dall.E, chart from Tradingview.com
Crypto is becoming a permanent 401(k) fixture. We detail the shift from regulatory bans to presidential mandate and new DOL guidance, plus the latest big institutional bets.
The declines are coming as the Nasdaq tumbles nearly 2%, led by a post-earnings selloff in Nvidia.
MetaMask launches US wide card including New York, enabling self custodial crypto spending with Mastercard and a $199 metal tier.
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Also: Ethereum’s “strawmap”, Robinhood chain update and OpenAI + smart contracts
Before the Senate Banking Committee gaveled its banking-oversight hearing to a start, crypto claimed much of the oxygen, including in an OCC policy push.
Decibel launches a fully on-chain perpetuals exchange on Aptos Mainnet after a strong testnet with 700,000+ accounts and $50M+ pre-deposits.
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XRP has had a rough stretch. The token is on pace to close its fifth straight month in the red, a run of weakness that has tested the patience of long-time holders and fueled debate about what comes next. Related Reading: Crypto’s Biggest Bull Run Could Come From The Most Unexpected Place: AI Bubble Yet even as the price sits well below its recent peak, a growing number of voices in the XRP community are not backing down from optimistic forecasts. One Analyst Says XRP Will Make People Rich In 2026 A market commentator known as Archie recently posted a chart on X projecting that XRP could climb as high as $83 per token before the end of 2026. At its current price of around $1.44, that would amount to a gain of roughly 5,900% — enough to push XRP’s total market value to an estimated $5 trillion. A holder sitting on 10,000 XRP would be approaching millionaire status at that price. Archie went further, suggesting the token could eventually reach four figures — meaning $1,000 or more per coin. Good morning XRP fam ☀️ Prediction????⬇️ XRP will make a lot of people rich in 2026???????? pic.twitter.com/mat4QMtWjN — Archie ???? (@Archie_XRPL) February 24, 2026 The post drew mixed reactions. Some holders backed the outlook. Others pushed back, with one user arguing that even a three-fold increase would barely move the needle for most people. Reports say some community members also raised concerns that any major price surge would disproportionately reward insiders, pointing to the significant token holdings of Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen. The 2016 Comparison That Bulls Keep Bringing Up XRP is currently down more than 60% from its recent high. Some analysts are drawing comparisons to a similar flat period the token went through in 2016, before a sharp rally took hold in 2017. The argument is that extended low-price stretches often clear out sellers who have lost conviction, setting the stage for stronger moves ahead. XRPL validator Vet addressed holders directly, saying this is not the time to walk away. Supporters point to greater regulatory clarity in the US, rising institutional interest, and continued activity on the XRP Ledger as factors that could shift momentum. Tokenization Adds A Different Kind Of Fuel The XRP Ledger has seen $1.3 billion in tokenized real-world assets added this year, pushing its total past $2.3 billion. Based on reports, commentator Brad Kimes of Digital Perspectives assembled views from multiple market voices arguing that if institutions tokenized 50% of circulating cash globally and the XRP Ledger captured 10% of that market, the resulting demand could push XRP’s price to triple digits. Related Reading: Bullish Signal? Coinbase Bitcoin Premium Turns Positive After Months In Red It is an ambitious model, but one tied to a real and growing trend in finance. Where XRP goes from here remains an open question — and the debate around it shows no signs of quieting down. Featured image from Flickr, chart from TradingView
The goal is to reduce Solana’s growing geographic concentration in Europe and introduce multicast functionality.
Aave, the DeFi lending platform founded by Stani Kulechov in 2020, has surpassed $1 trillion in cumulative loans across multiple blockchains, up from $500 billion just months ago. The platform leads DeFi with $27.4 billion in total value locked and $83 million in recent fees. Its Horizon platform attracts institutions using tokenized assets like U.S. …
Crypto traders blame Jane Street for a daily 10 am Bitcoin dip after a Terraform lawsuit claimed dubious trading practices, but analysts say timing matches broader risk repricing.
American Bitcoin posted a $59.5 million Q4 loss while its revenue rose and its Bitcoin stack topped 6,000 coins, as peers pivot to AI and sell down treasuries.
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ZachXBT.alleges a senior Axiom employee used internal dashboards to access private wallet data and track traders’ activity, raising questions about potential insider trading.
Aptos (APT) declined 11% and Aave (AAVE) dropped 6.6%, leading index lower from Wednesday.
Bitcoin’s rebound toward $70,000 over the last 24 hours has revived a familiar debate in crypto markets: whether Wall Street firms operating within the spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) ecosystem have gained too much influence over price discovery. The latest target is Jane Street, the quantitative trading firm that is both a major ETF intermediary and […]
The post Notice Bitcoin selling off at market open? Jane Street is taking the blame, but the data points elsewhere appeared first on CryptoSlate.
Axiom said it was "surprised and disappointed" by the alleged misconduct and has removed access to internal tools while it investigates.
The incident highlights the critical need for robust internal controls and monitoring to prevent misuse of access in financial platforms.
The post ZachXBT alleges Axiom staff member abused internal access for insider trading appeared first on Crypto Briefing.
The idea that Jane Street is single-handedly the reason why Bitcoin is not trading at $150,000 is the wrong frame, according to ProCap CIO and Bitwise advisor Jeff Park. In a X thread February 25, Park argued that the real issue is not one firm, but a structural feature of the US spot Bitcoin ETF system that gives all authorized participants unusual flexibility in how they hedge and settle trades. Is Jane Street Suppressing Bitcoin? Park’s core point is that the market has turned a question about Jane Street into a question about the ETF plumbing itself. On IBIT alone, he noted, the authorized participant roster includes Jane Street Capital, JPMorgan, Macquarie, Virtu Americas, Goldman Sachs, Citadel Securities, Citigroup, UBS and ABN AMRO. In his telling, that matters because APs are not ordinary short sellers. “The question deserves a precise answer—and the most important thing to understand upfront is that it is not really a question about Jane Street,” Park wrote. “It is a question about a structural feature of the Bitcoin ETF architecture that applies equally to every Authorized Participant in the ecosystem.” He added that the role of those institutions is “genuinely misunderstood, even amongst seasoned industry veterans.” The mechanism Park focused on is the AP exemption under Regulation SHO. In standard short selling, traders generally need to locate shares before shorting and face borrowing costs that create pressure to close the trade. APs, Park argued, sit in a different category because their creation and redemption rights effectively let them manufacture ETF shares without those same frictions. Related Reading: Bitcoin Yet To See Meaningful Capital Return, Glassnode Says “The practical consequence is significant: any AP can manufacture shares at will—no borrow cost, no capital conventionally tied up against the short, and no hard deadline to close the position beyond what is commercially reasonable,” he wrote. “This is the grey window: a regulatory carve-out designed for orderly ETF market-making that is, structurally speaking, indistinguishable from a regulatory arbitrage with unmatched duration.” That framing is important because Park is not claiming APs can simply press Bitcoin lower forever. His argument is narrower and more structural. If an AP is short IBIT and chooses to hedge with CME Bitcoin futures rather than buying spot BTC, then the normal arbitrage pathway that would force spot purchases becomes weaker. In that setup, the hedge can remain economically tight enough for market-making purposes while bypassing immediate spot demand. “The critical implication: if the hedge is futures rather than spot, the spot was never bought,” Park wrote. “The gap cannot close via the natural arb mechanism because the natural arb buyer chose not to buy spot.” He also cautioned that the separation is not frictionless, since basis traders work to keep futures and spot aligned, but said the basis risk becomes more meaningful in periods of stress. The recent shift to in-kind creations and redemptions, in Park’s view, removes another constraint that previously pushed activity into the spot market. Under the earlier cash-only model, APs had to deliver cash, which the fund’s custodian then used to buy Bitcoin. That created what Park called a “structural governor” because spot buying was a mechanical byproduct of creations. In-kind transfers change that. APs can now source Bitcoin directly, at times and from counterparties of their choosing, including OTC desks and negotiated transactions that may minimize visible market impact. Related Reading: 2 Bitcoin Price Levels Could Decide What Happens Next, Coinbase Says Even so, Park stopped short of endorsing outright market suppression claims. “The short answer is that no AP explicitly suppresses Bitcoin price,” he wrote. “What the AP structure can suppress is the integrity of the price discovery mechanism itself. Those are not the same thing—but the second is arguably more consequential than the first.” Other Experts Agree Senior ETF Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence Eric Balchunas commented: “The bogeyman is gone.. That’s the vibe rn on CT and in the price action today. I get it too, that big daily dump [at 10am] seemed to kill every rally and everyone’s spirit. Is eliminating it enough for a sustained rebound? I guess we’ll find out.” That distinction drew pushback. Monad founder Keone Hon said the theory does not hold up because a short futures hedge implies someone else is short futures and, on average, must hedge elsewhere, preserving the market-wide delta balance. Dave Weisberger also argued the claim does not hold “over any substantial time frame,” noting that futures converge to spot at expiry. Park did not dispute the accounting identity. What he disputed was whether that identity settles the practical question of how long trades can persist inside the system’s regulatory carve-outs. “To be clear, I don’t subscribe to the conspiracy theory that APs suppress price,” he wrote. “The conspiracy theory that I subscribe to, if there is one to be had, is that with infinite duration at zero cost of carry, funny things can happen.” Leading on-chain analyst James “Checkmate” Check agreed: “Jane Street didn’t suppress the Bitcoin price folks. HODLers all did. It’s just not that hard, stop summoning your inner salty goldbug but blaming manipulators. People. Sold. A. Fucktonne. Of. Spot. Bitcoin.” At press time, Bitcoin traded at $67,883. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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