21Shares' macro chief looks at why Bitcoin has held relatively steady since the start of Middle East hostilities, while gold has slipped below $4,500 and key support levels.
The changes mean crypto ETF options are now treated identically to other commodity-based ETF options at every major exchange in the U.S.
A flood of forgotten funds has quietly found its way back to XRP Ledger users, after a decentralized exchange founder scanned the entire network to track down expired escrows that holders had abandoned — some without even knowing the money was still there. Related Reading: Crypto Adoption No Longer Optional, Survey Finds As 72% Of Finance Leaders Signal Commitment First Ledger Founder Scans Entire Network To Recover Idle Funds Adam, the founder of First Ledger, a decentralized exchange built on the XRP Ledger, combed through every corner of the blockchain to locate escrows whose time conditions had long since passed but had never been completed. Reports say the recovered total came to 750,218 XRP — worth just over $1 million at current prices. First Ledger now runs regular scans to catch eligible escrows as soon as they become available, releasing them before they fall through the cracks again. XRPL validator Vet confirmed the figures, noting that the bulk of the locked funds belonged to ordinary community members, not institutions. Many holders had set time-based conditions on their XRP years ago and simply moved on, either forgetting the funds existed or not knowing what steps were needed to claim them. Escrow unlocks spiking on XRP. Over $1,000,000 or 750,218 XRP total in Escrows just got unlocked. Lots of those escrows were created by holders and community members and timelock expired, but they forgot or didn’t know how to unlock and receive their XRP back.@xrpl_adam… pic.twitter.com/eSdMQmlSFM — Vet (@Vet_X0) March 20, 2026 The escrow system on the XRP Ledger does not release funds on its own. Once a timelock expires, the recipient must still send a specific transaction — called an EscrowFinish — to collect what’s theirs. Miss that window, and a separate deadline kicks in. If that second deadline passes without action, the escrow expires entirely and can no longer be claimed. At that point, only a cancellation transaction can return the XRP to whoever sent it in the first place. In some cases, if no expiration date was ever set, the funds can sit locked indefinitely. Record Transaction Counts Signal Broader Usage Growth The recovered funds are just one piece of a wider activity surge on the network. Data shows that deposits into automated market makers hit an all-time high of 70,735 on Feb. 28. Related Reading: Bitcoin Holds As Gold Posts Worst Week Since 1983 Amid Iran War AccountSet transactions — used to update account settings without moving any money — climbed to 114,690 on March 20, the highest single-day count the network has ever recorded. Error messages tied to insufficient XRP reserves also spiked above 370,000 on March 18, the highest reading in three years. That number reflects users trying to place new offers without holding enough XRP to meet the network’s minimum balance requirements — a sign that new participants are showing up and running into the system for the first time. Featured image from Vecteezy, chart from TradingView
A crypto hack never ends when the wallet is drained. The theft lands first, fast and visible, and then a slower collapse starts to work through the rest of the project. The token keeps sliding, the treasury shrinks with it, hiring plans get cut back, product deadlines move, partners pull away, and the company that […]
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Altcoin trading activity has continued to weaken across the crypto market, which is another sign of the current investor appetite for altcoins. New data shared by CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost shows spot trading volume on Binance and other major exchanges is now at extreme lows compared to levels seen during the crypto market’s more active phases in February and October 2025. Altcoin Trading Volumes Drop Across The Board Analysis of altcoin flows shows how much of the remaining altcoin activity is now flowing through Binance compared to the rest of the crypto market. Data from CryptoQuant shows altcoin spot volumes on Binance have collapsed to $7.7 billion, which is a fraction of the $40 billion to $50 billion trading volumes recorded during last year’s peak activity periods. Related Reading: Bitcoin Gains Ground On Gold Even As Both Assets Slide On the other hand, other major exchanges combined account for about $18.8 billion in altcoin trading volume. That puts Binance’s share near 40% of the total market, meaning close to one out of every two dollars traded in altcoins is now passing through the exchange. MEXC ranks second at 7.62%, followed by Bybit at 6.07%, OKX at 6%, and Bitget at 5.61%. HTX, Coinbase, and Upbit each hold between 4.57% and 5.38%, while smaller platforms including Crypto.com, Gate.io, KuCoin, and Kraken account for the remainder. Altcoin Spot Trading Volume By Exchange. Source: CryptoQuant Those figures are far below altcoin trading volumes normally observed during more active periods. In October 2025, Binance alone recorded between $40 billion and $50 billion in altcoin trading volume, with other exchanges reaching around $63 billion. The February 2025 peak was even more pronounced, with competing platforms collectively processing approximately $91 billion in altcoin movements. The Altcoin Spot Trading Volume chart from January 2025 through March 2026, which is shown below, reveals the decline very well. What were frequent spikes well above the $40 billion mark have given way to a prolonged suppression of activity, with readings largely hugging the baseline since the beginning of 2026. Altcoins Spot Trading Volume. Source: CryptoQuant Decline In Interest Could Matter For What Comes Next The fading interest in altcoins is happening against a context that is hostile to risk-taking. Ongoing geopolitical tensions and a bear market structure have left investors more defensive, and that caution has hit altcoins harder than Bitcoin. Capital inflows are now much more selective; Bitcoin is absorbing attention first, leaving the rest of the market struggling for momentum. Even so, Darkfost pointed to an idea that long-term investors will likely keep in mind. The volume spikes observed in October and February occurred when the crypto market was forming local tops. These phases are during periods of FOMO, during which well-positioned investors use the surge in demand as exit liquidity. Related Reading: Bitcoin Holds As Gold Posts Worst Week Since 1983 Amid Iran War On the other hand, periods of extremely low interest are worth watching closely because they often develop when sentiment is most depressed and expectations are at their lowest. These are when the most attractive opportunities tend to emerge. Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
By hosting manipulable contracts, prediction markets swap their long-term credibility for short-term engagement.
CoinDCX called the report "false" and said the fraud was carried out through a copycat website by impersonators, not through its platform.
Proponents of Bitcoin's four-year cycle theory say the price of BTC typically rises for three of the four years and declines in the final year.
Bitcoin fell over the weekend to set up another visit to "unreliable" support, but analysis flagged a new BTC price golden cross.
Shiba Inu is trading near a key support floor, and the numbers piling up on exchanges are giving traders reason to watch closely. Related Reading: Bitcoin Holds As Gold Posts Worst Week Since 1983 Amid Iran War The token is currently changing hands at around $0.000005603, down roughly 1% over the past 24 hours, while a growing stockpile of coins on trading platforms signals that more selling pressure may be building. RSI Reading Points To A Market In Wait-And-See Mode The Relative Strength Index for SHIB sits at 55 — technically neutral territory, where neither bulls nor bears have a clear edge. That number tells a story on its own. Buyers aren’t charging in. Sellers aren’t panicking out. Both sides are watching. Meanwhile, trading volume has fallen 24% in 24 hours to roughly $120 million, which means the market is quieting down at exactly the wrong moment for SHIB holders hoping for a breakout. On-chain data from CryptoQuant shows that around 200 billion SHIB tokens have flowed into exchanges over a short window. When traders move tokens onto exchanges rather than keeping them in private wallets, it usually means they’re positioning to sell or shift holdings. Sitting against a total exchange reserve of about 80 trillion SHIB, 200 billion may look small. But with a supply this large, even small movements carry weight. Price Stuck Below A Wall At $0.000006403 SHIB has tried and failed multiple times to push past the $0.000006403 resistance mark. The most recent attempt came on March 16, when the price briefly spiked before getting knocked back down in a single session, pulling the token toward its current support at $0.0000056. The pattern forming on the daily chart is one of distribution — meaning holders appear to be gradually offloading tokens rather than accumulating more. Active addresses on the network did nudge up about 1% in the past day, a sign that users are still engaged. But that uptick in activity hasn’t translated into any upward move in price, which suggests demand simply isn’t keeping pace with the tokens being pushed onto the market. Related Reading: Bitcoin Gains Ground On Gold Even As Both Assets Slide A Drop To $0.0000052 Could Follow If Selling Picks Up The next line of defense for Shiba Inu sits at $0.0000052. If exchange inflows keep rising and buyers stay on the sidelines, that level could be tested sooner rather than later. Reports indicate the token remains in a consolidating phase with no clear catalyst visible to break it higher in the short term. What happens next depends largely on whether demand picks up fast enough to absorb the growing exchange supply. For now, the balance is tilting in one direction. Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
Joint SEC-CFTC interpretive guidance outlines how the agencies will determine whether a cryptocurrency is a security.
The Pentagon has sent the White House a request for $200 billion in additional funding for the Iran war, a figure that would equal nearly 3 million Bitcoin at current market prices. At Bitcoin’s current price of about $68,600, the request converts to 2,915,451 BTC. That framing does not mean the government is financing the […]
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The investment giant told the regulator's crypto task force it supports trading tokenized securities on alternative trading systems and tradfi on-chain integration.
While upgrades have improved efficiency and lowered costs, the ecosystem faces deeper structural questions around fragmentation, security, and purpose, even as it continues prioritizing base-layer scaling.
Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins made one of the most significant announcements in the history of American crypto regulation on Tuesday, declaring that Bitcoin, Ethereum and a broad range of digital assets are formally exempt from securities laws, a ruling that draws a clear legal line under more than ten years of industry …
After a poor performance in the first two months of the year, the XRP price appears to have steadied its movement, rousing the hopes of relief among investors. However, the latest on-chain analysis suggests that the altcoin might not have hit its true local price bottom yet. Number Of Days Spent At A Profit Still Quite Low — Analyst In a recent post on the social media platform X, on-chain analyst Joao Wedson offered insights into the XRP market, saying the cryptocurrency is yet to enter the early phases of a price rebound, contrary to popular expectations. This on-chain hypothesis is based on data from the Number of Days Spent At A Profit metric. For context, this metric indicates how long current XRP holders have been in profit, relative to past price levels. As the name suggests, the indicator measures how many days have passed since XRP was last at a higher price. Related Reading: Solana Flashing Mixed Signals: $105 Breakout Or Double-Pair Collapse Ahead? According to Wedson, this metric has historically reached extreme levels at periods when the Number of Days At A Profit climbed to high levels. Notably, the case is quite different from the usual historical context, as the XRP price still trades significantly below these ‘hallmark’ zones. The market expert explained that this historical context suggests that the XRP price could see more downside movement in the near to mid-term. Furthermore, the analyst pointed out that this is the major prerequisite for the formation of historical patterns, which in turn precedes the formation of previous bottoms. XRP Ledger Records Expansion Across Multiple Wallet Sizes At the same time, blockchain analytics firm Santiment revealed that there has recently been a considerable amount of growth recorded in the XRP Ledger. Interestingly, much of this expansion is driven by a considerable increase in the number of small wallets holding XRP. The most notable growth has been from a cohort of investors typically referred to as ‘shrimps’ (with less than 100 XRP in their wallets). According to Santiment, these shrimp-wallets have added up to a total of about 5.66 million separate addresses, hence reflecting the widespread adoption of XRP by retailers and everyday users. Related Reading: Crypto Adoption No Longer Optional, Survey Finds As 72% Of Finance Leaders Signal Commitment At the same time, wallets containing between 100 and 100,000 XRP have also expanded in number, reaching an approximated amount of 2.01 million wallets. Because this group represents a mid-tier level of investors who make up a significant part of the network, this could mean that the XRP market has seen an inflow of more serious accumulators. While the amount of small wallets have displayed impressive expansions, the number of large-holder wallets have comparatively only recorded miniscule growth. Santiment revealed that these wallets with more than 100,000 XRP are capped at around 32,054. From this, it appears that this investor group has been involved mostly in distributions or repositioning events. With little influence from the whales driving XRP prices, it becomes more apparent that a local bottom may still be at lower prices. As of this writing, the XRP price stands at approximately $1.44, reflecting a 0.4% loss in the past day. Featured image by DALL-E, chart from TradingView
Strategy's STRC has bitcoin a major bitcoin accumulation tool, but analysts warn the risks aren't as clear as the marketing makes them out to be.
Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP tumbled sharply on Sunday after Iran responded to President Trump’s 48-hour ultimatum not with concessions but with an escalation, vowing to fully close the Strait of Hormuz and strike energy, technology and water infrastructure across the Middle East. With 33 hours remaining on Trump’s deadline, markets are pricing in the very …
Analysts traced the flaw to a privileged minting role controlled by a single externally owned account with no mint limits or oracle checks.
Crypto opened the doors to retail now Wall Street is feasting on it Retail investors were sold a story about market access that was impossible to argue with: trading would be cheaper, information would be easier to find, public blockchains would pull back the curtain, and the old hierarchy that once defined finance would lose […]
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Rising real rates and inflation risks weigh on gold, while bitcoin continues to consolidate.
USR issuer Resolv Labs says its collateral pool remains intact after an exploit on Sunday that minted 80 million unbacked tokens and drove the US dollar stablecoin as low as $0.14.
Pi Network’s token is under serious pressure, falling 5.16% to $0.190 in 24 hours. For a coin that once traded at $2.98 over a year ago, the decline represents a 93% collapse from its all-time high, and analysts warn the bottom may still be months away. Three Forces Pushing Pi Lower The immediate trigger was …
The Los Angeles Superior Court is pilot testing whether Learned Hand’s curated AI can help manage rising workloads.
A last-minute compromise between the White House, U.S. banks, and crypto firms over stablecoin yield rules has dramatically improved the odds of the Clarity Act becoming law this year, a development that analysts say could be the most consequential regulatory moment in digital asset history. Prediction market Polymarket now prices the bill’s passage at 72%, …
Bitcoin’s 20-week rolling correlation with the S&P 500 has turned positive, a signal that has historically preceded major BTC price declines.
The price of Bitcoin has continued to hover around the $70,000 level this weekend, establishing a choppy structure above this psychological level. According to the latest on-chain data, a significant buy alarm has gone off for BTC, indicating the potential start of a bull market. Has BTC Price Reached Its Cycle Bottom? On Saturday, March 21, popular market analyst Ali Martinez took to the social media platform X to sound a bullish alarm for Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. The crypto pundit posited that the market leader could be at the beginning of a period of extended upward movement. Related Reading: XRP Price Is Maintaining This Multi-Year Trendline, But A Crash Could Be Looming The rationale behind this bullish projection is the recent shift in the Inter-Exchange Flow Pulse (IFP) metric. The Inter-Exchange Flow Pulse is an on-chain indicator that measures BTC flows between spot and derivative exchanges using the Bitcoin exchange flow data. Changes in this on-chain metric are useful in determining whether investor sentiment in the Bitcoin market is bullish or bearish. Typically, the IFP indicator rises when significant amounts of BTC are being moved to derivative exchanges, suggesting a growing risk appetite and the potential imminence of a bullish period. The movement of the IFP (purple line) in relation to its 90-day moving average (broken lines) helps to identify price tops and bottoms while determining the potential long-term trend of the cryptocurrency. When the Inter-Exchange Flow Pulse crosses below its 90-day average, it signals a potential bear market and prolonged price downturn. As observed in the chart above, the IFP trended beneath the 90-day average early last year, suggesting that the current bear market started as far back as the first quarter of 2025. While the Bitcoin price initially ran up to a new all-time high above $126,000, the flagship cryptocurrency has since shaved off nearly 45% in value since the cycle peak. What’s more interesting, the price of Bitcoin appears to have hit its bottom, with the IFP crossing back above the 90-day average in recent weeks. As Martinez mentioned in his post on X, this crossover is a major buy signal that could suggest “big money is getting ready for a rally.” However, investors might want to approach the market with caution, especially considering that the IFP can sometimes be a leading indicator, meaning that the bullish effect on price might not reflect until later. Bitcoin Price At A Glance As of this writing, BTC is valued at around $70,360, reflecting a 0.3% price increase in the past 24 hours. Related Reading: Ethereum Exchange Inflows Signal Shift: Whales Reduce Selling Pressure Featured image by DALL-E, chart from TradingView
Bitcoin drops after Trump’s Truth Social threat turns ceasefire language into renewed escalation Overnight, Bitcoin dramatically fell 2.8% after President Donald Trump issued a Truth Social post threatening to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants if the Strait of Hormuz was not reopened within 48 hours. The drop ran from roughly $70,400 to $68,200 before a partial […]
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Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX says the fraud complaint is part of a wider impersonation scam, citing more than 1,200 fake sites using its brand.
One economic word could well define 2026: stagflation. It is an ugly word that describes a regime where prices keep rising while growth loses force, labor weakens, and policymakers run short of easy options. That combination changes the texture of daily life fast. Households feel it in food, fuel, insurance, rent, transport, utilities, subscriptions, and […]
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