Bitcoin price strength failed to reclaim a key support zone with traders still expecting the bear market to match previous cycles.
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.
MEV Capital’s assets under management fell 80% from a peak of $1.5 billion to about $300 million following millions in direct losses linked to deUSD depeg in October.
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.
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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
After a testnet with 700,000 accounts and $50 million in pre-deposits, Decibel begins mainnet trading with an onchain order book and risk engine on Aptos.
The card lets users spend digital assets directly from their self-custodial wallets at various merchants.
"Users retain control of their digital assets in their MetaMask wallet until the moment they pay," Consensys said.
DefiLlama data shows derivatives contribute heavily to DeFi’s $1 billion-plus quarterly revenue as lending and trading infrastructure converge.
Cryptocurrency exchanges are moving to block scam-linked transfers before funds leave their platforms as fraud losses continue to climb.
MetaMask Card goes live in the US, with first-time availability across 49 states, including New York, following initial pilots over the past two years.
US President Donald Trump has influenced cryptocurrency market movements through his policies and speeches declaring ambitious crypto goals.
The company generated $185.2 million in annual revenue as it scaled its mining operations and accumulation efforts.
Buterin's ETH sales highlight a strategic shift towards bolstering Ethereum's infrastructure amid market volatility, impacting investor sentiment.
The post Vitalik Buterin exceeds target after selling over 17,000 ETH appeared first on Crypto Briefing.
The "strawmap" outlines seven forks through the end of the decade, including post-quantum cryptography, shielded transfers, and a 480x reduction in transaction finality time.
Telegram’s crypto wallet introduces self-custodial vaults, letting users earn yields on Bitcoin, Ether and USDt directly inside the messaging app.
Lawmakers pass HB 1042 allowing public funds to access bitcoin and ETFs, while banning crypto ATMs amid rising fraud concerns.
Bluprynt secured $4.2 million in a seed funding round led by major industry players, including Coinbase Ventures and Robinhood.
The XRP price isn’t exactly inspiring confidence right now. After a powerful 2025 rally that pushed XRP/USD above the $3 mark, the mood has shifted and not subtly. Price has rolled over hard, now hovering near the $1.44 zone, with momentum indicators tilting south. On the weekly XRP price chart, that vertical breakout from late …
Bitcoin climbed to $69,550 on Wednesday, its highest point in over a week, after a sharp swing upward from around $62,350 in less than a day. The move came as US stock markets turned green again, giving investors across the board a reason to buy back in. Related Reading: Crypto’s Biggest Bull Run Could Come From The Most Unexpected Place: AI Bubble ETF Cash Returns After Five Weeks Of Outflows One of the clearest signs of renewed confidence came from the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund market. Reports say US-listed Bitcoin ETFs pulled in $257.7 million in a single day on Tuesday — a notable turnaround after five straight weeks of withdrawals that had drained roughly close to $4 billion from those same funds. Fidelity drew approximately $83 million of that total. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust attracted close to $79 million. The return of institutional buying added fuel to a rally already building on the back of a calmer macro backdrop. The broader stock market’s recovery was partly tied to US President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, in which he described his first year in office as an economic success. He pointed to falling mortgage rates and a 1.7% drop in core inflation over the final three months of 2025. Markets took the speech as a sign that the policy chaos seen in recent months — particularly around tariffs and court battles — might be settling down. Spot Buyers, Not Speculators, Are Behind This Rally What makes this price move stand out is the data beneath the surface. Reports note that Bitcoin’s aggregated open interest — a measure of outstanding futures positions — has actually been declining even as prices climbed. It fell from above 240,000 BTC earlier in the week to around 235,167 BTC. That kind of drop suggests traders with borrowed money were closing out positions rather than opening new ones. Funding rates tell a similar story. They remain slightly negative at around -0.0037%, meaning short sellers are currently paying fees to traders betting on higher prices. That is an unusual setup during a strong rally, and it points to a market where aggressive speculation has been squeezed out rather than amplified. Related Reading: Bullish Signal? Coinbase Bitcoin Premium Turns Positive After Months In Red Ticking Upward The cumulative volume delta — which tracks whether buyers or sellers are more aggressive on spot markets — has been ticking upward, confirming that real purchasing activity is driving the move. According to market experts, options market dynamics are also playing a role. Dealers holding what is known as a positive gamma position tend to buy when prices dip and sell when prices rise, as part of routine hedging. That behavior acts as a natural shock absorber, smoothing out big swings and making explosive breakouts harder to sustain in either direction. Featured image from Yellow, chart from TradingView