Ethereum’s derivatives market is showing signs of a decisive shift beneath the surface, and price action is about to return above the $3,000 mark. On-chain data suggests trader behavior on major exchanges is shifting into a more accumulative phase. Even as ETH continues to linger below the psychologically important $3,000 price level, this metric indicates that market participants are already preparing for a bullish move and a test of direction in the days ahead. Related Reading: XRP ETFs Grow Past $60M As Price Struggles To Respond Ethereum Leverage Ratio Prints New All-Time High Data from on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant shows that Ethereum’s Estimated Leverage Ratio on Binance has climbed to 0.611, the highest level ever recorded for this metric. The Estimated Leverage Ratio compares open interest to exchange reserves, and this offers insight into how much borrowed capital traders are deploying relative to available liquidity. Sustained increases in this ratio are a reflection of an increase in risk appetite from investors. It means that traders are committing larger leveraged positions in anticipation of favorable price movement. The current reading surpasses previous cycle peaks, and this environment can amplify price moves, since even modest spot price changes can trigger large liquidations when leverage is elevated. Ethereum: Estimated Leverage Ratio – Binance: CryptoQuant Another important metric points to an increase in Ethereum demand alongside record leverage. This metric is in the form of the Taker Buy Sell Ratio, which recently spiked to 1.13 on Binance. This is interesting because this level was last observed in September 2023. A reading above 1 indicates that market participants are executing more buy orders than sell orders. This combination of strong taker demand and rising leverage reveals optimism is now dominating short-term sentiment. The chart below shows the spikes in the Taker Buy Sell Ratio have more often than not coincided with periods of increased volatility. This buying pressure is now notable, with Ethereum trading around $2,900 in the past few hours, and this means that many traders are positioning ahead of a potential attempt to reclaim $3,000. Ethereum: Taker Buy Sell Ratio – Binance. Source: CryptoQuant Analyst Maps Out Ethereum’s Path Back Above $3,000 Adding a price-based perspective to the on-chain signals, crypto analyst Ted Pillows has outlined a clear technical roadmap for Ethereum’s next move. According to his analysis, ETH recently tapped into an important demand zone between $2,700 and $2,800 and has started to rebound from that area. This move occurred when Ethereum broke below $3,000 again this week to reach a low of $2,781 on December 18, which is highlighted on the chart below as a major support band. Ethereum Price Chart. Source: @TedPillows On X Pillows noted that holding this support zone keeps the bullish structure intact. If buyers continue to defend the $2,700-$2,800 range, Ethereum could build enough momentum for a push to the $3,100 to $3,200 region. That zone also sits just above the psychologically important $3,000 level. Related Reading: Bitcoin Feels The Weight Of Quantum Risk Concerns, Industry Leaders Warn The downside scenario is equally clear. A failure to hold the current support would expose Ethereum to a deeper pullback, with the chart pointing toward a potential retest of the $2,500 level. Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView
Multiple factors, including ETF outflows, contracting demand, and price falling below key support levels, indicate the start of a BTC bear market.
A debate on X over seemingly conflicting bitcoin forecasts from Fundstrat analysts drew a response from Tom Lee, highlighting differing mandates and time horizons.
XRP has continued to trade lower as crypto prices weaken across the board, with the total market shedding more than $1.3 trillion since October. Related Reading: Bitcoin Feels The Weight Of Quantum Risk Concerns, Industry Leaders Warn During the past three months, XRP has dropped more than 30%, keeping pressure on sentiment even as some commentators argue the token’s purpose goes far beyond short-term price moves. Retail Vs. Institutional Viewpoint According to health and finance commentator Dr. Camila Stevenson, much of the debate around XRP misses how large financial players judge settlement tools. Everyday traders tend to focus on charts and quick exits. Banks do not. They look at whether a system can handle stress, move large sums, and keep working when conditions worsen. Stevenson compared it to infrastructure testing, where strength and capacity matter more than the initial cost. XRP Was Built For Flows Based on reports from her recent video discussion, XRP was structured to act as a bridge for moving value, not as a speculative chip. With a fixed supply, the token cannot expand in quantity to meet higher transaction demand. Stevenson said that leaves price as the only way to support larger volumes. Analyst XFinanceBull echoed this view, encouraging market watchers to think in terms of flows rather than daily price action. Price Alone Does Not Prove Use Even so, market behavior still plays a major role. XRP trades in open markets, and speculation continues to influence price direction. A higher price may improve efficiency, but it does not guarantee adoption. Stevenson pointed out that many institutions position through custodians, OTC desks, and private agreements. These transactions often happen quietly and may not show up as sharp moves on public charts. Sudden spikes during positioning, she warned, would suggest instability rather than healthy use. Why Higher Price Helps Stevenson argued that banks moving billions would rather use fewer units that each represent more value. Fewer tokens can mean simpler settlement and less risk of slippage during busy periods. Large financial systems tend to fail when money cannot move or when settlement slows, not when prices fall. In that context, a higher XRP price could support smoother transfers if volumes rise enough to test the system. Related Reading: XRP ETFs Grow Past $60M As Price Struggles To Respond Market Reality Remains Mixed Despite the theory, clear proof of large-scale institutional demand remains limited. Regulation, liquidity depth, and reliable access still shape whether banks commit real volume. XRP’s 33% slide over recent months shows how quickly sentiment can shift, even as long-term use cases are debated. The idea that banks prefer a higher XRP price rests on future scale, not current trading patterns. Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
Bitcoin’s inability to reclaim $90,000 is looking less like a debate about narratives and more like a test of market plumbing. For the better part of 2025, the surface story was institutional momentum. The US moved toward a workable regulatory perimeter, capped by President Donald Trump signing the GENIUS Act to federalize payment stablecoins. At […]
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Bitcoin's fundamental properties make it a better long-term bet than gold, according to Bitcoin maximalist and analyst Matthew Kratter.
A Democrat and a Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee have unveiled a draft bill to bring clarity to crypto taxation in the United States.
UNI jumped after voting began on a proposal to activate Uniswap protocol fees, while broader crypto markets traded quietly.
Discussions around XRP supply have resurfaced after a detailed post on X by an XRP investor known as Lord Belgrave, who offered a perspective that goes beyond the usual conversations about the XRP tokens locked in escrow. According to the XRP investor, Ripple’s escrow mechanism is a deliberately structured system designed years in advance with institutional deployment in mind, and we might see more details in the near future as NDAs start to expire. Related Reading: Bitcoin Feels The Weight Of Quantum Risk Concerns, Industry Leaders Warn Why Ripple Created The XRP Escrow In The First Place Lord Belgrave’s remarks on the Ripple escrow system address questions about how XRP supply is managed, why the escrow exists in its current form, and what its role could be as Ripple’s infrastructure matures. The argument is that Ripple’s escrow was never designed internally as a pool of tokens just waiting for the best market distribution. In the discussions he describes, escrowed XRP was presented as locked supply governed by deterministic release schedules and multi-year planning phases. The emphasis was on predictability and control, with supply aligned not to short-term trading dynamics but to institutional readiness. Although not publicly assigned or disclosed, portions of the supply were viewed as conceptually reserved for future system deployments. Lord Belgrave claims these conversations occurred under strict non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and involved institutions across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. These institutions included central banks, systemically important financial institutions, multilateral bodies, the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements. Ripple introduced its escrow system in 2017 to bring transparency and discipline to XRP supply. XRP was created with a total supply of 100 billion tokens. However, not all of these tokens were in circulation during launch. About 55 million XRP was locked into on-ledger escrow contracts during launch, with 1 billion XRP scheduled for release each month. However, Ripple also re-locks around 700-800 million XRP, and only 200-300 million XRP is effectively released into circulation each month. This rules-based approach has become a cornerstone of XRP’s tokenomics for the past few years. NDAs, Disclosure Timing, And What Could Come Next Lord Belgrave also pointed to a perceived change in institutional language following Ripple’s regulatory progress, interpreting it as a sign that long-standing NDAs may be nearing a disclosure phase. Systems are now moving from preparation into active deployment, and as such, previously reserved liquidity will become operational. That interpretation was met with a response from Vincent Van Code, another popular XRP enthusiast on X. In his view, many NDAs exist but disclosure does not occur automatically. He explained that information is typically revealed only when both parties formally agree to share specific confidential details. Related Reading: XRP ETFs Grow Past $60M As Price Struggles To Respond From this point of view, the NDAs are so that Ripple does not disclose its counterparties and keeps them clear of regulatory scrutiny until compliance checks, audits, and approvals are complete. Any future transparency from Ripple and its partners would likely follow coordinated decisions instead of just NDA expiration. Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
The fund will use Coinbase Crypto Services as its initial staking provider and pay a 4% service fee, with rewards accruing to the fund and reflected in its net asset value.
Will we get this bill after all?
The full scope of Glamsterdam has not yet been finalized, but developers are targeting it to go live in 2026.
The defendant reportedly told friends he lost $6 million gambling on crypto, and went by "@lolimfeelingevil" on Telegram.
The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI's ChatGPT reinforced delusions that preceded a fatal attack on a user’s mother.
The deal includes performance-based earn-outs contingent on Enigma's strategies generating $40 million in net income.
Since the market-wide crash in early October, the Bitcoin price has struggled to resume any significant movement to the upside. The flagship cryptocurrency has continued to fall even deeper into bearish territory, breaching multiple support zones in the process. With the crypto market’s situation painting a bleak picture, the prevailing sentiment around its leader can hardly be said to be bullish. Interestingly, a recent on-chain evaluation puts into perspective the key players behind Bitcoin’s weakness. BTC Coinbase Premium Gap Reads –$57 In a recent post on the social media platform X, on-chain analyst Maartunn shared that a substantial portion of sell pressure seen in the Bitcoin market might be from the activities of US investors. This on-chain observation is based on the Coinbase Premium Gap metric, which measures whether US based investors are buying or selling Bitcoin more aggressively than the rest of the global market. Related Reading: Bitcoin Recent Dips Reveal Market Structure Issue Not Coming From Selling Pressure For context, the metric tracks the price gap between Bitcoin on Coinbase and Bitcoin on major offshore exchanges (for example, Binance). A positive reading typically indicates that Bitcoin is more expensive on Coinbase, meaning that US traders are buying aggressively. On the other hand, negative readings are interpreted as increased sales or reduced interest among investors in the United States. According to the analyst, the Coinbase Premium Gap recently dropped to a -$57 reading. As has been earlier implied, this deep negative value reveals that traders from the US are actively offloading, rather than accumulating Bitcoin. Interestingly, this heightened selling activity accompanies Bitcoin’s price momentum towards lower levels. Thus, it becomes clear that the sell-pressure reflected on Bitcoin’s price is due mainly to the absence of US demand. BTC Market Outlook According to historical data, Bitcoin’s direction in the long-term could go either way. While a negative Coinbase Premium Gap reading is usually indicative of a bearish phase in the short term, the long-term perspective is a little less straightforward. In past cycles, prolonged periods of negative readings have preceded the formations of market bottoms, after which prices saw recoveries to the upside. This often happens when sell-side pressure dwindles, and fresh demand enters the Bitcoin market. Related Reading: Ethereum Exchange Supply Just Crashed To New Lows, Why This Is Bullish For Price Hence, if this negative reading deepens and there is no fresh demand in the market, the Bitcoin price could follow suit and continue south. However, a reversal of the Coinbase Premium Gap to the upside — pushing it towards neutral or positive levels — could prove pivotal for the world’s leading cryptocurrency. As of this writing, Bitcoin holds a valuation of $88,260, reflecting no significant price movement in the past day. Featured image from Dall-E, chart from TradingView
The scammer sent a small "dust" amount to the victim's transaction history, causing the victim to copy the address and send $50M to the scammer's address.
Crypto and Web3 projects market themselves as decentralized but still rely on centralized cloud infrastructure to power applications.
Four XRP spot ETFs now trade in the US, with combined assets of $941.7 million as of Dec. 18. Grayscale's GXRP holds $148.1 million, Canary Capital's XRPC $373.6 million, Franklin Templeton's XRPZ $189 million, and Bitwise's XRP ETF $215.6 million. That stack grew from roughly $336 million at launch in November to current levels in […]
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Bitcoin reached significant multiyear support versus gold as commentary diverged over a breakdown and the start of a new bear market.
The victim of a similar $71 million address poisoning attack in 2024 managed to recover nearly all available funds, lending hope to the scam's latest victim.
According to onchain data, Bitcoin may be moving into a different phase of market participation rather than simply hitting a classic cycle top or bottom. Related Reading: Bitcoin Feels The Weight Of Quantum Risk Concerns, Industry Leaders Warn New, large entrants are paying higher prices and holding on, and that change is reshaping where the network’s cost base sits. This is not just a short blip; the pattern has several clear data points behind it. New Whales Rewrite The Network Cost Base According to CryptoQuant figures, addresses classified as new whales now account for almost 50% of Bitcoin’s realized cap. Before 2025, that share rarely rose above 22%. Realized cap tracks the value of BTC at the price each coin last moved, so this shift shows where capital entered the system, not just who currently holds the most coins. Reports say the realized cap share from new whales continued to climb even during pullbacks, which suggests the network’s aggregate cost basis is being re-anchored at higher levels. Short-Term Demand Surges As Larger Players Buy Dips Short-term holder supply expanded by roughly 100,000 BTC over a 30-day span, reaching an all-time high, according to analysts. That jump in STH supply points to intense demand at the near-term level. Based on exchange flows, about 37% of BTC sent to Binance came from whale-size wallets, defined in the data set as holdings between 1,000–10,000 BTC. Reports from Hyblock show the cumulative volume delta for whale wallets — those in the $100,000–$10 million range — posted a positive $135 million delta this week. In contrast, retail wallets ($0–$10,000) and mid-size traders ($10,000–$100,000) logged negative deltas of $84 million and $172 million, respectively. In short: larger players absorbed selling pressure while smaller holders reduced their exposure. Related Reading: XRP ETFs Grow Past $60M As Price Struggles To Respond Derivatives Point To Short-Term Risk Price action was sharp. Bitcoin rose to $88,000 from $85,100 in about five hours after the Bank of Japan raised rates, a move that many investors had tracked as a potential macro trigger. Open interest climbed faster than the price, and funding rates turned positive, which indicates fresh margin-driven long positions were being added rather than a simple cover of shorts. That kind of flows pattern raises the chance of volatile reversals if sentiment shifts, even when spot demand looks healthy. Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
Digital fixed-income products are experiencing rapid growth, with $325 million distributed on Mercado Bitcoin's platform in 2025.
BitMine’s growing Ether holdings are reshaping how investors assess the company’s balance sheet, risk exposure and equity valuation.
The Uniswap (UNI) price has moved back into focus as traders react to a major governance vote that could reshape the token’s long-term value. While the broader crypto market remains cautious, UNI has shown relative strength, driven by expectations around changes to token burns and protocol fees. With the vote entering its final stage, UNI …
The director of global macro at the asset management giant remains a secular bull on bitcoin, but isn't optimistic about the next year.
XRP ETFs' growth highlights potential for diversification in crypto investments, but market volatility and Bitcoin's dominance pose challenges.
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Bitcoin’s ETF data is doing that annoying thing where it looks terrifying if you only read the headline. Big chunks of ETF buyers are sitting on losses, and every red flow day gets framed as the start of a stampede. But if you look closely at the numbers, they tell a different story. Outflows are […]
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Canton crypto has quietly climbed into the top 30 cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation, drawing attention from traders at a time when much of the broader market remains stuck in tight ranges. While sudden ranking jumps often raise questions about hype, Canton’s recent move appears to be driven by a mix of institutional developments and short-term …
Coinbase believes a major US tax change could significantly alter how gamblers place bets starting in 2026. In its latest outlook, the crypto exchange argues that a provision in President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” may unintentionally push gamblers away from traditional casinos and sportsbooks and toward prediction markets instead. The law, signed …