Из жизни альткоинов

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse recently commented on ongoing tensions between the crypto industry and traditional banking groups following public comments surrounding stablecoin yield negotiations at the White House. 

His response came after a series of posts on X involving journalist Eleanor Terrett and White House adviser David Sacks, ultimately resulting in Garlinghouse sending a message to banks, urging them to act in good faith.

Stablecoin Yield Talks Spark Online Debate

The latest chapter in the crypto-vs-banks saga unfolded on social media platform X, where journalist Eleanor Terrett reported on the fallout from a contentious White House meeting over stablecoin yield regulations. Interestingly, Patrick Witt, the White House digital asset advisor, was aiming to pass the legislation by March 1, but that timeline has not been met.

According to Terrett, an unnamed source who claimed direct involvement in the talks painted a bleak picture of the negotiations, a characterization that led to pushback from the banking side.

Terrett reported that bank trade representatives from the American Bankers Association (ABA), the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), and the Bank Policy Institute, all of whom attended the White House meeting, were “perplexed” by the unnamed source’s framing and did not share those views. These views are related to claims by the source that there’s a very real likelihood that negotiations will fall apart unless Ripple CEO Brian Armstrong comes to the table.

David Sacks, Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the White House’s crypto czar, responded to Terrett. Praising crypto policy broker Patrick Witt, Sacks wrote that the crypto industry had already made major concessions on stablecoin yield and called on banks to reciprocate. The issue is around stablecoin yield: whether digital dollar issuers should be permitted to offer interest-like returns to holders.

Ripple CEO Says Banks Should Act In Good Faith

There is still an issue with brokering a compromise between the banks and the crypto industry. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong had raised concerns about the crypto bill, saying that banking interests in the bill draft were attempting to suppress competition. However, Armstrong later commented that there’s now a path forward for a “win‑win” outcome for the crypto industry, the banking sector, and American consumers. 

According to comments from Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, the ball is now in the court of the banks, who need to act in good faith. “The door to a deal is wide open. The banks just need to act in good faith and walk through it,” Garlinghouse said.

This posture is consistent with Garlinghouse’s support for collaborative and pro-crypto legislation. The Ripple CEO recently predicted that the long-stalled CLARITY Act will pass by the end of April. The bill is designed to define digital asset market structure and reduce uncertainty over jurisdiction between regulators.

Crypto heads into the week of March 2 with five clear catalysts on deck: a worsening US-Iran conflict under President Donald Trump, a privacy-focused Bitcoin wrapper from Starknet, Polygon’s March 4 agentic-payments gas upgrade, Avalanche’s new incentive round, and Friday’s US jobs report.

Crypto Watchlist For This Week

Bitcoin is still the biggest macro watch this week, but the setup has already changed. The initial war shock over the weekend pushed BTC down toward $63,000, yet that move did not hold. The token rebounded as high as $68,196 on Sunday and was back around $65,807 by European Monday morning, while broader reporting showed traders were already reassessing whether the conflict would become a lasting macro shock or a violent but temporary headline event.

Oil followed a similar pattern: Brent briefly surged to $82.37 before giving back part of the move and easing back into the upper-$70s, which matters because crypto traders are now watching inflation risk and rate expectations more than the initial geopolitical headline itself.

What matters now is not simply that Washington and Tehran are in open conflict, but that the political signals are mixed. Trump has said he is willing to talk to Iran’s “new leadership,” while the White House has also made clear that military operations are continuing.

At the same time, AP’s live coverage says Iranian leaders are publicly rejecting negotiations. For markets, that creates a more nuanced watch item than a straight risk-off story: if diplomacy starts to look credible and oil keeps fading from its highs, Bitcoin’s rebound may hold; if the war widens and energy markets tighten again, crypto is likely to trade under macro pressure first and narrative second.

On the product side, Starknet is preparing to roll out strkBTC, a wrapped Bitcoin asset issued on Starknet and redeemable for native BTC, with optional shielding for balances and transfers. The design matters because Starknet is not pitching privacy as mandatory. In its own words, “Privacy is available when needed. Transparency remains available when required for compliance.”

Polygon’s catalyst lands on March 4, when the Lisovo/LisovoPro hardfork is scheduled around block 83,756,500, with implementation of PIP-82 included in the release. The proposal would recycle up to $1 million in gas base fees spent on agentic-commerce transactions, a direct subsidy aimed at machine-to-machine payments. Polygon’s own proposal says the chain has attracted 20.3% of x402 transactions and 10.4% of total volume since the start of the year.

Avalanche’s watch item is the Retro9000 C-Chain Round, which starts on March 2 and draws from the Foundation’s $40 million Retro9000 funding pool. The key shift is methodological. Avalanche says the program is moving from rewarding who built to rewarding what gets used, with projects ranked by AVAX burned through smart-contract activity and the top 40 becoming eligible for rewards.

The cleanest scheduled macro event arrives on Friday, March 6, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the February US employment report at 8:30 a.m. ET. Reuters expects payroll growth of 60,000 after January’s 130,000 gain, making the release an important test of whether the prior month was a false signal or the start of a firmer labor backdrop. For crypto, that report matters because it can quickly reset rate-cut expectations just as markets are trying to price geopolitical stress.

This leaves crypto focused mainly on macro. If Middle East risk keeps oil, the dollar and broader risk sentiment in motion, Bitcoin and the wider altcoin market could remain exposed to sharp headline-driven swings. But if US-Iran tensions cool, Friday’s jobs report may become the next major trigger, with markets likely to judge it through one question above all: whether it strengthens or weakens the case for Fed easing.

At press time, the total crypto market cap stood at $2.25 trillion.

As bearish pressure returns to the cryptocurrency market, the price of Ethereum has lost the $2,000 level. Despite the fact that volatility still lingers, conviction is building among investors again, as indicated by the steady inflows of capital into ETH accumulation wallet addresses.

A Steady Stream Of Ethereum Flows

Ethereum’s price may be struggling with ongoing volatility, causing it to revisit a key support level, but the activity of investors is painting a different story. A recent report indicates a persistent bullish sentiment and activity among ETH investors, who appear to be buying more of the leading altcoin.

This interesting report from CW, an investor and crypto analyst, reflects a steady flow of ETH into accumulation addresses even as broader market volatility fails to die down. Traders are currently on edge because of price fluctuations and market uncertainty, but the chart shows that deliberate players are gradually growing their exposure to the altcoin.

CW highlighted that the inflow of ETH into accumulation wallet addresses has continued for the past few months, as seen on the chart. Such a trend indicates that strategic investors are showing strong conviction in a turbulent environment and continued waning price action. 

It is worth noting that the full-scale accumulation of ETH by large holders or whales started in May 2025. During the period, the expert noted that the price of Ethereum was trading at around the $2,500 level. Meanwhile, the current price is positioned at $2,000, but these investors are still stacking the altcoin.

Furthermore, whales find the position much more alluring because this is less than the original accumulation price of $2,500. Even with the drop in price, the accumulation of ETH still lingers. In the past, persistent ETH migration into accumulation wallets during turbulent times has frequently indicated a change in positioning from speculative to long-term.

Hedge Funds Turn Bearish On ETH And BTC

The market is highly volatile, and Ethereum and Bitcoin are quietly battling with newfound pressure. This fresh pressure is coming from Hedge Funds, who appear to be significantly stacking up on short positions in both assets across major derivatives markets.

CW took to the X platform to report that these players have been opening short positions in BTC and ETH between February 16 and 20, which signals that sophisticated investors are bracing for further downside or hedging against broader market risk. According to the investor, the cohort is the main factor dragging the market toward the downside direction. 

Last week, these investors held more short positions, but this week has seen further declines. While the data is one week apart, this week’s data will be entering the market next week. As a result, the shifts in their holdings in the data that will be published to the public the following week are crucial. Rising short interest more immediately indicates a defensive posture from institutional participants, and it can also occasionally precede strong squeezes if sentiment changes.

A crypto analyst has drawn a striking comparison between XRP and the Russell 2000 index, a US stock market index that tracks the performance of smaller publicly traded companies. Based on the similarities found between the two assets, the analyst has suggested that the altcoin could be setting up for an explosive move into price discovery. 

XRP Chart Mirrors Russell 2000 Index Trend

A new technical analysis by market analyst Austin compares XRP’s recent price action with historical price movements of the Russell 2000 index. In an X post, the analyst shared two parallel charts, explaining that in late 2021, the Russell 2000 underwent a massive rally followed by a lengthy period of accumulation and consolidation from 2022 through most of 2024. 

When the small-cap index eventually retested its all-time highs in late 2024, it formed a sharp Elliott Wave ABC corrective pattern that shook out weak hands. Following this, the index staged a dramatic V-bottom reversal in early 2025 and broke out into full price discovery territory. 

According to Austin’s analysis, XRP’s current chart appears to mirror a nearly identical blueprint to the Russell 2000 price action between 2021 and 2025. After its own massive pump and prolonged accumulation phase, XRP recently surged to retest its previous all-time high resistance near the $3.30 level on the chart. Following that retest, the cryptocurrency entered a similar ABC correction, mirroring almost step by step the movements of the Russell 2000 before its explosive breakout. 

Notably, the chart reveals that the A and B waves of the corrective three-wave pattern have already completed, and the price is currently working through the C wave. The chart structure suggests a potential crash to the $1.00-$1.27 range before any meaningful reversal attempt. If this occurs, it would represent a decline of roughly 5.22%- 25.37% from current levels of around $1.34. 

The key question Austin is now asking is whether the token is on the verge of the same V-bottom inflection point that was observed in the Russell 2000 chart. If history repeats and structural parallel holds, the analyst suggests that the XRP correction currently unsettling holders could be the final shakeout before a launch into price discovery. 

Analyst Shares Targets For Price Discovery   

The most important aspect of the Russell 2000 analysis is the potential for XRP to enter price discovery mode and begin trading above its 2018 all-time high. The green arrow projection on the price chart points toward price discovery targets well above $5. 

Once XRP completes its wave C correction, Austin predicts that the cryptocurrency could rapidly launch to the $7.5 to $10 range. With its price still hovering below $1.4, a breakout to $10 would represent a staggering increase of more than 645%. 

Россиянам, застрявшим в Объединенных Арабских Эмиратах (ОАЭ) из-за войны на Ближнем Востоке, начали предлагать вернуться домой самолетом за большие деньги. Предприниматели предлагают платить за вылет криптовалютой, рассказал газете «Известия» один из организаторов перелетов.

Крупнейший публичный корпоративный держатель биткоинов, американская компания Strategy докупила 3015 BTC на $ 204,1 млн. Покупки совершались с 23 февраля по 1 марта при средней цене $67 700 за монету.

An on-chain developer has announced that a new wave of deceptive non-fungible token (NFT) scams is sweeping across the XRP Ledger (XRPL), putting wallet holders on high alert. The attacks, which rely entirely on human error, have prompted growing concern within the XRP community about the threat of social engineering in the crypto space. 

Developer Sounds Alarm On New XRP Scam

XRP wallet holders are facing new sophisticated scam attempts as fraudsters flood the XRP Ledger with fake NFT passes designed to trick users into surrendering control of their funds. Wietse Wind, the developer behind the Xaman wallet and a prominent figure in the XRP community, has sounded the alarm on X, urging members to stay vigilant.

Wind made it clear that neither he nor his team is distributing passes or NFTs of any kind. He warned that anything claiming otherwise is the work of bad actors. Notably, the new scam tactic relies on social engineering. Fraudsters send unsolicited NFTs to Xaman wallet owners and then wait for victims to engage with an offer tied to those assets.

When a user willingly accepts or signs the transaction, they may unknowingly hand over something of value in exchange for a worthless or malicious token. Wind described the mechanic plainly, likening it to a situation where someone presents a bad deal, and the victim voluntarily accepts it, walking away with something useless. 

Security observers have warned that the attacks are not the result of any hack, technical breach, or flaw in the XRP Ledger itself. Instead, the entire scheme depends on one moment of human error. They caution that a random NFT appearing in a wallet should be treated as a red flag and strongly advise users not to engage, sign, or click anything related to unexpected tokens. 

Wind confirmed that changes at the NFT code level alone would not fully resolve the scam problem since the vulnerability lies in user behavior rather than the underlying technology. For now, the safest course of action is to cancel any unsolicited offers immediately and spread awareness throughout the XRP community. 

How To Cancel Scam Offers

Wind has offered guidance to affected users on how to protect themselves. He directed wallet holders to navigate to the ‘Events’ and ‘Requests’ sections to locate the suspicious offer, then hit the ‘Cancel’ button. While the developer reassured the community that simply ignoring the offer without any interaction would also prevent loss of funds, he has nonetheless strongly urged users to take the extra steps of canceling any suspicious offers outright.

Meanwhile, on the ground level, members of the XRP community have begun sharing their own encounters with the new scam. A blockchain enthusiast on X, going by the name Crypto Analytics, revealed that he personally received one of the fraudulent offers via his Bithomp wallet. He noted that the team at XRPL Labs had flagged the NFT offers as fraudulent on the wallet, giving users additional warning when they encounter the malicious scams. 

Трейдер и экономист Хенрик Зеберг (Henrik Zeberg) пообещал крипторынку стремительное ралли, которое должно начаться уже в этом месяце.

Отток средств из американских спотовых биржевых фондов (ETF), стоимость паев которых зависит от биткоина и эфира, достиг почти $9,2 млрд за последние четыре месяца, показала аналитика платформы SoSoValue.

Ethereum’s long-range protocol roadmap may move faster than many expect as AI tools improve, according to Vitalik Buterin, who pointed to a recent experiment that used agentic coding to assemble an ambitious reference client spanning much of Ethereum’s planned 2030-era architecture.

The comment came after developer Jiayao Qi, posting as YQ via X, unveiled ETH2030, an experimental Ethereum client built to target the network’s draft “2030+” roadmap. The project weighs in at 702,000 lines of Go, covers 65 roadmap items across eight phases, passes 36,126 official Ethereum state tests, and can sync with mainnet through an integration with go-ethereum v1.17.0. Qi said the client was built in roughly six days using Claude Code at a cost of about $5,750 and 2.77 billion tokens.

AI Could Speed Up Ethereum Roadmap

Buterin called the effort “quite an impressive experiment,” while also stressing that a prototype built at that speed comes with obvious limits. “Such a thing built in two weeks without even having the EIPs has massive caveats,” he wrote. “Almost certainly lots of critical bugs, and probably in some cases ‘stub’ versions of a thing where the AI did not even try making the full version. But six months ago, even this was far outside the realm of possibility, and what matters is where the trend is going.”

That distinction mattered more to Buterin than the raw demo itself. In his view, AI is not just compressing development time. It could change how Ethereum engineers approach assurance. “Probably, the right way to use it, is to take half the gains from AI in speed, and half the gains in security,” he said. “Generate more test-cases, formally verify everything, make more multi-implementations of things.”

He tied that directly to ongoing formal verification work around Ethereum. Referring to the Lean Ethereum effort, Buterin said one collaborator had already used AI to produce a machine-verifiable proof of a complex theorem underpinning STARK security. “A core tenet of @leanethereum is to formally verify everything, and AI is greatly accelerating our ability to do that,” he wrote. “Aside from formal verification, simply being able to generate a much larger body of test cases is also important.”

ETH2030 itself was presented less as a candidate client than as a stress test for the roadmap. Qi repeatedly framed it as a rough draft, not production software, and argued that its value lies in forcing hard engineering questions into the open now rather than years from now.

The roadmap, as implemented in the project, aims at a version of Ethereum with 10,000-plus TPS on L1, finality in seconds instead of 15 minutes, solo staking for 1 ETH, stateless nodes running on a $7 Raspberry Pi, and more than 1 million TPS across L1 and L2. But the experiment also surfaced deep coupling between upgrades, from block access lists and gas repricing to PeerDAS, native rollups and fast finality.

Qi was blunt about the gaps. Pure-Go cryptographic implementations lag production code by roughly 10x to 100x, the consensus logic has not been battle-tested on a live beacon chain, and the jump from roughly 5 million gas per second today to a 1 billion gas-per-second target remains highly speculative under real-world MEV and contract dependency patterns.

Buterin did not claim AI would make those problems disappear. In fact, he cautioned against expecting a secure protocol from a single prompt. “There WILL be lots of wrestling with bugs and inconsistencies between implementations,” he wrote. “But even that wrestling can happen 5x faster and 10x more thoroughly.”

That, more than the headline numbers, is the point now in front of Ethereum researchers and client teams. If AI can speed both implementation and verification, the roadmap may not just be a distant architectural sketch. As Buterin put it, people should at least be open to the “possibility” that Ethereum’s roadmap could be completed “much faster than people expect, at a much higher standard of security than people expect.”

At press time, ETH traded at $1,956.

Часть инвесторов, которые покупали биткоины последние два года, оказались в убыточной позиции, считают аналитики платформы СryptoQuant. Если цена биткоина опустится ниже $60 000, почти все эти инвесторы, за исключением долгосрочных держателей, начнут терять деньги.

Ежедневный объем торгов привязанными к курсу золота стейблкоинами на криптовалютных биржах в воскресенье, 1 марта, впервые превысил $3 млрд, сообщил сервис Coinmarketcap. Самый дорогой драгметалл подорожал до $5400 за тройскую унцию на фоне военных действий США и союзников против Ирана.

Dogecoin and Shiba Inu are currently facing bearish sentiment due to the crypto market downtrend. On-chain metrics also highlight the current sentiment, with market participants choosing to stay on the sidelines amid this downtrend.

On-chain Metrics Signal Bearish Sentiment Towards Dogecoin and Shiba Inu

Santiment data shows that Dogecoin’s Price Daily Active Addresses (DAA) divergence has dropped to -49%, signaling weak demand in the meme coin’s ecosystem even as price continues to drop. This figure marks a two-month low for DOGE and comes amid its recent drop below the psychological $0.10 level. 

Furthermore, the Daily Active Addresses on the Dogecoin network continue to waver. Data from Santiment shows that the DAA on the network dropped from as high as 87,727 on January 31 to as low as 38,696 on February 28. The total Active addresses over the last seven days are below 300,000, which also signals the low demand for the meme coin at the moment. 

Like Dogecoin, Shiba Inu is also facing weaker demand amid the recent price downtrend. Santiment data shows that the Price DAA Divergence has dropped to -29%, the lowest level this year. This notably coincides with SHIB’s decline to its lowest level this year, with the meme coin now down 25% year-to-date (YTD). 

Shiba Inu’s Daily Active Addresses have also remained flat since the start of the year, indicating that investors are opting against investing in the second-largest meme coin by market cap. For context, SHIB’s DAA on March 1 was just 1,984, down from the multi-month high of 377,000 recorded in October last year. Since the start of this year, the Daily Active Addresses have remained below 10,000. 

It is worth noting that Dogecoin and Shiba Inu remain at risk of further declines as tensions between the U.S. and Iran escalate. Further declines in these meme coins are likely to lead to a drop in these on-chain metrics as market participants stay on the sidelines amid this uncertainty. 

Derivatives Metrics In The Red As Traders Sit On The Sidelines

Dogecoin and Shiba Inu’s derivatives metrics are also in the red as crypto traders sit on the sidelines amid the current market sell-off. CoinGlass data shows that DOGE’s derivatives trading volume is down by over 34% down to $2.36 billion. Open interest is down over 9%, dropping to $907 million, while options trading volume has crashed 31%. The long/short ratio is below 1, signaling that most traders are shorting DOGE at the moment. 

Similarly, Shiba Inu’s derivative metrics signal that sellers are currently dominating the market, as bulls remain cautious amid market uncertainty. CoinGlass data shows that SHIB’s derivative trading volume has crashed 28%, down to $132 million, while open interest is down to $54 million.

Консорциум европейских банков Qivalis ведет переговоры с криптобиржами и поставщиками ликвидности для запуска стейблкоина, привязанного к евро. Листинг запланирован на вторую половину года. Наиболее вероятной площадкой названа испанская криптобиржа Bit2Me, имеющая лицензию европейского регулятора (MiCA).

Аналитики платформы QCP Capital заявили, что биткоин продемонстрировал устойчивость на фоне конфликта Израиля и США с Ираном, поскольку крипторынок был заранее подготовлен к неблагоприятному сценарию.

В селе Майданское Унцукульского района Дагестана полиция и энергетики выявили две нелегальные майнинговые фермы на 42 устройства. Суммарная мощность оборудования составляла около 147 кВт.

Iran and the Middle East are on fire again. US and Israeli forces launched a series of airstrikes on Iran over the weekend, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — a development that sent shockwaves through global markets and sparked fresh debate about what comes next for the US economy. And amid all the chaos, one prominent voice in the crypto world is already drawing a straight line from the bombing runs to Bitcoin prices.

Arthur Hayes Makes His Case

Arthur Hayes, co-founder of crypto exchange BitMEX, published a blog post this week arguing that US military action in the Middle East has a historical pattern — and that pattern tends to be good for crypto.

His reasoning goes back decades. According to Hayes, every sitting US president since 1985 has sent forces into the Middle East. Each time, the Federal Reserve followed by cutting interest rates or pumping more money into the financial system to help cover the costs.

The Gulf War in 1990. The aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001. The troop surge in Afghanistan in 2009. Each episode, Hayes argues, came with a looser money supply.

His conclusion: if US President Donald Trump keeps spending heavily on what Hayes calls “Iranian nation-building,” the Fed may eventually feel pressure to ease up on its current tight monetary stance. That, in turn, could send money flowing into riskier assets — including Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Iran-US War: Markets Stay Calm For Now

So far, the markets aren’t panicking. Stock futures dipped only slightly when trading opened Monday. Oil prices spiked at first, then pulled back, erasing nearly half the early gains. The S&P 500 shed less than 1%. Financial newsletter The Kobeissi Letter was blunt about it — this was no doomsday open.

To everyone calling for World War 3:

This is NOT a futures open that is anywhere near WW3.

In fact, oil prices have already erased nearly half of their opening gap higher and the S&P 500 is down less than 1%.

Gold is up a mere 2% and Bitcoin is now positive on the day.

Don’t…

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) March 1, 2026

Crypto social media told a different story in tone, if not in substance. Reports say mentions of “World War 3” spiked across platforms over the weekend, according to data from analytics firm Santiment.

But those numbers were still well below the levels recorded last June, when a prior round of Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear and military sites led to nearly two weeks of direct conflict between the two countries.

A Pattern Worth Watching

Hayes himself is urging caution for now. He admits there’s no way to know how long Trump will stay committed to a costly military campaign in Iran, or how much market pain the administration can stomach before pulling back.

His advice to crypto investors is to wait — specifically for a concrete Fed rate cut or money-printing signal before making big moves.

“The time to back up the truck and buy Bitcoin,” he wrote, is right after the Fed acts, not before.

Featured image from Getty Images, chart from TradingView

Глава отдела продуктов принадлежащей Илону Маску соцсети X Никита Бир (Nikita Bier) сообщил, что платформа исключает криптовалюты и ряд финансовых продуктов из перечня запрещенных категорий рекламы.

Национальный банк Эфиопии объявил о запрете одноранговых (P2P) операций с национальной валютой — быром — через торговые платформы без разрешения регулятора.

Сооснователь и бывший директор криптобиржи BitMEX Артур Хейс (Arthur Hayes) призвал инвесторов не спешить с покупкой биткоина на фоне обострения конфликта между Израилем, США и Ираном.