Из жизни альткоинов

Кошелек крупного держателя биткоинов, который бездействовал 13 лет и семь месяцев, перевел 0,00079 BTC (около $56). Число биткоинов в кошельке сейчас оценивается примерно на $147 млн, сообщили блокчейн‑аналитики платформы LookonChain.

Американский банк Morgan Stanley внес уточнения в заявку, поданную Комиссии по ценным бумагам и биржам США (SEC) для запуска привязанного к биткоину спотового биржевого фонда (ETF).

Bitcoin’s quantum risk is real, but the network is not sleepwalking into it. That is the core conclusion of a March 19 research note from Galaxy Digital, which argues that while a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could one day threaten exposed Bitcoin wallets, developers are already doing substantial work on mitigation and migration.

Will Owens, a research analyst at Galaxy, frames the current debate as more polarized than the underlying facts justify. On one side are those who argue quantum computing is still decades away. On the other are those warning that the window may be far shorter and that Bitcoin needs to move now. Galaxy’s position sits between those camps: urgency is warranted, but so is perspective.

Bitcoin Is Getting Ready For The Quantum Threat

The report makes one point repeatedly. Not all bitcoin is equally exposed. Funds are only vulnerable when public keys are visible on-chain, which means the biggest long-term risk sits with legacy wallet formats, reused addresses, some exchange or custodian setups, and older outputs including coins believed to be tied to Satoshi Nakamoto. Citing analysis from Project Eleven, Galaxy says roughly 7 million BTC, worth about $470 billion at recent prices, may be vulnerable under a broad “long exposure” definition, though it notes other estimates come in lower depending on methodology.

That distinction matters because Bitcoin’s UTXO model still gives it structural protection that account-based chains do not. As Galaxy puts it, “In Bitcoin, public keys are typically revealed only when coins are spent, meaning a large share of the supply remains protected behind hashed addresses until transaction time.” The report adds: “This distinction does not eliminate risk for Bitcoin, but it does materially affect the scope and sequencing of exposure in a potential Q-day event.” In other words, Bitcoin has a narrower attack surface than many casual discussions imply.

Galaxy also pushes back hard on the idea that Bitcoin developers are ignoring the issue. Owens writes that recent social media criticism has overstated the gap between public perception and actual technical work. Ethan Heilman, one of the co-authors of BIP 360, said the proposal has received “more comments than any other BIP so far in history of BIPs,” according to the report.

It also cites two blunt remarks from active contributors: “Yes, developers are working on [quantum resistance]. I can point to many people working on this,” said Matt Corallo. Hunter Beast struck a similar tone: “We are working very hard on this very serious problem, and we think that it is the most serious concern that people have raised about Bitcoin.”

The technical path forward is beginning to take shape. Galaxy highlights BIP 360, or Pay-to-Merkle-Root, as the leading protective proposal. The design would remove Taproot’s always-visible key-path spend and create a more quantum-resilient output structure via soft fork, reducing long-exposure risk without forcing Bitcoin to immediately choose a final post-quantum signature standard.

From there, the conversation branches into harder territory. One layer is protection for future outputs. Another is mitigation for coins that are already exposed and may never migrate. That is where proposals like Hourglass enter the discussion. Rather than freezing vulnerable coins outright or allowing quantum-capable actors to sweep and dump them freely, Galaxy describes Hourglass as a “harm reduction” approach designed to limit the rate at which exposed coins could be extracted and sold during a quantum event.

The report also surveys fallback and emergency ideas, including hash-based signatures such as SLH-DSA, Tadge Dryja’s commit/reveal design for a worst-case early CRQC scenario, and seed phrase zero-knowledge proofs for recovery and authentication. None solves the entire problem alone. Together, though, they suggest Bitcoin’s response is becoming broader and more concrete.

Galaxy is careful not to understate the governance problem. Bitcoin upgrades remain slow by design, and the report points to the long timelines around SegWit and Taproot as reminders that even well-supported changes can take years. Still, Owens argues this threat is different. “There is no constituency,” he writes, “that benefits from Bitcoin being vulnerable to quantum attack.” That alignment of incentives may prove decisive if the risk becomes more immediate.

Overall, Galaxy’s message is straightforward: the threat is serious, the debate is no longer theoretical, and the work to prepare for it is already underway.

At press time, BTC traded at $70,360.

Republican senators huddled with a White House crypto adviser Thursday in a closed-door session that participants called “very productive” — a sign that Washington’s push to rewrite the rules of digital asset oversight may be gaining real momentum.

Stablecoin Sticking Point Nears Resolution

A spokesperson for Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis confirmed the meeting with White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt, saying lawmakers are now “99% of the way there on stablecoin yield” — the thorny issue that has held up a broader market structure bill in the Senate Banking Committee for months.

Concerns over how stablecoin yield should be treated across the crypto and banking industries had effectively frozen progress. Based on reports from Lummis’ office, negotiations on the digital assets portion of the bill are also in good shape.

The bill, known as the CLARITY Act, cleared the House of Representatives back in July 2025. As of Thursday, it had not been scheduled for a markup hearing in the Senate Banking Committee. The Senate Agriculture Committee had already advanced its own version of the legislation in January.

SEC Draws A New Line On What Counts As A Security

The closed-door meeting came the same day SEC Chair Paul Atkins delivered prepared remarks at the Practising Law Institute in which he outlined a sharp departure from how his agency has handled crypto in the past.

Gone, he said, is the “regulation by enforcement” approach that defined the previous administration’s posture toward digital assets.

Earlier in the week, the agency published an interpretive notice laying out which crypto assets it considers securities and which it does not. The answer, under the new framework, is that most cryptocurrencies are not securities.

Only one category remains under SEC oversight: traditional securities that have been converted into token form. Digital commodities, digital tools, non-fungible tokens, and stablecoins were all identified as falling outside the agency’s reach.

Atkins was direct about the limits of what the agency had done. The interpretation, he said, is a “beginning, not an end.”

A Bridge Until Congress Acts

The SEC’s move follows a memorandum of understanding signed last week between the agency and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Under the expected market structure legislation, the CFTC would take on a larger role in regulating and overseeing digital assets — a shift the SEC appears willing to accept.

Atkins framed the interpretive notice as a necessary bridge while Congress works toward a permanent statutory framework. Administrative interpretations can be revised or reversed.

A law cannot be undone as easily. That distinction is why the Thursday meeting between senators and the White House carries weight beyond the usual Washington optics.

For an industry that spent years under threat of enforcement action, the week’s developments represent a visible change in direction from the country’s top securities regulator.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView

Historically, there have been similarities between past Bitcoin cycles when it comes to both the bull and the bear markets. A lot of these have to do with the percentage by which the price rises, and then the percentage by which the price begins to crash. Naturally, the expectation has become that the bitcoin price will also follow the previous cycle, leading to calls for much lower prices. But could there be a deviation this time around?

Bitcoin Will See Another Major Crash, But How Low?

Analyst Crypto Patel highlighted the history of Bitcoin price performance over the last few cycles and how it could translate to the current cycle. Over the years, the Bitcoin bear market has often seen the digital asset crash by an average of 80%, suggesting that it is possible that this happens this time around.

Following this same trend, the analyst explains that a 77% crash this cycle would put the BTC price somewhere around $32,000. However, Crypto Patel does not believe that this is possible and that the Bitcoin price will not go this low.

Now, usually, after the Wave 3, the price sees a major crash, which often sends it toward a new bottom. This means that there is still another crash left for Bitcoin before a bottom is reached. The question is now how low the price could go.

Instead of crashing 77% to $32,000, the crypto analyst believes that the Bitcoin price will not fall below $40,000 this cycle. This will essentially mean that it does not get below 70%. Instead, the $40,000-$50,000 level is expected to be the max pain point for investors.

Still Following The 4-Year Cycle

Despite the deviation that occurred back in 2024, when the Bitcoin price hit a new all-time high before the halving, some parts of the 4-year cycle seem to be following the trend. As @ArdiNSC points out on X, the top has been consistently hit in a new 4-year cycle.

It has been the same in 2013, then 2017, before 2021, and then eventually 2017, almost 4 years apart each time. Given this, it is likely that at least some parts of the 4-year cycle are still in play. In such a case, then it could mean that the BTC price decline will continue, since historically, it has bottomed the year before the halving.

This means that BTC is just coming into the bear market, lending credence to Crypto Patel’s prediction that another major crash is coming. If this same 4-year cycle holds, then it is likely that the Bitcoin price will reach new all-time highs somewhere between 2028 and 2029.

Согласно опросу, проведенному компанией Ripple в начале года среди 1000 финансовых компаний из разных стран мира, 72% считают, что решения с использованием криптовалют важны для сохранения конкурентоспособности.

Доля USDC компании Circle в объеме транзакций со стейблкоинами выросла в феврале до 71% — тогда как доля USDT компании Tether упала до 28%, следует из данных аналитической панели Visa. В январе соотношение тоже было в пользу USDC: 54% против 45%. В марте соотношение пока держится на уровне января.

Основатель Into the Cryptoverse Бенджамин Коуэн (Benjamin Cowen) заявил, что, несмотря на рост цены крупных альткоинов, в более поздних стадиях рыночного циклах ликвидность всегда поглощается биткоином.

Американский Институт политики биткоина (Bitcoin Policy Institute, BPI) осудил законопроект, который одобрила Палата представителей американского штата Кентукки. Законопроект обязывает производителей аппаратных кошельков давать возможность владельцам восстанавливать пароли, пин-коды и сид-фразы.

Неизвестный, атаковавший в сентябре проект UXLINK, обменял 5496 украденных эфиров на примерно $11,82 млн в долларовых стейблкоинах DAI, сообщила специализирующаяся на кибербезопасности компания PeckShieldAlert.

Группа акционеров криптобиржи Gemini подала иск в суд, заявив, что торговая площадка обманула инвесторов перед проведением первичного публичного размещения акций (IPO).

Государственный Реестр компаний Великобритании удалил криптобиржу Zedxion из своего перечня легальных юрлиц, объяснив неверными сведениями, представленными торговой площадкой при регистрации.

South Korea’s opposition party has proposed a bill to abolish the upcoming income tax on crypto assets, citing US regulators’ guidance on asset classification, concerns about double taxation, and inconsistencies with the current tax system.

SK Lawmakers Push To Repeal Crypto Taxation

On Thursday, local news outlet Digital Asset reported that South Korea’s People Power Party (PPP) proposed a bill to amend the long-delayed Income Tax Act, which is scheduled to take effect next year.

According to the report, PPP’s floor leader, Song Eun-seok, introduced the legislation on March 19, seeking to abolish the taxation of crypto assets. If approved, the amendment would remove all provisions governing the taxation of digital assets in the current Income Tax Act.

Under the current digital assets law, crypto assets will be subject to a 20% income tax rate, up to 22% including local taxes, starting January 1, 2027, with a deduction limit of 2.5 million won.

Originally, the government proposed implementing a 20% tax on crypto gains by January 2022. However, the rule change has been postponed three times, including a two-year delay to the January 1, 2025, implementation date in December 2024.

As the report noted, the People Power Party and the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) clashed over the latest two-year delay, with the PPP and the government supporting the postponement. In contrast, the DPK advocated raising the tax deduction limit to 50 million won rather than postponing crypto taxation, ultimately agreeing to postpone it until 2027.

The proposed amendment mentioned recent joint guidance by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). This guidance classified most digital assets as commodities rather than securities, which reportedly raised concerns in South Korea that “treating them under the same tax system as securities is inappropriate.”

“Since digital assets are already classified as commodities in Korea and subject to the value-added tax system, imposing an additional income tax on them would create issues of double taxation,” the report added, citing the bill.

The amendment contends that imposing a separate income tax on digital assets raises concerns regarding the fairness and consistency of the tax system, considering that the financial investment income tax has been abolished to promote capital market development and protect investors.

If income tax is imposed in the future, significant practical and administrative difficulties are expected, such as determining the acquisition cost for non-resident foreigners, which would limit the effectiveness of the system.

DPK To Review Tax Amendment Despite Long-Standing Policy

In response to the People Power Party’s push to abolish the 20% crypto taxes, the Democratic Party of Korea has affirmed that it will review the recently introduced amendment.

DPK’s Senior Deputy Floor Leader for Policy, Kim Han-kyu, acknowledged PPP’s concerns about tax equity between stocks and crypto assets and the consistency of the Korean tax system.

“I am aware that there are calls to strike a balance between the stock market and the digital asset market in terms of taxation,” he told reporters after a general meeting of lawmakers on Thursday.

Kim also revealed the South Korean ruling party had not considered a proposal or any measures to abolish the upcoming crypto taxation, as it had “not yet reached a level where it is being seriously discussed or where there is a consensus within the party.”

The PPP’s bill was not previously discussed between the ruling and opposition parties in advance, he stated, but affirmed that DPK lawmakers will discuss the bill in the Finance and Economy Committee now that it has been introduced.

Nonetheless, he noted that the party’s stance had previously been to proceed with the existing bill, previously advocating a higher deduction limit instead, which could signal the proposed amendment risks limited support from the DPK.

Эксперты поставщика данных CF Benchmarks заявили, что справедливая стоимость биткоина составляет примерно $136 000, в то время как фактическая цена не превышает $71 000.

Федеральное бюро расследований США (ФБР) предупредило о новой мошеннической схеме в сети Tron, нацеленной на владельцев криптовалютных кошельков.

US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul Atkins said that the commission is moving away from a purely enforcement-driven response to digital assets and toward clearer, more constructive rules — a shift he framed as necessary to keep crypto activity onshore.

Clearer Path For Crypto Classification

In a CNBC interview, Atkins criticized the SEC’s prior approach, which relied heavily on enforcement actions rather than publishing concrete rules. He argued that this posture created uncertainty for businesses and pushed innovation and activity to other jurisdictions. 

“Perhaps nowhere has the cost of failing to do so been more apparent than in our treatment of crypto assets,” he said, noting that past messaging often amounted to “adapt to us—or else.” 

Atkins described the agency’s newly issued interpretive guidance, jointly prepared with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), as the start of a more transparent and pragmatic regulatory path.

The joint guidance, released earlier this week, aims to clarify how federal securities laws apply to a broad range of digital tokens. According to Atkins and the agencies’ interpretation, crypto assets should not be treated as securities. 

The guidance further outlines how certain token transactions or structural changes can move a token into — or out of — securities regulation, providing a framework for markets to better assess compliance needs.

As part of the new stance, the SEC has identified four categories of crypto assets that it no longer views as securities: digital commodities, digital tools, digital collectibles such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and stablecoins. 

The agencies said this position reflects collaboration between the SEC and CFTC and aligns with recent legislative proposals, such as the GENIUS Act, with respect to stablecoins. At the same time, tokenized securities remain deemed as securities. 

Upcoming Plans Disclosed By Atkins

Atkins further discussed a “fit‑for‑purpose startup exemption” for crypto assets. He suggested the agency consider allowing early-stage crypto entrepreneurs to raise limited capital or operate for a defined period without being fully subject to the agency’s rules. 

The Commissioner also expects the SEC to publish a proposal on crypto safe harbors for public comment in the coming weeks. He indicated that the proposal will incorporate the innovation exemption, which would carve out temporary relief from securities laws to enable companies to experiment with new business models.

Atkins stressed that the prior ambiguity had real consequences. By leaving rules implicit and relying on enforcement, the agency invited uncertainty that discouraged some firms from operating in the US and complicated compliance for those that did. 

The fresh guidance, he suggested, is a corrective measure meant to bring clarity and to keep digital asset innovation within the US regulatory environment.

Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com 

Крупнейшая в мире по объему торгов криптобиржа Binance объявила, что с 1 апреля проведет делистинг ряда торговых пар с токенами в кросс-маржинальной торговле из-за низких объемов.

Основатель и гендиректор криптоплатформы Abra Билл Бархайдт (Bill Barhydt) заявил, что для резкого роста цены биткоина необходимо возвращение розничных инвесторов.

Peter Brandt thinks the crypto market has not hit bottom yet. If he is right, the Algorand Foundation’s decision to cut 25% of its staff may be just one of many similar moves still to come across the industry.

A Leaner Team, A Packed Roadmap

The Algorand Foundation announced the layoffs Wednesday, pointing to a rough stretch in global markets and a sustained pullback in crypto prices as the driving forces behind the decision.

The foundation described the move as painful but necessary, saying it had reached a more sustainable alignment between its spending and its long-term goals.

Affected workers were described as top contributors, and the organization said it would help them through the transition.

What makes the timing unusual is what the Foundation has on its plate for the year ahead. Reports indicate the organization is still pushing forward with several major projects — including the next big update to its developer toolkit AlgoKit, the launch of a new wallet called Rocca, and continued work on post-quantum security.

Cutting a quarter of your team while announcing an ambitious workload is a balancing act, and it remains to be seen whether the remaining staff can carry the load.

Today, the Algorand Foundation made the difficult decision to reduce our workforce by 25%. This decision was not taken lightly and is in response to the uncertain global macro environment as well as the broader downturn in crypto markets.

These employees have been best-in-class…

— Algorand Foundation (@AlgoFoundation) March 18, 2026

Bitcoin Down 44%, And Counting

The layoffs did not happen in a vacuum. Bitcoin is currently trading around $70,000 — roughly 45% below its all-time high of $126,000, which it hit in October.

At its lowest point earlier this year, it fell to $60,000. For foundations that hold portions of their treasury in crypto, a drop like that translates directly into less money to pay staff and fund operations.

Algorand has not been sitting still. Based on a December roadmap update, the Foundation reported it had doubled the amount of ALGO staked online — from around 1 billion to 2 billion — over the span of a little more than a year.

That kind of growth signals momentum on the technical side, even as the financial pressures mount.

This Is Not The First Time The Crypto Industry Has Done This

The crypto world has been through rounds of staff cuts before. During the 2022 downturn, Coinbase reduced headcount by 18%, and Gemini cut 10% of its workforce. Both moves came as Bitcoin was trading near two-year lows around $21,000.

This week, blockchain data company Messari also announced layoffs and the departure of its CEO, who stepped down as the company shifted its focus toward artificial intelligence.

Bullish CEO Tom Farley recently said the sector could see more consolidation ahead, with larger firms absorbing smaller ones and trimming overlapping roles in the process.

For the Algorand Foundation, the message is straightforward: do more with less, and stay the course.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView

Владелец контрольного пакета криптобиржи Binance Чанпэн Чжао (Changpeng Zhao) заявил на DC Blockchain Summit, что с 2014 года криптоиндустрия прошла три этапа развития.