Из жизни альткоинов

The UK government moved on Wednesday to block political donations made in crypto and to limit how much Britons living overseas can give to political parties, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced. 

The measures follow an independent review into foreign financial influence in British politics and aim to close avenues the government says could be used to channel illicit or foreign funds into domestic campaigns.

Crypto Donations Paused 

Reuters reported the government will cap donations from UK citizens living abroad at £100,000 (about $133,880) per year and immediately introduce a moratorium on crypto contributions until a regulatory framework is put in place. 

Ministers said those steps implement the principal recommendations of the independent review, chaired by former senior official Philip Rycroft, which concluded that the threat of foreign financial interference is “real, persistent and sustained.”

Housing Minister Steve Reed said the measures aim to “stop hostile foreign states and others who want to weaken and exploit the UK by stoking division and hatred,” describing a ban on crypto donations as “vital” to shut off what he called a “clear route” for illicit funds.

The policy shift is likely to hit Reform UK, the populist party led by Nigel Farage, which last year became the first British political party to accept Bitcoin (BTC) donations. 

At least two-thirds of Reform’s funds were reported to have come from overseas donors, making the new limits and the crypto moratorium particularly significant for the party. 

Government Shifts Rules 

Rycroft’s report warned that attempts by foreign states—including Russia, China, and Iran—to interfere in UK politics are persistent, and it noted potential future risks from private actors, including individuals in allied countries such as the United States. 

The review recommended stronger investigative and criminal tools to combat interference: proposals include creating a dedicated police center to probe allegations, lowering the burden of proof for relevant criminal offences, and considering tougher sentences for those found guilty.

Until now, British law placed no limits on donations to political parties provided they came from individuals on the UK electoral register or from UK-registered organizations such as trade unions. 

The government’s new approach marks a departure from that framework by curbing foreign financial influence and pausing crypto donations until authorities can design effective oversight.

Officials framed the measures as pre-emptive steps to protect democratic integrity rather than targeted interventions against any single party. 

Nonetheless, Reuters reported that the timing and effect of the restrictions will have immediate political consequences, particularly for parties that have relied heavily on overseas funds.

The cap on expatriate donations and the crypto moratorium came into effect on Wednesday, the government said, signaling an urgent push to tighten rules around political financing as lawmakers consider the review’s broader recommendations.

Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com 

A crypto market expert has reported that Bitcoin (BTC) has just formed its most bullish signal amid the ongoing bear market trend. According to the analyst, this technical signal could be the catalyst for a major bullish turnaround, potentially propelling Bitcoin’s price to explosive levels. 

Analyst Reveals Bitcoin’s Most Bullish Signal Yet

The Bitcoin price has surged back above $71,000 after briefly declining near $68,000 just last week. While the market continues to experience fluctuating prices and short-term relief bounces, which many experts identify as potential fake outs, technical analyst Crypto Patel has shared a new signal that could lead to a full bullish reversal for BTC.

In a Monday X post, the analyst revealed that BTC has formed an incredibly bullish signal that almost no one in the market is talking about. Sharing a price chart, Crypto Patel noted that BTC has recorded its longest negative correlation with the S&P 500 since 2020. He explained the significance of this correlation, suggesting that Bitcoin is no longer trading like a risk asset.

Crypto Patel also revealed that the roughly 70,000 BTC in Open Interest was recently wiped out during a single liquidation event. This reset market positioning back to April 2025 levels, effectively clearing excess leverage from the system. 

Notably, the analyst emphasized that the last time Bitcoin decoupled from the S&P 500, it was followed by a powerful upward rally. Based on this historical trend, his analysis points to a comparable price surge in Bitcoin during this cycle, potentially pushing the cryptocurrency out of its ongoing bear market. 

While Crypto Patel maintains a broadly bullish outlook for BTC, other analysts remain significantly bearish. Market expert Lyvo has warned traders and investors on X against turning too quickly bullish after any major Bitcoin-related news.   

From a psychological standpoint, he explained that many participants have already accepted the idea that Bitcoin is in a bear market. He attributed this sentiment to the formation of lower highs and continued price declines, which have gradually changed retail sentiment. Despite the cautious outlook, Lyvo acknowledged that the market could still rebound from its current downtrend. However, he also noted that if Bitcoin continues dumping, it could push the market closer to its next bullish phase. 

Analyst Shares BTC Long-Term Price Forecast

For his long-term outlook, Crypto Patel has projected that Bitcoin could reach an ambitious price target of $600,000 by 2029. He has shared a potential roadmap for achieving this milestone, using past cycle trends to support his bold forecast. 

According to the analyst, BTC surged to an ATH of about $68,991 in the last cycle before crashing roughly 77% to $15,470, marking a final bottom. He believes a similar trend could unfold this cycle, noting that Bitcoin hit a peak above $126,000 in October 2025 and could form its next cycle bottom around the same month in 2026. 

He further highlighted that the 0.5-0.618 Fibonacci Retracement level near $50,000-$35,000 on the price chart could be a major accumulation zone once BTC bottoms. Following this potential price floor, the analyst expects Bitcoin to stage a powerful rally and potentially hit a cycle peak between $500,000 and $600,000 sometime between September and October 2029.

Irish authorities have unlocked a seized Bitcoin (BTC) wallet linked to a large-scale drug case. The wallet, containing 500 BTC, had been inaccessible for seven years due to missing private keys, and opens the door to recovering a massive BTC stash from other seized wallets.

Irish Police Unlocks Seized Bitcoin Wallet

On Tuesday, Ireland’s National Police and Security Services announced that they had gained access to a seized crypto wallet containing 500 BTC, which were the proceeds of crime.

In a statement, the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB), in collaboration with Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre, confirmed the seizure of approximately €30 million in crypto, worth around $35.4 million at current prices.

“Europol hosted operational meetings at its headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands and provided critical support to Bureau investigators and analysts with the provision of highly complex technical expertise and decryption resources vital to the success of the operation,” authorities explained.

According to local reports, the wallet was seemingly part of a larger Bitcoin stash linked to a drug case. The wallet was seized, along with 11 other wallets, in 2019 and had been inaccessible to authorities over the past seven years due to the missing private keys.

The seizure marks a major development, as it is the first time the CAB has been able to access any of the wallets, which contained a total of 6,000 Bitcoin. Irish authorities did not confirm whether the recently seized assets were part of the case. However, data from the blockchain intelligence platform Arkham Intelligence suggests that the wallet is part of the assets stuck in limbo.

Arkham shows that a wallet associated with the case transferred 500 Bitcoin to an unknown address that subsequently moved the assets to Coinbase Prime on March 24. The wallet, labeled “Clifton Collins: Lost Keys,” had been inactive since January 2016.

The platform also links 13 other addresses to Collins, with total holdings of roughly 5,500 Bitcoin, worth $392.3 million at the time of writing.

Missing Keys Lock 5,500 BTC Away

The Bitcoin was originally confiscated from a 53-year-old former beekeeper from Dublin, Clifton Collins, who was involved in a “large-scale” cannabis operation nine years ago. Collins began cultivating cannabis full-time around 2005, renting properties around Ireland to grow crops and sell them in Dublin.

As reported by Bitcoinist, he managed to evade law enforcement until the police discovered €2,000 worth of cannabis in Collins’ vehicle in 2017, leading to his arrest and a wider investigation that uncovered his drug-growing operations.

During Bitcoin’s early years, Collins invested in BTC around 2011 and 2022, when it was worth only a fraction of its current value. As the flagship cryptocurrency surged in popularity and price, he decided to disperse his growing wealth across multiple virtual wallets, creating 12 wallets that were later seized by the police.

He told police that he had “meticulously” documented the keys to access these wallets on a sheet of paper hidden inside the aluminum cap of a fishing rod case kept at one of his rental properties in Galway.

Nonetheless, Collins claimed that the paper went missing after a break-in at his home. Reports argued that the fishing rod case could also have been likely incinerated after his landlord cleared the property and sent his belongings to a landfill following the arrest.

In any case, the loss of the sole copy of the private keys left the CAB with a digital fortune that remained inaccessible until now. The breakthrough could signal that a recovery of the 5,500 Bitcoin sitting in the other wallets is possible.

It’s worth noting that authorities had already forfeited assets worth $1.39 million, including $1.15 million in Bitcoin, to which Collins still had access codes.

After a short period of trading below the $70,000 level, Bitcoin’s price has risen above this pivotal mark, even as macroeconomic and political conditions continue to stifle cryptocurrency’s performance. BTC is now trading sideways within a range while market forces shift behind the scenes.

Is Bitcoin Losing Upward Strength?

Bitcoin has bounced back to the $71,000 threshold again, but is now trending inside a range. While BTC’s price is steadily trading within a narrow range, a much more dynamic shift beneath the surface may be concealed by the seemingly placid price activity.

A detailed analysis of the BTC Fundamental Index by Bitcoin Vector on the X platform unveils that the price has been trying to break out of the narrow range. However, the Fundamental Index is still trending lower and remains stuck well below the strengthening zone.

This positioning on the chart implies that the current sideways price action is not a healthy consolidation. Instead, it is more of stability without support. As long as on-chain conditions continue to display weakening momentum, the upside trajectory appears increasingly dependent on key indicators such as flow, short covering, or external catalysts, and not organic strength.

In the meantime, the next phase for Bitcoin depends on the Fundamental Index flipping toward the upside once again and regaining above the strengthening zone. If the key metric doesn’t recover, this kind of divergence typically does not support a sustained recovery in the medium term.

Large BTC Investors Have Gone Quiet Amid Volatility

While Bitcoin’s next trajectory remains uncertain and unclear in the short term due to the current negative cryptocurrency environment, the sentiment of large investors is beginning to turn bearish. Amid increased price volatility, these holders’ participation has significantly decreased, indicating a change in top-end market behavior.

Santiment, a leading market intelligence and on-chain data analytics platform, reported that Bitcoin’s whale activity has become historically quiet. This behavior is taking place as key stakeholders gear up for clarity from the CLARITY Act, as well as long-term finality to the US-Iran War.

Over the past week, there have been 6,417 BTC transfers worth over $100,000+ on a daily basis, marking the lowest level since September 2023. Meanwhile, for BTC transfers valued at +$1 million, there have been 1,485 conducted daily within the same period, representing the lowest level since October 2024. In such a volatile period, these investors appear to be taking a more cautious, wait-and-see approach.

It is important to note that this investor sentiment or activity has little to do with a bullish or bearish forecast. Instead, what this signal means is that smart money is in the same boat as smaller retail holders at the moment. So far, both investor cohorts have been reluctant to make moves with so much policy and global uncertainty at play.

Crypto pundit Archie has explained why SWIFT’s new global payments infrastructure is bullish for XRP holders. This came as the pundit highlighted how SWIFT’s major partners use Ripple’s RippleNet, which involves the altcoin. 

Why SWIFT’s Payments Framework Is Bullish For XRP Holders

In an X post, Archie stated that SWIFT just gave XRP holders the ultimate bull signal. He noted that every bank named in their new retail payments framework is a Ripple partner. Over 50 banks are said to have committed to SWIFT’s global payments framework, which is expected to roll out this year. 

Archie reiterated that all the banks that SWIFT has highlighted are confirmed RippleNet partners. These banks include Akbank, ANZ, Axis Bank, and Bank Alfalah. Furthermore, the pundit noted that the full participant list for SWIFT’s payments infrastructure includes banks linked to Ripple, which he believes is bullish for holders.  

These banks include Santander, BBVA, Standard Chartered, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, and BNI, as well as Wall Street giants such as Bank of America, Citi, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, and JPMorgan. The analyst said that many of these banks have documented Ripple pilots or RippleNet usage. 

Archie noted that SWIFT already routes over 44 million messages daily across 11,500 institutions. As such, this move with Ripple’s partners could draw more attention to the XRP ecosystem. The pundit stated that SWIFT’s move isn’t a competition but rather a continuation of traditional finance (TradFi), quietly admitting that Ripple’s vision was correct, especially as SWIFT is directly building on top of the crypto firm’s existing bank network. 

In line with this, the pundit declared that XRP’s real-world utility just got a massive boost, with institutional-grade confirmation. He added that the adoption wave is breaking, with institutions potentially showing interest in the altcoin. 

When The Altcoin Will Truly Gain Institutional Adoption

During an interview on the Paul Barron podcast, Franklin Templeton’s head of digital assets, Roger Bayston, said that the token will gain institutional adoption when companies realize how they can use the XRP Ledger to solve real business problems. He opined that a lot of these institutions do not yet understand how they can use the distributed ledger inside of their information-based businesses. 

It is worth noting that Franklin Templeton already revealed plans to tokenize its money market fund on the Ledger. Bayston signaled that they were betting big on the toekn as they plan to use the network to boost their operations. He said that they didn’t buy XRP to speculate but to use the altcoin as they operate the tokenized fund on the network.

At the time of writing, the XRP price is trading at around $1.41, up in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Ripple has joined BLOOM, a new initiative from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the country’s central bank, and is partnering with trade finance technology firm Unloq on a pilot that uses RLUSD and the XRP Ledger to test programmable settlement in cross-border trade. For crypto markets, the move adds another real-world institutional use case around stablecoin-based settlement infrastructure, this time inside a central bank-led framework.

Announced Wednesday, the pilot sits within MAS’s BLOOM initiative, short for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency. The program is designed to expand settlement capabilities using tokenized bank liabilities and regulated stablecoins, positioning Singapore as a testing ground for interoperable payment rails in regulated financial environments.

Ripple Joins Singapore Central Bank Project

Ripple’s specific role in the initiative comes through a joint project with Unloq, a supply chain finance technology provider. The two companies plan to pilot a trade finance workflow built around Unloq’s SC+ infrastructure, which combines trade obligations, settlement conditions and financing workflows into a single execution layer. Ripple said the setup will use its institutional infrastructure, the XRP Ledger and RLUSD.

The core pitch is straightforward: use digital settlement assets to reduce frictions that still slow cross-border trade. In the model described by the companies, payments are released only when commercial conditions are met, such as shipment verification. That creates a more conditional, programmable settlement flow, while also aiming to improve risk visibility and financing access for small and medium-sized businesses.

Fiona Murray, Ripple’s managing director for Asia Pacific, framed the initiative as a regulatory and utility play. “Singapore continues to take a leading role globally in providing the regulatory clarity necessary for the digital asset space to thrive. Ripple is incredibly excited to be part of BLOOM, an initiative that perfectly aligns with our commitment to compliant, real-world utility for blockchain technology.”

She then tied the pilot directly to the mechanics of the platform. “Built on the XRP Ledger, SC+ Solution, Unloq’s smart-contract-driven trade finance platform uses RLUSD to automatically trigger payments the moment the shipment is verified. This partnership combines Unloq’s supply chain expertise with Ripple’s secure technology to make global trade faster and more transparent.”

That matters because the release is not pitching blockchain as a parallel system detached from existing finance. Instead, the emphasis is on integrating digital settlement rails into current trade and financing processes without forcing counterparties to rebuild commercial relationships from scratch. In other words, the pilot is less about replacing trade finance than about reducing operational lag and settlement uncertainty inside it.

Unloq made that case explicitly. Letitia Chau, the company’s president and chief risk officer, said, “BLOOM represents an important step toward modernising trade finance infrastructure in a controlled and regulated environment. Through SC+, we are demonstrating how digital settlement rails can be integrated into existing trade and financing workflows without disrupting commercial relationships.”

She added that the pilot is also meant to test whether the model can scale beyond a narrow proof of concept. “Collaboration with MAS and Ripple enables us to explore scalable, interoperable models for cross-border trade.”

For Ripple, the announcement extends a broader push to position RLUSD as a settlement asset for enterprise use cases rather than a simple exchange-traded stablecoin. The release repeatedly places RLUSD alongside tokenized bank liabilities, suggesting the company wants the stablecoin discussed in the same institutional conversation as other regulated digital cash instruments being explored for settlement.

At press time, XRP traded at $1.4227.

With the cryptocurrency market struggling with heightened volatility, the Cardano price has failed to bounce back strongly, sitting below the $0.30 level. Meanwhile, bearish sentiment around the leading altcoin has intensified, with investors betting steadily on a downward move rather than an upside trajectory in the short term.

Bearish Bets On Cardano Climb Sharply

Cardano’s sideways price performance over the past few weeks has sharply impacted the sentiment of investors toward the leading altcoin. This growing negative mood among investors is evidenced by their trading activity as they continue to lean to the downside, suggesting weakening confidence in ADA.

According to data from Santiment, a popular data analytics and market intelligence platform, ADA’s weekly shorting activity has climbed to its highest level in years. Specifically, Cardano’s funding rates on Binance, the leading trading platform, are at their highest ratio of short positions to long positions since June 2023. 

Such action points to increased caution among a growing number of investors amid current market conditions. Santiment stressed that traders are obviously looking forward to the cryptocurrency asset continuing its decline in value in the short to medium term. 

Historically, this behavior has acted as a signal for a price bottom as funding rates are frequently known to fluctuate and move prices in the direction that traders are expecting the least.

ADA Traders Are Taking A Hit

Santiment also discussed the key MVRV (Market Value to Realized Value) Ratio, which has turned negative or dropped sharply, as volatility persists. Data from the 365-Day MVRV ratio shows that the average wallet address active on the Cardano network over the past year has attracted a return of -43%, which is well below average. 

The extremely low MVRV ratio typically indicates that ADA is in a buy or opportunity zone despite the altcoin’s significant drop in price by over 71% since September last year. In a zero-sum game, when average returns are severely negative, it is a sign that a turnaround is on the horizon, with coins often averaging 0% on the MVRV metric across all time frames. This trend also raises the possibility that the altcoin has reached a bottom or is getting closer to one. 

Meanwhile, when other traders are in excruciating discomfort, key stakeholders and skill investors are intrigued by this trend. The cautious mood from seasoned traders is due to the reduced risk of purchasing or adding to their positions.

Even with recent news regarding Cardano being listed among several digital assets that were classified as a commodity, not a security, by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), bullish sentiment has yet to return strongly. As pressure continues to build, speculation is whether this wave of short positioning by investors will strengthen the downward trend or pave the way for a potential squeeze before a bounce.

Retail attention is currently focused on XRP’s spot price, but a quieter movement has been unfolding at the infrastructure level of the network. Capital is entering, and it is doing so gradually. 

Stablecoin supply on the XRP Ledger has doubled since December 2025, reaching $568.89 million, which is a 100.3% increase recorded across roughly three months. The figure itself is notable, but the pattern behind it might possess a more significant reflection of the sentiment among investors.

Stablecoin Liquidity On XRPL Sees Explosive Growth

The XRP Ledger is currently going through bouts of activity that show crypto investors are fully active in the ecosystem. One of the clearest signals of this activity comes from the surge in stablecoin supply on the Ledger. 

Data shows that total supply has climbed to around $568.89 million, marking an increase of just over 100% since December 2025. The growth did not happen in a single spike. On December 7, 2025, stablecoin supply on the Ledger stood at approximately $266.86 million. That figure has climbed in the past few months to a peak of $643.91 million before settling at $568.89 million at the time of writing.

Growth through December and into early January was measured and gradual, with the stablecoin liquidity between $266 million and the low $300 million range in those months. A more defined growth rate began around the second week of January, pushing supply past $400 million. 

February saw the most growth, which led to the stablecoin supply breaching $466 million for the first time and climbing above the $600 million threshold within weeks. March is characterized by a brief decrease from the $643 million peak, but the supply is still well above the levels it started with this year.

Are Investors Positioning Behind The Scenes?

Stablecoin supply growth on a blockchain network is not the same as a price rally. But it does not reflect optimism or sentiment in the way that token appreciation does. It reflects intent, specifically, the intent of capital holders to be present and operational within a given ecosystem.

An increase of this magnitude implies that participants are preparing to use the network. This does not guarantee an immediate price reaction, but it changes the context. It means that the Ledger and the entire XRP ecosystem are increasingly moving from a purely speculative-based trading environment to signs of capital being positioned with longer-term intent. 

If nothing else, it shows that the XRP Ledger is carrying more than twice the stablecoin liquidity it held three months ago. According to a commentator account on the social media platform X with the username XRP official, the stablecoin growth data shows that capital is positioning behind the scenes.

Swan Bitcoin has asked a US court for permission to subpoena Cantor Fitzgerald and its former CEO— now US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — in a widening dispute that implicates crypto heavyweight Tether and alleges coordinated misconduct surrounding a joint mining venture.

Swan Bitcoin Alleges Conspiracy 

The Bitcoin firm says it filed an ex parte application this week in the Southern District of New York to seek discovery that it intends to use in foreign proceedings against Tether-appointed directors of its joint venture, 2040 Energy. 

Swan CEO Cory Klippsten identified the targets of those foreign actions as Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, controlling shareholder Giancarlo Devasini, and Bitfinex CEO Jean-Louis van der Velde.

In its filing, Swan describes a series of events in mid-2024, when it says a group of the firm’s employees led by then‑CIO Raphael Zagury conspired with Tether personnel — including Tether’s now‑CIO Zachary Lyons — to undermine the joint venture from within. 

According to the complaint, Swan’s internal planning notes, recovered from corporate servers, outlined a coordinated mass resignation that would be cloaked with “legal cover from Tether.” 

Swan alleges that on Aug. 8, 2024, thirteen employees resigned within hours, and that “thousands” of confidential documents were downloaded from the company’s systems. 

The filing contends that those defectors quickly formed Proton — an entity Swan says was effectively a Tether replacement for the joint venture and was run by the same departing employees and contractors. 

In December 2024, the complaint alleges, the Tether-appointed directors approved a related‑party sale of 2040 Energy’s mining assets to a Tether subsidiary at a significantly undervalued price.

Allegations Against US Secretary Of Commerce 

Cantor Fitzgerald and Lutnick figure in Swan Bitcoin’s application because, the filing says, they were closely linked to developments before and after the resignations. 

Swan Bitcoin recounts that Devasini introduced Klippsten to Lutnick in the weeks before the mass departures to discuss a prospective Swan Bitcoin initial public offering (IPO). 

Swan shared confidential mining data and IPO materials with Cantor at that time, the filing says, and then, after the rapid resignations and alleged asset diversion, Cantor “unexpectedly” ceased contact without explanation. 

Klippsten’s contemporaneous notes, which Swan Bitcoin has included in its filing, also record conversations with Devasini in which Devasini allegedly told Klippsten that Lutnick — while still a private citizen — claimed to have “managed to kill every bill about stablecoins” in Congress and was “working full time for Tether.” 

Swan Bitcoin’s application asks a federal judge to permit subpoenas to gather documents and testimony from Cantor and Lutnick to support the firm’s foreign litigation targeting the Tether‑appointed directors. 

Featured image from ABC News, chart from TradingView.com 

A 73-bitcoin stash sitting untouched in a separate crypto wallet may be what eventually brings a Russian crypto broker to justice.

That dormant pile of digital cash, flagged by blockchain investigator ZachXBT, sits at the edge of a much larger money trail — one that reportedly spans three ransomware payments, multiple networks, and at least one undercover Telegram conversation.

Sting Operation Cracked The Case Open

ZachXBT, an anonymous on-chain investigator with a long record of tracing illicit crypto flows, identified Russian OTC broker Aleksandr Khinkis as the central figure in the alleged scheme.

According to reports, investigators posed as potential clients and contacted Khinkis directly through Telegram. He allegedly handed over an exchange deposit address — a move that gave investigators the thread they needed to pull.

1/ Meet Aleksandr (Aleks) Khinkis, a Russian OTC broker who has allegedly helped a ransomware group launder $4.7M+ via a single crypto exchange account since July 2025, across three suspected ransom payments totaling 796 BTC. pic.twitter.com/GpOjAvtaAd

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) March 24, 2026

That single address, starting with 0xa756, became the anchor point for the entire investigation. From it, researchers tracked roughly 75 transfers funneling more than $4.7 million into the same account. The money had been moving since at least July 2025.

Three Ransoms. Three Trails. One Broker

The alleged laundering involved three separate ransomware payments totaling 796 BTC. Each left a distinct footprint across multiple blockchain networks.

The oldest case dates back to September 2023, when five Bitcoin bridge deposit addresses were tied to a 560 BTC ransom. Those funds eventually crossed into the Avalanche network sometime in 2024.

2/ Last month we reached out to Aleks via a Telegram account posing as a potential client looking to convert crypto assets on Avalanche to fiat.

He promptly provided his exchange deposit address: 0xa75666786a4e120110418ed3b4865a114d70706e

The conversation was conducted in… pic.twitter.com/zt827Du3Ow

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) March 24, 2026

A second payment of 72 BTC, traced to September 2025, showed more than 15% overlap with known ransomware wallets across compliance screening tools. About $1.36 million from that batch moved through instant exchanges before consolidating into a Tron wallet.

The most recent and largest payment — 164 BTC — was recorded in October 2025. Based on reports, around $3.8 million in bitcoin passed through instant exchanges before reaching Tron-linked outputs.

Seven Tron addresses connected to that flow were frozen by Tether the following month. The frozen funds were later burned, confirming that enforcement action had been taken.

Meanwhile, an additional $16.6 million remains sitting in related addresses or platforms, with some of it already being cashed out.

Law Enforcement Now Has the Data

ZachXBT confirmed that compliance teams and law enforcement agencies have received detailed records of the traced addresses and fund movements. No arrests have been publicly announced.

Beyond the blockchain data, open-source intelligence painted a clearer picture of Khinkis as a person. Reports indicate he travels outside Russia regularly — including trips to Southeast Asia and Australia — and documents those trips openly on social media.

The 73 BTC still sitting dormant at a separate address hasn’t moved. If and when it does, investigators will almost certainly be watching.

Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView

Американский фондовый рынок как начал падать в конце января, так и продолжает. Иранский военный конфликт усугубил ситуацию. А как там дела у ценных бумаг криптокомпаний?

The stablecoin market is facing a critical test. Not a market cycle. Not a liquidity event. A legislative one — and the damage is already visible.

An XWIN Research Japan report documents what happened in a single session: Circle, the issuer behind USDC, shed 18% of its market value yesterday, erasing roughly $4.6 billion in a matter of hours. The trigger was not an earnings miss or an exchange collapse. It was a draft amendment — a proposed update to the CLARITY Act that would ban yield on stablecoins entirely.

That one legislative clause, not yet law, not yet finalized, was enough to reprice the entire thesis of what Circle is worth. The market understood the implication before the headlines did.

The report places the price reaction in its proper context: this is not volatility. It is a structural signal. For years, stablecoins operated as dual-purpose instruments — digital dollars for payments and settlement, yield-generating assets for the wallets that held them. That combination was the product. The CLARITY framework, as currently drafted, moves to separate those functions permanently, restricting passive yield while permitting only activity-based rewards.

One draft law. Two functions severed. The model that built USDC into a market cornerstone is now the model under review.

Stablecoin Capital Does Not Disappear. It Relocates.

The report is precise about what is actually at stake beneath the regulatory language: this is a competition for capital, and every participant in the financial system knows it. Banks are not lobbying against stablecoin yield out of principle. They are lobbying because deposit outflows are a solvency concern. Crypto platforms are not defending yield out of ideology. They are defending the incentive structure that keeps liquidity on their platforms. Regulation is the arena. Capital is the prize.

What history tells us — and the report invokes it directly — is that capping yield does not destroy yield demand. It redirects it. When deposit rates were capped in an earlier era, money flowed into money market funds. The same logic applies here. Yield demand will migrate toward DeFi protocols, tokenized Treasuries, or offshore markets that operate outside the CLARITY framework’s reach. The capital will move. It always does.

What remains — and this is the report’s most consequential observation — may be more durable than what is lost. Strip yield from stablecoins and what survives is utility: payments, settlement, collateral, liquidity. They stop being financial products competing with savings accounts and start being infrastructure competing with correspondent banking.

The on-chain data already reflects this transition. Stablecoin active addresses are at all-time highs. The capital is not idle. It is being used — and if regulation delivers the clarity it promises, that usage curve has further to climb.

Dominance Holds the Trend Even as the Market Hesitates

Crypto stablecoin dominance is currently sitting at 13.00%, down 1.11% on the day, after registering a session high of 13.18% and a low of 12.97%. That intraday range is tight — but the daily chart behind it carries a far more consequential story.

From a trend perspective, the structure is unambiguously bullish. Dominance bottomed near 7.1% in late July 2025 and has nearly doubled since, rising in a sustained uptrend across eight consecutive months. Price is trading above all three moving averages — the 50-day MA, the 100-day MA, and the 200-day MA — and all three are sloping upward in sequence. That alignment, with the 50-day leading above the 100-day above the 200-day, is the textbook configuration of a market in a confirmed uptrend.

The February spike to 15% was the most aggressive single move in the entire trend — accompanied by the heaviest volume on the chart — and signals a capitulation event in broader crypto markets, where capital rotated aggressively into stablecoins as risk assets sold off.

Since then, dominance has pulled back and is now consolidating between 13% and 14%, with the 50-day MA providing dynamic support directly beneath current price.

The trend is intact. The consolidation is healthy. A sustained break below the 50-day MA is the first signal worth taking seriously as a structural warning.

Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com 

According to a pundit, the loudest argument against XRP has never been about technology; it has been about proof that the XRP Ledger is doing something outside of the XRP price movements. XRP keeps getting judged almost entirely by its price, but that outlook is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.

A crypto pundit known as X Finance Bull on X has pointed to a dataset that most market participants are overlooking, and the numbers embedded in it tell a story that reveals real XRP adoption is already creeping in.

The XRP Numbers Nobody Is Looking At

XRP briefly pushed above $1.50 and touched $1.60 last week, but that move was rejected and the price has since fallen back to the low-$1.40s. Despite the price action, many analysts are still bullish based on XRP’s adoption potential. At the time of writing, XRP is trading at $1.42, which helps explain why many investors still feel like adoption has not shown up where it matters most. 

That is the gap X Finance Bull focused on in his post on X. His point was that investors are still searching for real adoption in the price chart, even though the XRP Ledger itself is showing rising use in tokenized finance. According to the figures he shared, XRPL now holds more than $804 million in distributed real-world assets across five classes, led by $399.9 million in stablecoins and $277.5 million in tokenized US Treasury debt. 

The image attached to his post also places corporate credit at $82 million, asset-backed credit at $23.9 million, and active strategies at $21 million. 

XRP Ledger Numbers. Source: @Xfinancebull On X

Stablecoins And Treasury Products Are Doing Much Of The Heavy Lifting

The most interesting line item in the data is stablecoins. As noted by X Finance Bull, the real-world asset tokenization of the stablecoin category has climbed to $399.9 million, up nearly 50% in recent months, with the majority of the inflows based on RLUSD. 

Furthermore, XRPL is now a major venue for tokenized Treasury exposure. According to a February report, RWA.xyz data showed that the XRP Ledger held roughly 63% of the circulating supply for OpenEden’s TBILL product at the time.

That Treasury position has kept growing. In February, Doppler Finance and OpenEden announced a partnership to increase RWA yield on XRPL through TBILL and USDO, a regulated yield-bearing stablecoin.

These numbers matter for XRP’s price action and adoption because they move the conversation away from retail excitement and into infrastructure. Many traders are overlooking the fact that capital is still falling on XRPL-backed securities despite the current poor 2026 market conditions.

Interestingly, daily transactions processed on the XRP ledger have also tripled in the past year. All these provide a strong case that institutional-style adoption is already happening at the infrastructure level. However, XRP’s price performance in 2026 has not reflected the on-chain activity described above.

XRP is consolidating around $1.43. The market is restless. And beneath the surface, a volatility indicator is flashing a signal that seasoned traders have learned not to ignore.

A new Arab Chain report, drawing on data from the Binance XRP Realized Volatility (30D) indicator, shows that volatility has collapsed to its lowest reading since the start of 2026. That is not a sign of a market at rest. In crypto, that kind of compression has a name — and a history.

The numbers are specific: the 30-day Realized Volatility currently stands at 0.5266, a sharp contraction from the elevated readings that accompanied XRP’s price surges earlier this year. More telling still, the Volatility Z-Score has turned negative at -0.9048 — meaning current volatility is now running nearly a full standard deviation below its historical average. The market is not just quiet. It is historically quiet.

What that means in practice is straightforward. Volatility does not stay compressed indefinitely. It builds, and then it releases — in one direction or the other. XRP at $1.43 is not a market drift. It is a market coiling.

Compression Before the Break

The report is direct about what the data describes: XRP has entered a consolidation phase in which price movement has narrowed to the point of near-stasis. That is not a neutral observation. Volatility compression — the technical term for exactly this condition — is one of the most reliable precursors to a sharp directional move in either market.

The stabilization near $1.43 is itself a data point. When price holds a level while volatility simultaneously contracts, it signals something specific: supply and demand have reached an equilibrium so tight that neither side is willing to commit. That standoff cannot last. Markets resolve equilibrium through movement, not through continued stillness.

The arithmetic reinforces the tension. With the 30-day Realized Volatility hovering at 0.52 and the Z-Score sitting at -0.9048, the market is statistically overdue for a volatility expansion. The threshold to watch is the Z-Score returning to positive territory — historically, that crossing has preceded the kind of sustained directional activity that defines a new trend rather than a temporary spike.

Compressed volatility at historic lows. Price anchored at a key level. The setup is not ambiguous. What remains unknown is the direction — and that is precisely what makes the next move consequential.

The XRP Chart Does Not Flatter

XRP is trading at $1.4202, up a marginal 0.30% on the day — a number that flatters neither bulls nor bears. The daily candle opened at $1.4160, reached $1.4268, and has spent the session going nowhere. That price action, viewed in isolation, tells one story. Viewed against the chart behind it, it tells another.

The longer context is unambiguous. XRP peaked near $3.80 in late July 2025 and has been in a structured downtrend for eight consecutive months. Every rally attempt across that period — September, October, the brief recovery in early 2026 — was sold into. Each lower high confirmed the trend rather than challenged it.

What the February capitulation wick to $1.15 established is the only constructive development visible on the chart: a floor that was tested and held. Since then, XRP has consolidated between roughly $1.40 and $1.55, trading beneath all three major moving averages — the short-term blue, the mid-term green, and the long-term red — all of which are still sloping downward.

That is the problem. Price has stabilized. The trend has not. Consolidation below declining moving averages is not recovery. It is hesitation — and hesitation resolves in the direction of least resistance until proven otherwise.

Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com 

US spot Bitcoin ETFs are on the verge of fully reversing their year-to-date outflows, even after Bitcoin endured a roughly 40% drawdown over the past six months, a resilience that is beginning to stand out against historical precedent in other asset classes.

Data shared by Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas shows aggregate Bitcoin ETF flows turning sharply positive in recent weeks. While the group still sits at approximately -$140 million year-to-date, the pace of recent inflows suggests that deficit is close to being erased. Over the past month alone, Bitcoin ETFs have attracted roughly $2.59 billion, underscoring a notable shift in investor behavior.

BlackRock’s IBIT Leads Bitcoin ETF Rebound

At the center of the rebound is BlackRock’s IBIT, which has pulled in $1.32 billion in net inflows year-to-date, placing it in the top 2% of all ETFs by flows. Over the past month, IBIT alone has attracted $2.23 billion, with an additional $212 million over the last week, signaling persistent demand despite broader market volatility.

Other funds are contributing to the recovery, albeit at a smaller scale. Fidelity’s FBTC and ARK’s ARKB remain under pressure on a year-to-date basis, posting -$1.13 billion and -$193 million respectively. Grayscale’s GBTC is also in the red with outflows at -$730 million.

Still, the broader picture has improved materially. Several mid-tier products, including BITB, BTC, and HODL, are showing positive inflows year-to-date, while smaller funds like EZBC and BRRR have quietly added tens of millions in net demand. The aggregate effect is a market that has absorbed significant selling pressure earlier in the year and is now approaching equilibrium.

Balchunas framed the development as unusual in historical context, particularly given the magnitude of Bitcoin’s recent correction. “Yeah bitcoin ETFs now $2.5b for month and one good day away from completely digging out of their YTD flow hole,” he wrote, adding that IBIT has already crossed that threshold. “Again, incredible fortitude in face of 40% 6mo price drop and widespread media pile on.”

He contrasted this behavior with gold during a comparable period of stress. “For context, when gold fell 40% in short time frame about 10yrs ago, it saw 1/3 of its investors bail (not that that’s bad either, that’s normal, btc is just abnormal).” The implication is not that Bitcoin is inherently more stable, but that its investor base—at least in ETF form—has demonstrated a higher tolerance for drawdowns.

That observation aligns with Balchunas’ broader view on how both assets function within portfolios. In a separate note, he emphasized that neither Bitcoin nor gold should be evaluated through short-term performance alone, particularly given their inconsistent correlation properties. “Bitcoin is similar but with more correlation (0.45) with stocks. Both unpredictable but valid asset classes and shouldn’t be judged based on short time frames.”

At press time BTC traded at $71,322.

Один из участников сообщества криптопроекта Solana рассказал, как чуть не стал жертвой мошенника, предлагавшего листинг на крупнейшей по объему торгов криптобирже Binance.

Старший аналитик Bloomberg Intelligence Эрик Балчунас (Eric Balchunas) подсчитал, что за последний месяц привязанные к биткоину биржевые фонды (ETF) привлекли капитал на сумму $2,5 млрд, компенсировав почти весь продолжавшийся с начала января отток средств.

32-летняя жительница города Полярные Зори Мурманской области потеряла почти 3,5 млн рублей, пытаясь заработать на криптобирже и попавшись на новую схему с фейковым юристом, сообщила российская полиция.

Новый законопроект о регулировании крипторынка будет внесен в Госдуму России на следующей неделе, заявил глава департамента финансовой политики Минфина Алексей Яковлев.

Qubic will begin its staged transition from Monero to Dogecoin mining on April 1. Via X, the Qubic team layed out a three-phase rollout that it says is designed to move deliberately rather than flip the network over in a single step.

In a post published Tuesday, the project said “the transition from Monero to Dogecoin doesn’t happen overnight” and that its core team had designed a three-phase process in which “each phase is evaluated before moving forward.” The framing is notable given Qubic’s increasingly explicit language around its mining strategy. The headline objective, as the team describes it, is to reach a final state where “DOGE + AI” run “simultaneously, full time.”

3-Phase Rollout For Dogecoin Mining Shift

The first phase begins April 1 and is positioned as a testing period lasting one to two epochs. During that stage, computor revenue remains denominated in XMR only, Monero mining remains active 50% of the time, and Dogecoin enters what Qubic calls “test mode” while running on mainnet at 100%. AI training continues alongside it. In other words, Qubic is not immediately removing the existing Monero-based incentive structure, but introducing DOGE at full operational intensity before revenue is switched over.

The second phase is the actual migration. For one to two epochs, computors will be able to choose between XMR and DOGE revenue, with XMR beginning to phase out and DOGE phasing in with a top-up applied. Qubic also said that computors who opt to bring DOGE “are no longer eligible for XMR.”

By the third and final phase, Qubic says computor revenue will be DOGE only. The XMR dispatcher will be turned off completely, DOGE will remain active 100% of the time, and AI training will also run at 100%. “No rushing. No shortcuts. Just disciplined execution,” the team wrote.

Qubic paired that roadmap with a performance claim aimed directly at the April 1 launch window. On March 23, the project said its network had become “3x faster” on live mainnet, with tick times reduced from 2 seconds a year ago to 1 second and now 0.6 seconds after the latest core optimization.

“Every share a miner submits gets validated through Oracle Machines in a single tick,” Qubic wrote. “Faster ticks mean faster confirmations, a more efficient pipeline, and a network that can handle the load when April 1st hits. The network got faster right before it needed to be.”

The economic case for targeting Dogecoin is straightforward in Qubic’s telling. In a March 20 post, the team pointed to its earlier Monero campaign, saying it went from less than 2% of Monero’s hashrate to “51%+ dominance in a live takeover event,” while generating more than $3.5 million in mining revenue and finding over 26,000 XMR blocks.

Dogecoin, it argued, is a much larger prize. “DOGE produces roughly 14.4 million coins per day. At current prices, that’s approximately $1.44M in daily emission, roughly 10x what Monero was producing,” the team wrote. “The same playbook. A much bigger target.”

At press time, DOGE traded at $0.09752.