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Ripple says it is overhauling how security is handled on the XRP Ledger, adding AI-assisted testing, a dedicated red team, stricter amendment review standards, and a broader push to modernize parts of the codebase. Notably, Ripple is explicitly tying XRPL’s next phase of security work to its ambitions in global payments, tokenized assets, and institutional financial infrastructure.

In its March 26 blog post, Ripple framed the initiative less as a narrow tooling upgrade and more as a structural shift in how XRPL is maintained. Senior Director of Engineering at RippleX Ayo Akinyele wrote that XRPL has been running since 2012 and, over that period, has processed more than 100 million ledgers, facilitated over 3 billion transactions, and secured billions in value transfer. That operating history, Ripple argued, is both a strength and a complication: a long-lived production codebase carries legacy assumptions, older design decisions, and engineering patterns that may no longer match the demands of a larger, more complex network.

The company’s core argument is that AI changes the security equation by making it easier to explore edge cases and hidden failure modes at scale. “AI allows us to shift from reactive debugging to proactive, systematic discovery of vulnerabilities, strengthening the ledger faster and with greater confidence than ever before,” Akinyele wrote. He added that for XRPL, resilience “must be continuous: not a one-time validation, but an ongoing process of hardening, testing and improving as XRPL evolves.”

Ripple broke the plan into several layers. It said AI is being integrated across the software development lifecycle through adversarial code scanning, AI-assisted reviews on every pull request, threat modeling, attack-surface mapping, and simulations of edge cases and stress scenarios that would be difficult to generate manually. The company also said it has established a dedicated AI-assisted red team focused on how XRPL features interact in real-world conditions, especially where legacy logic meets newer functionality.

That red-team effort is already producing findings, according to Ripple and developers involved in the initiative. In the blog post, Ripple said the team has uncovered “10+ bugs,” with only low-severity issues disclosed publicly so far and all findings being prioritized for fixes. In a separate X post, Mayukha Vadari said the effort had already been “incredibly fruitful,” adding that the team had found “a number of bugs across a range of severities.” She described the project as “exactly the kind of continuous, adversarial push XRPL needs as it continues to grow.”

Ripple is also using the moment to address broader code quality issues that sit above any single bug. The post says many problems in long-lived systems stem from structural weaknesses such as limited type safety, inconsistent feature interactions, weak invariant enforcement, and assumptions that are either undocumented or not enforced. The implication is that Ripple is not only trying to catch vulnerabilities earlier, but to reduce the conditions that allow classes of vulnerabilities to recur.

Another major part of the announcement is governance around amendments. Ripple said significant changes will face multiple independent security audits, expanded bug bounty incentives, more attackathons, and clearer readiness criteria before activation. It also said those criteria will be defined and published with the XRPL Foundation, signaling an attempt to formalize the security bar for network changes rather than evaluate them on a looser, case-by-case basis.

Notably, Ripple also highlighted that the next XRPL release will focus on bug fixes and improvements without introducing new features, a choice that suggests hardening the stack is taking priority over shipping more functionality. As XRPL pushes deeper into tokenized assets, payments, and institutional DeFi, Ripple is making the case that the next stage of growth depends less on novelty and more on whether the ledger can keep raising its reliability threshold in public.

At press time, XRP traded at $1.33.

Bitcoin and Ethereum prices are struggling with bearish performance as the broader cryptocurrency market flips notably into the negative territory. Nonetheless, with key upcoming events, the market is expected to experience a major shake-up that could either lay the foundation for an upward move or a downside move.

Massive Bitcoin And Ethereum Options Expiry To Shake Markets

A major derivatives event regarding Bitcoin and Ethereum, the two leading digital assets, is poised to put the cryptocurrency market on edge. While the broader market is struggling to gain stability, billions worth of options tied to BTC and ETH are scheduled to expire today.

Crypto expert and investor Milk Road recently announced on the X platform that $16.4 billion in BTC and ETH options are up for expiry. Such large-scale expiries frequently serve as triggers for volatility, as traders modify positions, unwind hedges, and respond to changing conditions across the market. 

According to the expert, this event set to take place today is one of the largest single-day options expiries of the year. With a large percentage of open interest centered on important price points, the short-term direction and liquidity circumstances may be impacted by this expiry’s outcome.

Historically, options expiry at this massive scale leads to the formation of what traders call max pain. Specifically, this is where the price point is at which market makers lose the least, and the majority of contracts expire worthless. As expiry moves closer, prices are expected to be pulled toward this level.

Milk Road flags this event as a gravitational effect, with $16.4 billion expected to create a lot of gravity. Soon, Bitcoin and Ethereum are likely to be in a phase of tug of war as options holders and spot traders compete for positions in today’s event. 

Here’s What To Expect Following The Event

As the event approaches, Milk Road has mapped out the potential outcome. While Bitcoin takes the bulk portion of the $16.4 billion notional exposure, Ethereum also accounts for a meaningful chunk. Thus, both assets could swing hard in either direction prior to when the bell rings, and those with active unhedged spot into expiry will be taking on extra risk.

After the event, $16.4 billion in open interest will be taken out, and the max pain gravity disappears with it. In that scenario, the market is likely to decide its next move. However, post-expiry direction hinges on where the spot is positioned when the noise clears. 

If Bitcoin and Ethereum were suppressed into the event today, the release could serve as a trigger for sustained upward movement. Meanwhile, in an opposite scenario where both assets have been running hot, the unwind could be painful, making this event crucial for the market.

Ethereum’s latest price structure is beginning to look like a pattern that has previously led to steep declines, and one analyst believes the signal is already in play.

A technical breakdown shared by Leshka.eth on X points to a SuperTrend reversal on the daily timeframe, which is a setup that has always led to heavy drawdowns for ETH. The structure is not new, but the way it is forming again has raised concern. If all goes according to the laid out structure, then the ETH price could crash to as low as $1,200.

The SuperTrend Indicator Has Flipped Again

The SuperTrend indicator is a trend-following tool that plots dynamic support and resistance levels based on price volatility. This indicator has reversed bearish on Ethereum’s daily timeframe. According to chart analysis by Leshka.eth, this is the third time this setup has appeared in the current cycle, and the previous two instances ended in steep losses.

The first instance, which formed around the October and November 2025 period, saw Ethereum initially hold a support zone before breaking down. The collapse that followed measured approximately 45.03%, a selloff that wiped out a significant portion of the gains from earlier in the year. Notably, this selloff saw the ETH price fall from above $4,750 until it fell below $2,750.

The second setup came about in early 2026. Again, the ETH price appeared to find footing at a support level in early January, but that support eventually gave way during the second half of the month. This eventually led to a decline that looked like the first episode in magnitude, with the ETH price falling below $1,850 in the first week of February 2026.

That same transition is now taking place again. The SuperTrend has turned red, and this places Ethereum in a condition that has always favored continuation to the downside.

The Line In The Sand

The outlook from this analysis places the important level to watch at $1,990. This is where the current SuperTrend reversal is forming, and it is the make-or-break zone for the near-term ETH outlook. The chart shows a dashed horizontal line as support around the $1,990 price level as the line in the sand that must not be broken. 

Price has already attempted to push higher into resistance around $2,300, as seen in the chart above but those moves have been rejected. According to Leshka.eth, if $1,900 breaks, then the next target is the $1,200 zone. 

The chart annotations point to drops of roughly 45% to 48% after similar setups, and applying that range to the current structure projects Ethereum’s next major zone around $1,200.

A fresh round of disagreement over the CLARITY Act has revealed ongoing concerns originating from the Hyperliquid Policy Center (HPC), as lawmakers prepare for a potential Senate Banking Committee markup. 

The debate intensified after a potential deal surfaced earlier in the week, suggesting the bill would broadly bar platforms from offering yield on stablecoins or assets that operate like bank deposits. That provision, along with other unresolved clauses, has prompted a flurry of comments from industry figures and lawmakers.

Hyperliquid Policy Center CEO’s Warning

Jake Chervinsky, CEO of the recently launched Hyperliquid Policy Center, took to social media platform X (previously Twitter) to push back on how the debate has been framed. 

While acknowledging that stablecoin yield is a headline-grabbing issue, Chervinsky warned it is not the only sticking point. His primary concern centers on protecting non‑custodial software developers from being mischaracterized as money transmitters. 

“That’s non‑negotiable for DeFi,” he wrote, arguing that developers must not be subject to the same regulatory obligations as custodial firms if decentralized finance is to function. He urged fixes to elements of the bill that, in his view, would undermine those protections.

At the heart of Chervinsky’s argument is the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA), which appears as Section 604 in the last Senate Banking draft. 

The BRCA explicitly clarifies that “non‑controlling developers and providers” are not financial institutions required to meet know-your-customer (KYC) obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act. 

But Chervinsky says that other portions of the CLARITY Act — specifically parts of Title 3 — still contain language that could subject many non‑custodial developers to KYC duties despite the BRCA’s protections. 

“Those sections must be fixed or the bill doesn’t work for DeFi,” he warned. “If the bill doesn’t work for DeFi, it doesn’t work at all.”

Senate Banking Markup Date Remains Unclear

Senator Cynthia Lummis, a leading GOP negotiator on the measure, responded directly to the social media post and sought to reassure stakeholders that bipartisan progress is near. 

Lummis told Chervinsky not to “believe the FUD,” stressing that negotiators have spent recent weeks drafting changes to Title 3 designed to make the bill “the strongest protection for DeFi and developers ever enacted.” 

The Hyperliquid Policy Center’s CEO answered that both sides largely agree on the need to protect developers and noted that the public draft already contains meaningful safeguards in the BRCA and in Sections 207 and 601. Still, he reiterated his concern about unresolved language in Title 3.

All this unfolds while the timetable for a formal Senate Banking Committee markup remains unclear. The Agriculture Committee has already approved its portion of the legislation in January, but the banking panel has not yet scheduled a markup. 

At the time of writing, decentralized exchange Hyperliquid’s native token, HYPE, was trading at roughly $38.5, down 1.6% in the previous 24 hours. Nonetheless, the token has made 33% increases in the monthly time frame, outperforming the largest cryptocurrencies during the same time period. 

Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com 

A group of 13 tech leaders — including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, and AMD’s Lisa Su — will now help shape US technology policy alongside David Sacks, the venture capitalist who spent the past several months as the Trump administration’s top voice on crypto and artificial intelligence.

Sacks Takes On New Advisory Post

Sacks has been named co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, known as PCAST, a body that will issue formal recommendations to federal regulators across a range of tech industries.

His 130-day run as the White House’s crypto and AI czar has ended, but he isn’t walking away from policy work. According to reports, a senior adviser to US President Donald Trump said Sacks “will always be his crypto and AI czar” while the new role gives him a wider scope.

Other PCAST members include Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Dell Technologies’ Michael Dell, and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz. The only member with a background rooted in crypto is Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase and crypto investment firm Paradigm.

The council’s makeup leans heavily toward AI and enterprise technology. That signals where the group’s attention is likely to land.

A Patchwork Problem At The Center Of PCAST’s Work

One of the first issues Sacks has flagged is the absence of a unified national approach to AI regulation. Speaking to Bloomberg, he pointed to a growing conflict between state-level rules. “You’ve got 50 different states regulating this in 50 different ways,” he said, calling it a compliance burden for companies trying to build and grow. Trump, he added, wants a single national framework — one rulebook that applies across all states.

Getting there won’t be simple. Federal efforts to override state technology laws have historically drawn resistance from both political parties, and AI regulation has become an increasingly charged topic across the country.

What Sacks Left Behind

During his time as czar, Sacks led the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets, which produced a 166-page report laying out how crypto markets should be regulated.

He also contributed to a national AI framework released on March 20, designed to support innovation in the workplace while protecting children and intellectual property.

Reports indicate he played a hand in advancing the GENIUS Act, a stablecoin-focused bill, and continues to back the CLARITY Act, a broader crypto market structure bill still working its way through Congress.

Sacks told Bloomberg that members of PCAST will study issues together before sending recommendations to regulators — a more deliberate, committee-style approach compared to his previous role, which was largely defined by direct access to the president and fast-moving policy decisions.

Featured image from The Information, chart from TradingView

Ethereum, the leading altcoin, is in the spotlight again, not because of its recent price action, but its staking activity. Currently, ETH staking activity is at its highest rate ever, with millions of supply being locked away in staking contracts.

Rising Staking Trends Shrink Ethereum’s Supply

In light of the ongoing waning market performance, a significant shift is emerging within the supply dynamics of Ethereum. This shift in supply dynamics is due to the substantial growth in ETH staking over the past few months.

As an increasing amount of ETH is being locked away through staking, the circulating supply is starting to disappear at a fast rate. This development is likely to lead to the tightening of overall market liquidity. A period like this reflects a growing confidence among ETH investors in addition to changing the equilibrium between supply and demand.

In the report shared by BMNR Bullz, a tech enthusiast and investor on X, more than 30% of the entire ETH supply is now being locked in staking contracts, and this trend does not seem to be slowing down. The 30% represents approximately 35 million ETH effectively removed from the liquid supply.

With the trend still increasing, liquidity tightening is expanding. This is a classic recurrence since every market cycle has seen more ETH being staked. When Ethereum’s liquid supply steadily declines, it implies more investors, both retail and institutional, are demanding the leading altcoin.

At the forefront of this rising demand are Bitmine Immersion Technologies and Fundstrat Capital. These large firms are actively accumulating and staking ETH, fueling the potential for a supply squeeze; a clear indication of what supply shock looks like.

It is important to note that Bitmine is currently building the largest ETH yield platform in the market, with the launch of MAVAN (the made-in-America Validator Network). With millions of ETH already staked, the company has turned the altcoin into a scalable yield business.

Bitmine ETH Buying Activity Continues

Despite the sideways price action of Ethereum, Bitmine is still doubling down on the asset, indicating its robust confidence in ETH in the long term. Lookonchain, a popular on-chain data platform, has detected several transactions from wallets linked to the company.

According to the platform, Tom Lee’s Bitmine purchased another 50,000 ETH valued at $108.3 million from FalconX in the early hours of Thursday. Within a 2-day period, about 3 wallet addresses, which are believed to be owned by Bitmine, were detected by Lookonchain, stacking up a total of 117,111 ETH worth approximately $253.3 million.

These buys come after Tom Lee’s recent bullish remarks on the asset’s outlook, whose bullish stance has fueled optimism among retail and institutional investors across the market. As these investors steadily acquire ETH, this action strengthens the narrative that the altcoin’s current bearish phase could be temporary.

Congressional sources told Eleanor Terrett of Crypto In America on Friday that the Senate Banking Committee is poised to release its long‑awaited draft of the crypto market structure bill (CLARITY Act) as soon as next week. 

The disclosure comes amid growing industry pushback from the industry, including fresh opposition from crypto exchange Coinbase over recent changes to the bill’s key provisions.

Crypto Bill’s Stablecoin Yield Prohibition 

Earlier this week Terrett reported that the newest draft would broadly prohibit platforms from offering yield “directly or indirectly” on stablecoins or on assets that function like bank deposits. 

Lawmakers would still permit activity‑based incentives such as loyalty or promotional rewards, but regulators would be charged with defining what incentives are allowed and with crafting anti‑evasion rules within a year.

That policy shift has already generated sharp criticism from crypto firms and advocates, who say the language favors incumbent banks and risks undermining popular rewards programs that drive consumer engagement. 

The market reaction extended to crypto stocks, with shares of Circle (CRCL), the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, dropped about 20% toward the $100 mark during Tuesday’s trading session following reports of the draft’s potential restrictions.

The situation intensified midweek when Coinbase informed Senate offices that it could not support the recently inserted language. 

Coinbase Signals Major Disagreement 

Sources told Terrett that Coinbase’s Global Head of Investment Research, David Duong, said industry participants are working on a coordinated counterproposal designed to demonstrate why targeted alterations are necessary to protect customers and preserve sustainable rewards programs.

The prospect of next week’s release raises several open questions: whether the Banking Committee will set a date for a formal markup of the CLARITY Act portion; how much of the draft may yet change before the committee takes a vote; and how Coinbase and other industry stakeholders will formalize and present their counterproposal. 

For now, lawmakers appear to be balancing competing priorities — tightening rules around yield while leaving room for certain customer incentives — even as firms warn that overly broad restrictions could stifle innovation and consumer choice.

Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com 

Bitcoin failed to hold $70,000. The selling pressure that followed was swift, and the support being tested now is not comfortable. And in that exact moment of weakness, one of the oldest narratives in macro investing has quietly re-entered the conversation.

A report from top analyst Darkfost has identified a developing divergence between gold and Bitcoin that markets are beginning to price. Gold, after an exceptional run that made it one of the strongest performing assets of the past year, has entered a clear correction — breaking below its 180-day moving average in a decline driven partly by margin calls and forced liquidations rather than any fundamental reassessment. The smart money that was long gold is not exiting by choice. It is being forced out.

On the other side of that trade, Bitcoin is consolidating. The price is under pressure, the $70,000 level has not held, and BTC remains below its own 180-day moving average — currently estimated at $89,700 — by a significant margin.

That gap is the problem. The capital rotation narrative requires BTC to be above its 180-day MA while gold sits below its own. One condition is met. The other is not. The trade is being discussed. It has not yet begun.

The Rotation Signal Has a Definition. Right Now, It Is Flashing Red

Darkfost’s framework is deliberately simple, and that simplicity is its strength. Two assets, two moving averages, one binary read: when BTC trades above its 180-day MA while gold trades below its own, the signal is positive — capital is diverging in Bitcoin’s favor. When both assets trade below their respective 180-day averages simultaneously, the signal is negative. No composite index, no weighted formula, no room for interpretation.

By that measure, the current reading is unambiguous. Gold has broken below its 180-day MA. Bitcoin remains below its own at $89,700. Both assets are on the wrong side of their long-term trend lines at the same time, which is the definition of a negative signal. The rotation narrative is circulating. The rotation data is not yet supporting it.

Darkfost is precise about what this framework can and cannot claim. It captures trend divergence. It does not confirm capital movement. The assumption that money leaving gold-related positions is being redirected into BTC is an extrapolation — a reasonable one given historical precedent, but an extrapolation nonetheless. Correlation between gold’s correction and Bitcoin’s stabilization is visible. Causation requires more than a chart.

The signal will turn positive the moment Bitcoin reclaims $89,700, with gold still below its own average. Until that crossing occurs, the rotation trade remains a thesis in search of its trigger.

The Ratio Chart Shows Bitcoin Losing the Argument Against Gold

The Bitcoin-to-Gold ratio is trading at 15.07, down 4.02% on the week — a candle that opened at 15.12, reached 16.55, and has since collapsed to a session low of 15.01. That weekly high rejection at 16.55, followed by a near-full retracement to the open, is not consolidation. It is Bitcoin surrendering ground to gold in real time.

The macro picture is what gives the current level its full weight. The ratio peaked near 40 in late 2024 — meaning one Bitcoin bought 40 ounces of gold at the cycle high. It now buys approximately 15. That is a 62% collapse in Bitcoin’s purchasing power relative to gold over roughly fifteen months, erasing the entirety of the 2024-2025 outperformance and returning the ratio to levels last seen in early 2023.

The weekly moving average structure confirms the severity of the deterioration. The ratio has broken below all three MAs — the 50-week, 100-week, and 200-week — with the 50-week crossing below the 100-week in a death cross configuration. All three are now sloping downward in sequence. Price is currently testing the 200-week MA near the 14-15 region — the last structural support this chart offers before the 2023 lows near 9 come into view.

This chart does not support the rotation narrative. It quantifies how far Bitcoin has fallen relative to gold and how much ground it needs to recover before the ratio argument changes.

Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com 

The broader crypto space has continued to believe that Bitcoin (BTC) is in a bear market. This narrative is fueled by its recent price crash to $60,000 in February this year, reflecting a 45% decline from its all-time high above $126,000 in October 2025. However, technical analyst Crypto Patel boldly debunks this narrative. He has stated that the bear market “is not coming,” suggesting that the current market drop might be a temporary dip or “liquidity grab,” before a sharp reversal to the upside. 

Why The Bitcoin Bear Market Is Not Coming

Crypto Patel stated on X that the Bitcoin bear market is not coming because everyone appears to be waiting for it to happen while relying on the four-year cycle theory. The analyst explained his unique thesis by outlining a key price level on his accompanying price chart that could signal a shift in Bitcoin’s trajectory.

Crypto Patel noted that if Bitcoin can close a week above $76,000, it would suggest the current market decline was nothing more than a liquidity grab. He referred to this potential movement as an “expanded fiat deviation,” emphasizing that similar patterns have historically trapped bearish traders at every major cycle low. According to him, once this deviation begins, it could signal that the market is preparing for a major bullish reversal.

Notably, the analyst criticized those who compare the current cycle to the 2018 bear market or the 2022 market crash. Crypto Patel pointed out that, unlike the current market, in 2018, there were no spot ETFs, no Sovereign Wealth Funds accumulating BTC, no public companies holding BTC on their balance sheets, and no states building strategic Bitcoin reserves.

Similarly, in 2022, the analyst highlighted that the market collapse was entirely driven by structural failures rather than a natural cycle top. He stated that the period was marked by widespread leverage fraud, the Luna crash, the FTX collapse, and the meltdown of Celsius and Three Arrows Capital.

In contrast, Crypto Patel noted that the current cycle presents a fundamentally different macro backdrop. He emphasized that institutional inflows are surging as exchange supply hit multi-year lows. Additionally, he noted that the halving-induced supply shock is yet to be priced in. Based on these trends, the analyst suggests that today’s market dynamics are the polar opposite of past cycles.  

Analyst Outlines BTC’s Roadmap Toward $200,000

In his post, Crypto Patel shared a second level after $76,000, which he believes could propel Bitcoin to a new all-time high of $200,000 this cycle. The analyst described the $98,000 resistance area as a trigger, suggesting that a weekly close above this level would not only confirm Bitcoin’s strength but also completely invalidate its bear market thesis.

According to his bullish roadmap, once Bitcoin breaks $98,000, the market could experience a second wave of panic-driven momentum. At this point, he expects the BTC price to start pushing toward $150,000 with no pullbacks before potentially skyrocketing to $200,000.

Bitcoin is testing $67,000. Days of attempting to push above $71,000 have produced nothing conclusive. And yet, beneath the price action, the miners are sending a signal that has historically mattered more than the short-term chart.

An XWIN Research Japan report tracking miner behavior has identified a sharp decline in selling pressure from the mining cohort — the clearest on-chain supply signal of recent weeks. Miners, who represent the market’s most consistent and structurally significant source of fresh Bitcoin supply, have largely stopped selling.

That kind of withdrawal from the sell side does not happen by choice. It happens when forced selling has run its course — when the weakest hands have already capitulated, and what remains is a mining industry that has either hedged, held, or shut down unprofitable operations entirely.

Historically, that condition has a name: late-stage capitulation. And late-stage capitulation has a tendency to precede bottom formation.

The report is careful not to overclaim, and the caution is warranted. Demand remains weak. Supply improving while demand stagnates is a necessary condition for recovery — not a sufficient one. The floor may be forming. The buyers needed to build on top of it have not yet arrived.

The Mining Industry Is Consolidating Under Maximum Stress

The report adds a dimension that the price chart cannot show. Hash rate — the total computational power directed at the Bitcoin network — continues to rise even as mining profitability collapses. Hash price is approaching historic lows. The average cost of production has climbed to approximately $80,000, a level that leaves a meaningful portion of the network operating at a direct loss on every block mined.

That divergence between rising hash rate and deteriorating economics has one explanation: the miners still running are not the ones who should be running on profitability alone. The weaker, less capitalized operations have been forced out or are in the process of being forced out.

What remains is a consolidated industry dominated by large players who have either secured cheap energy, access to capital markets, or a second revenue stream — increasingly, the latter means AI and high-performance computing infrastructure. Mining rigs are being repurposed. Business models are being rewritten.

The structural consequence for Bitcoin supply is direct and durable. A consolidated mining industry sells less, holds more, and responds to price recovery differently than a fragmented one. In the short term, reduced selling pressure supports stabilization. Over the medium term, the supply side of this market has been permanently restructured by the stress that is currently breaking it apart.

The pain is real. So is what it is building.

The Bitcoin Chart Is Not Cooperating

Bitcoin is trading at $67,688, down 1.65% on the day. The session opened at $68,820, reached $69,179, and has sold off consistently since — a candle that rejected the $69,000 level within hours of testing it and has found no meaningful bid on the way down. The attempted push above $71,000 earlier this week has been fully retraced. The chart remembers every failed breakout.

The daily moving average configuration offers no relief. All three MAs are declining in sequence, and the price is trading beneath all of them. The 50-day MA has crossed below the 100-day MA — a death cross confirmed on the intermediate timeframe — with both accelerating lower toward the $80,000–$88,000 region. The 200-day MA, descending from approximately $96,000–$104,000, remains so far above the current price that it functions as a reminder of structural damage rather than actionable resistance.

The February capitulation wick to $59,000 — the highest-volume candle on the entire chart — established the most significant support test of this drawdown. Price recovered from it. The recovery has since stalled, ranged, and is now pressing back toward the lower boundary of that range.

$67,500 is the immediate floor. Below it, $63,000, and ultimately the February low at $59,000 are the next structural references. The on-chain supply signal is constructive. The price has not confirmed it.

Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com 

Главный драйвер изменения цен последнего месяца — военные действия США с Израилем против Ирана на Ближнем Востоке. Когда наблюдается затишье, криптовалюты растут. Слухи о новом витке конфликта стали причиной недельной коррекции цифровых активов.

A recent survey by Coinbase and EY-Parthenon shows that institutional investors are more allocated to Solana over XRP and Dogecoin. This contrasts with the current trend in spot crypto ETFs, where XRP ETFs boast more net assets than SOL and DOGE ETFs. 

Institutions Are More Invested In Solana Than XRP And Dogecoin

The survey shows that more institutions are investing in Solana than XRP and Dogecoin. 36% of these participants had allocations to SOL as of January 2026, while 38% plan to add to their allocations. Meanwhile, 18% allocated to XRP as of January, while 25% plans to add the token to their allocations this year. 

Dogecoin is far behind Solana and XRP, with 2% of these institutions investing in DOGE as of January 2026, while 2% plan to add the meme coin to their allocations. It is worth noting that SOL is only behind Bitcoin and Ethereum and is well ahead of Chainlink, Binance Coin, Cardano, Tron, and Bitcoin Cash. 

This survey contrasts with the current trend among crypto ETFs, showing that investors allocate more to XRP ETFs than to Solana and Dogecoin ETFs. SoSoValue data shows that the XRP ETFs currently boast net assets of $949.15 million, representing 1.14% of the XRP’s market cap. Meanwhile, the Solana and Dogecoin ETFs boast net assets of $849.65 million and $9.12 million, respectively. 

Furthermore, the XRP ETFs have seen more inflows since they launched than the Solana and Dogecoin ETFs. The XRP ETFs currently boast total net inflows of $1.21 billion, while the SOL and DOGE ETFs have seen inflows of $993.38 million and $7.64 million, respectively. 

Institutions Holding Spot ETFs Over Spot Crypto 

The survey also showed that most of these institutions are gaining crypto exposure through the crypto ETFs rather than holding spot crypto. As of January 2025, 64% of these institutions held spot crypto ETFs to gain exposure to Solana, XRP, Dogecoin, and other digital assets. This figure has climbed to 66% as of January 2026, signaling that more institutions are investing in crypto amid regulatory clarity. 

Furthermore, 39% of these institutions held spot crypto as of January 2025. However, this figure has decreased to 36% as of January 2026, suggesting that institutions prefer to gain crypto exposure through an ETF wrapper rather than holding crypto directly. These institutions have also been seeking crypto exposure through the digital asset treasury companies (DATs). As of January 2025, 51% of these institutions invested in these DATs, and that figure increased to 53% as of January 2026. 

At the time of writing, the XRP price is trading at around $1.36, down over 2% in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Two months of speculation ended Tuesday when GameStop confirmed it never sold its Bitcoin. The company pledged 4,709 of its coins to Coinbase Credit as collateral for a covered-call options strategy, according to its annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Onchain Analysts Sounded The Alarm In January

When onchain trackers spotted GameStop moving its entire Bitcoin stash to Coinbase Prime in January, the assumption spread fast — the company was selling. That reading turned out to be wrong. The transfer was part of a structured options play, not an exit.

GameStop sold covered-call contracts with strike prices between $105,000 and $110,000, set to expire this Friday. Under that setup, the company collects premiums upfront and keeps the Bitcoin if buyers walk away without exercising the options. Some January contracts already expired unexercised.

The company still holds one Bitcoin that was kept outside the collateral arrangement. The 4,709 pledged coins remain on the books — just reclassified.

Why The Coins No Longer Appear As Directly Held

Because Coinbase Credit can reuse pledged assets — a practice called rehypothecation — GameStop removed the 4,709 coins from its balance sheet as direct holdings and recorded them instead as a digital asset receivable. The company said in the filing that while the label changed, its exposure to Bitcoin’s price movements did not.

That exposure has not been painless. The pledged coins were valued at $368 million as of January 31, with an unrealized loss of a little over $59 million recorded on that date. Bitcoin has fallen roughly 45% from its record high. The filing also shows a $2.3 million unrealized gain and a $700,000 liability tied to the options position.

GameStop Entered Bitcoin After Cohen Met With Saylor

Reports indicate chief executive Ryan Cohen met with Strategy chairman Michael Saylor in early 2025 to discuss corporate Bitcoin strategies. GameStop announced its move into Bitcoin shortly after. Before the Coinbase transfer, the company ranked among the top 25 corporate Bitcoin holders by size, according to bitcointreasuries.net.

The SEC filing closes the chapter on what many read as an impending exit. GameStop holds its Bitcoin. It is losing money on paper. And it is now using the position to generate income while it waits.

Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView

Инвестиционная компания BlackRock переместила 612 биткоинов ($41 млн) и 68 567 эфиров ($140 млн) на трейдинговую платформу для корпоративных инвесторов Coinbase Prime, сообщила Arkham Intelligence.

Bitcoin miners are coming under acute financial strain as weaker bitcoin prices, compressed hashprice and elevated network competition push much of the sector toward breakeven or below, according to CoinShares’ Q1 2026 mining report. For public miners in particular, the pressure is no longer just cyclical. It is increasingly shaping business models, treasury policy and capital structure across the industry.

CoinShares said Q4 2025 was “the most challenging quarter for Bitcoin miners since the April 2024 halving,” with BTC sliding from an all-time high of about $124,500 in early October to roughly $86,000 by late December, a drawdown of around 31%. Against that backdrop, the weighted average cash cost to produce one bitcoin among publicly listed miners rose to about $79,995 in Q4 2025.

Bitcoin Miners Are Facing A Serious Profitability Crunch

The squeeze has intensified further in early 2026. CoinShares wrote that hashprice fell to about $36–38 per PH/s/day in Q4 and then dropped “significantly further” to $29 in Q1, implying “further pain” ahead for miners. The report also pointed to three consecutive negative difficulty adjustments, the first such streak since July 2022, as a sign of miner capitulation.

CoinShares framed the pressure in unusually direct terms. “The hash price environment has deteriorated beyond our prior expectations, briefly touching ~$28/PH/s/day in late February before recovering to ~$30-35 at the time of writing,” the report said. “At these levels, miners running mid-generation hardware need access to sub-5c/kWh power to remain cash-profitable, while latest-generation fleets (sub-15 J/TH) retain meaningful margin at typical industrial electricity rates.” “We expect further capitulation among higher-cost operators in H1 2026 unless BTC price recovers materially.”

That economics gap is now wide enough to knock a meaningful chunk of the global fleet out of profitability. CoinShares estimated that at a hashprice of $30/PH/s/day, any miner running hardware below an S19 XP with electricity costs at or above 6 cents per kWh is losing money. By its estimate, that covers roughly 15% to 20% of the global mining fleet.

The result is visible in balance sheets and treasury behavior. CoinShares said public miners have collectively reduced BTC treasuries by more than 15,000 BTC from peak levels. It highlighted Core Scientific selling around 1,900 BTC, or about $175 million, in January alone and planning to liquidate substantially all remaining holdings in Q1 2026, while Bitdeer cut its treasury to zero in February and Riot sold 1,818 BTC, roughly $162 million, in December 2025.

At the same time, the report argues that the sector is splitting into two increasingly distinct groups: miners that remain focused on bitcoin production and operators using mining infrastructure as a bridge into AI and HPC.

CoinShares said more than $70 billion in cumulative AI and HPC contracts have now been announced across the public mining sector, with WULF, CORZ, CIFR and HUT “effectively becoming data centre operators that happen to mine Bitcoin.” It added that listed miners could derive as much as 70% of revenue from AI by the end of 2026, up from roughly 30% today.

That pivot comes with its own risk profile. CoinShares said leverage has risen sharply as some miners finance AI buildouts with large debt loads, citing IREN’s $3.7 billion in convertible notes, WULF’s $5.7 billion in total debt and CIFR’s $1.7 billion in senior secured notes. In the report’s view, the sector’s aggregate leverage has “fundamentally changed its risk profile,” even as the market rewards AI-linked operators with richer valuation multiples than pure-play miners.

At press time, BTC traded at $67,850.

Один из ранних участников первичного размещения монет (ICO) Эфириума продал 11 552 ETH на сумму свыше $23 млн всего за один час, сообщили аналитики Lookonchain.

Россиянам разрешат торговать всего несколькими криптовалютами на общую сумму в несколько сотых долей биткоина, сообщил в разговоре с журналом Forbes партнер компании Digital & Analogue Partners Юрий Брисов.

Ripple’s decision to launch RLUSD was not a sudden expansion beyond XRP so much as a move to internalize a business it was already helping power at scale. Speaking at FII Priority Miami 2026, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said the company’s role in stablecoin flows had grown large enough that building its own product became the logical next step.

Why Ripple Entered the Stablecoin Market

Garlinghouse said the turning point came well before RLUSD’s launch 13 months ago. “Two years ago, we were minting 20% of all USDC,” he said, tying that activity directly to Ripple’s payments business. With more than $100 billion in payment flows already processed, Ripple concluded that if it was already a major engine behind stablecoin usage, it made sense to bring that function in-house.

He also linked the decision to a moment of stress in the stablecoin market. Garlinghouse pointed to USDC’s temporary depeg during the Silicon Valley Bank collapse as a reminder that institutional users care about balance-sheet strength as much as blockchain rails.

“Circle came out and said, hey, we’ll stand in the gap. We’ll guarantee the peg. And it didn’t move because at that point, Circle didn’t have a balance sheet,” he said. “Ripple has on our balance sheet, you know, 60, 70 billion dollars of crypto. We have about four billion dollars of US dollars. And so I think we’re in a position to really have a very compliant, very institutional focused stablecoin.”

According to Garlinghouse, stablecoins are increasingly adopted not because companies want exposure to crypto branding, but because they want a better way to solve treasury, settlement and cross-border transfer problems. That broader shift, he argued, is already reshaping how the sector is perceived.

Garlinghouse compared the current state of crypto to the internet industry in the late 1990s, when companies led with the technology rather than the use case. “We don’t talk about anything as an internet company now because it’s just prevalent in the background,” he said. “And I think that’s where some of the blockchain and crypto based solutions are heading”. Companies, he added, “just want to solve a payments problem. They want to solve a custody problem.”

On market structure, Garlinghouse expects the stablecoin field to get more crowded before it gets smaller. He said the biggest banks are already evaluating whether they should issue their own stablecoins, but questioned whether the market benefits from too many dollar-backed instruments that ultimately serve the same economic function. “We don’t need, you know, 50 US dollar stablecoins. Like, why? Like, they’re all, it’s still, at the end of the day, a U.S. dollar,” he said.

That does not mean he sees no room for differentiation. Instead, he argued that trust, licensing and reserve transparency will become the real competitive variables as the market matures. Ripple, he said, has deliberately taken a compliance-first route, pursuing not just a New York Department of Financial Services license but also an OCC license.

He added that the sector as a whole needs more regulatory verification and disclosure, pointing even to Tether’s renewed push for an audit as evidence that transparency is becoming harder to avoid.

Garlinghouse was similarly upbeat on the US policy backdrop. He described passage of the Genius Act as a major unlock for demand and said corporate executives are now actively asking whether stablecoins should be part of their operations. While he said follow-on legislation around asset classification has been slower, he argued the tone in Washington has already shifted sharply, citing recent coordination between the SEC and CFTC and predicting further progress by the end of May.

“So I think we already have made huge progress in this administration to provide some of that structure and Clarity [Act]. I think clarity will still pass. I was in Washington two days ago, and I think we’ll still get something. […] I’ll predict by the end of May we’ll get something across,” Garlinghouse said.

At press time, XRP traded at $1.36.

Федеральный суд Австралии наложил административный штраф 10 млн австралийских долларов (около $6,9 млн) на платформу Binance Australia Derivatives. Платформа предлагает криптовалютные деривативы. Ей вменяются нарушения, которые привели к многомиллионным убыткам клиентов и завышенным комиссиям.

Vietnam’s police has dismantled an “exceptionally large” multi-billion dollar crypto scam centered on selling fake digital currencies.

Inside The Multi-Billion Dollar Crypto Scam

The Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security (national police) announced on Thursday the arrest of at least seven people in relation with ONUS, a Vietnamese-based crypto investment app and exchange that was used by millions of Vietnamese investors, AFP reports through Nampa.

140 people were summoned for questioning before the arrest of fintech and blockchain entrepreneur Vuong Le Vinh Nhan (aka Eric Vuong) and six accomplices, on charges of property appropriation and money laundering. The platform suddenly became inaccessible around March 20, leaving retail users locked out and scrambling for answers.

The police claims Vuong’s group has been operating since 2018, allegedly creating fake coins, issuing and selling them through ONUS, while manipulating supply, demand, and prices to manufacture paper gains and lure in more victims. The scam leaves millions of users affected, and at least one investor saying they were “devastated” after losing over $15,000.

A Country Of Booming Crypto Scams

Vietnam has become one of the world’s hottest retail‑crypto markets, with around 17 million digital asset holders. Hanoi bans crypto as a means of payment but allows speculation in a legal grey zone, which scammers exploit: this is not Vietnam’s first case of high-profile crypto fraud.

The country has already seen multiple digital assets frauds and Ponzi‑style schemes. Back in 2018, around 32,000 people may fell victim to a $658 million Initial Coin Offering (ICO) scam for two different cryptocurrencies, both of which were launched by Ho Chi Minh City-based company Modern Tech JSC. In 2024, Vietnamese authorities dismantled another large-scale cryptocurrency scam orchestrated by a company called ‘Million Smiles,’ protecting nearly 300 potential victims from financial exploitation, after it had already swindled around $1.17 million.

Takeaways For Traders

Emerging‑market retail booms combined with regulatory grey areas are turning Southeast Asia into a hotspot for “short‑cycle” high‑yield scams, even as regulators worldwide step up enforcement. It would not come as a surprise if we see Vietnam’s policy change its trajectory into an strategy of more pressure for clear rules on token issuance, exchanges, and marketing, and less tolerance for “experimental” platforms operating at scale.

For traders, the ONUS saga is a reminder that jurisdictional risk matters just as much as chart patterns. Enforcement in regulatory grey zones can flip from hands‑off to aggressive overnight, and when that happens, liquidity on localized platforms tends to disappear far faster than most risk models assume. “Too‑good‑to‑be‑regulated” is no longer a clever marketing line; it is a working definition of counterparty risk.

Cover image from Perplexity, BTCUSD chart from Tradingview