Из жизни альткоинов

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.

BlackRock’s Robbie Mitchnick believes AI to be a bigger long-term force for crypto than the launching of new tokens.

The Future Of Crypto Is Not In Tokens But In AI

Robbie Mitchnick, the head of the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, said at the Digital Asset Summit in New York this Tuesday that big investors are rethinking their approach to crypto, signaling artificial intelligence (AI) as a more significant long‑term engine than simply launching more tokens, CoinDesk reports.

According to Mitchnick, since most tokens have short life cycles and limited long‑term value, client allocations are narrowing into a few core assets rather than broad altcoin baskets. As a result of this, institutional players are tightening their focus on bitcoin and ether, treating the bulk of remaining tokens as fleeting and mostly “nonsense”. “The majority of that is nonesense”, said Mitchnick himself.

Token turnover in the top ranks has been “pretty ferocious”, with only Bitcoin and Ethereum sustaining long‑term relevance, while the majority of circulating tokens lack staying power. Right now, BTC and ETH sit in different but complementary “monetary universes”: Bitcoin as a savings‑style hedge and Ethereum as productive infrastructure for on‑chain activity and tokenization.

What This Means For The Industry

Furthermore, Mitchnick sees this consolidation as a natural evolution and not a failure, with AI acting as the structural catalyst that will actually need crypto rails in the real economy. He believes there is an organic alignment between what he calls “computer-native money” and “computer-native data and intelligence”:

“AI agents are very unlikely to use, you know, Fedwire and SWIFT (…) What is crypto? Crypto is computer-native money… AI is computer-native data and intelligence. And so there’s a natural symbiosis there”

Under Mitchnick’s perspective, crypto is seen less as a speculative trade and more as core infrastructure. A growing cohort of Bitcoin miners is already reallocating capacity to AI workloads, attracted by more predictable income streams and surging demand for compute. Publicly listed firms like Hut 8 (HUT), Core Scientific (CORZ) and Iren (IREN) are converting data centers or signing hosting agreements focused on AI and high‑performance computing. Other miners are floating comparable strategies, even as traditional mining remains at the heart of their operations.

If BlackRock’s thesis holds, the real long‑term bet is on AI plus the core crypto stack (Bitcoin, Ethereum and tokenization rails), while long‑tail token churn turns even more fleeting and purely speculative. In an AI‑led market, the lasting upside is likely to accrue to the assets that autonomous agents and institutional plumbing actually rely on, not to whatever “AI coin” narrative happens to be trending next.

Cover image from Perplexity, BTCUSD chart from Tradingview

Новые запреты на майнинг криптовалют появятся в случае, если власти какого-либо региона обратится с такой просьбой в правительство России, пообещал директор департамента развития электроэнергетики Минэнерго Андрей Максимов.

Гендиректор крупного американского банка BNY Mellon Робин Винс (Robin Vince) заявил, что банки и крупные финансовые компании могут ускорить массовое использование криптовалют, став мостом между цифровыми активами и традиционными финансами.

Индивидуальные предприниматели-майнеры и добывающие криптовалюту физлица должны успеть до 30 апреля впервые отчитаться о доходах, сообщила Федеральная налоговая служба России (ФНС).

Recently, the XRP price has been in an uptrend, spurred on by the improving macro political climate and the Bitcoin price crossing $70,000. But while this move has brought some much-needed positive sentiment back into the market, one analyst is calling for caution during this time. The call points to the fact that the move above $1.4 might be only temporary and that the price downtrend will resume in short succession, trapping investors in their positions.

The XRP Trendline To Watch For A Lower Break

Over the last few weeks, the XRP price had formed an interesting trendline, which crypto analyst CasiTrades had called out. At a point, the XRP price was still trading above the trendline, suggesting that the trend was still very bullish. However, the digital asset has now seen its price fall below this trendline, putting it in a very perilous position.

CasiTrades explains that the price break below this trendline has seen it begin to act more like resistance at this level. If that is the case, it means that the price might not be able to break out of it, and if it is pushed down, then it could trigger another wave down.

The recent price recovery, the crypto analyst explains, could be a subwave 2 bounce. Such a bounce is historically short-lived and actually tends to give way to more declines. As a result, at the first sign of resistance, it is possible that the XRP price will be harshly rejected, triggering the next move down.

Such a move would eventually see no support above the $1, and this would leave room for the bears to drag the price further down. In fact, the crypto analyst says that the next major support on the leg down lies around $0.87. This would constitute a 40% crash from current levels at the time of writing.

As for levels to watch, CasiTrades says to keep an eye on $1.40-$1.41 for the B wave. For the C wave, the major levels to watch are $1.51-$1.55, and these targets are for the short-term. “Either we head down to $0.87, or we somehow break and hold $1.65 resistance,” the analyst stated.

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) has flagged massive crypto outflows to overseas exchanges amidst tougher oversight from regulators.

Inside The South Korean Crypto Report

Around $60 billion (₩90 trillion) worth of crypto assets were moved out to foreign exchanges and private wallets during the second half of 2025, a Wednesday report from the country’s top financial regulator revealed. This represents a 14% increase compared to the first quarter of the year, which saw a $52.2 billion (₩78.9 trillion) outflow.

However, the amount subjected to the Travel Rule (outgoing transactions of ₩1 million or more per transaction by a registered business operator) decreased in a 23%, going from ₩20.2 trillion in the first half of the year to ₩15.6 trillion in the second half.

At the same time, wallet and custody platforms saw a modest uptick in user numbers (779, 20 more than those at the end of June 2025), but the value of assets they hold dropped sharply, partly because benchmark prices for several custodied tokens have fallen.

The number of accounts on South Korean crypto exchanges hit 11.1 million, a 3% increase from June 2025, while customer deposits jumped much faster, surging 31% to about $5.4 billion (₩8.1 trillion). But even with such an expansion, exchanges didn’t end up making more money. The 18 platforms still in operation booked roughly $253.4 million (₩380.7 billion) in operating profit for the second half, a 38% drop from the around $411.2 million (₩617.8 billion) they earned in the first six months.

South Korea Tightens The Crypto Leash: A Recap

This crypto exodus doesn’t necessarily come as a surprise in the light of the latest moves from South Korean regulators, which clearly paint them in crackdown colors. As covered by Bitcoinist earlier this month, the National Tax Service (NTS) announced they are moving ahead with an AI-driven system to track crypto investment gains as they prepare to start taxing virtual asset profits from January 2027. Authorities have also toughen oversight on major crypto exchanges, with Korean giants such as Korbit, Upbit and most recently Bithumb facing penalties and suspensions due to AML and KYC violations.

But that’s not all: last February, authorities signed a new cooperation agreement between the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and nine major credit card companies, working alongside the customs service, to track and block card-based payments tied to illegal overseas crypto foreign-exchange schemes and cross-border fund outflows. Under the deal, officials will combine card-usage records with immigration data to flag suspicious patterns and cut off channels commonly used to move money into unregistered offshore exchanges. This sits on top of the FIU’s broader 2026 AML agenda, which includes expanding the Travel Rule to smaller transactions and tightening oversight of virtual asset service providers.

All points to Seoul wanting to stem capital flight and money laundering without killing Korea’s position as a major crypto hub, especially as they also move to normalize institutional and corporate participation. Tighter AML and cross‑border controls could reduce some offshore liquidity and arbitrage, but may also push sophisticated capital into more opaque channels or DeFi rails.

Cover image from Perplexity, BTCUSD chart from Tradingview

Комиссия по финансовым услугам Республики Корея (FSC) сообщила, что за вторую половину прошлого года с южнокорейских криптобирж на зарубежные платформы и в частные криптокошельки было выведено 90 трлн вон (около $60 млрд).

Основатель MN Trading Михаэль ван де Поппе (Michael van de Poppe) заявил, что после обвала в феврале биткоин последовательно формирует более высокие минимумы, что указывает на укрепление рыночной структуры.

Tether, the issuer of the biggest stablecoin, has signed on a Big Four accounting firm to complete its first independent audit after years of scrutiny.

Tether Signs Big Four Firm To Provide Assurance That USDT Is Fully Backed

According to a website announcement, Tether has entered a formal engagement with a Big Four audit firm for what the stablecoin issuer describes as the biggest inaugural audit of all time in financial markets. “This audit represents years of work to strengthen our systems so that Tether can meet the highest standards applied in global finance,” noted Paolo Ardoino, Tether CEO.

Tether is a cryptocurrency company that’s most popularly known for being the issuer of the stablecoin USDT. The firm’s token is the largest stablecoin in the sector by market cap and ranks third overall behind Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Over the years, Tether has faced criticism over the lack of transparency and how its stablecoin is backed. Back in 2021, the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fined the firm $41 million for falsely claiming that USDT was fully backed by US dollar reserves.

Now, with the audit, it seems the company wants to upgrade on this front. “For the hundreds of millions of people and businesses who rely on USD₮ every day, this audit is not just a compliance exercise; it is about accountability, resilience, and confidence in the infrastructure they depend on,” said Ardoino.

As for who the company that’s going to audit Tether is, the exact name is currently unknown. The announcement has just noted that it’s a Big Four firm, which means that it’s one of KPMG, EY, Deloitte, or PwC. Simon McWilliams, Tether Chief Financial Officer, noted:

The Big Four Firm was selected through a competitive process because the organisation is already operating at Big Four audit standard; the audit will be delivered.

Earlier this year, Tether launched a new stablecoin called USAT, specifically aimed at the US market. The company had previously stepped away from the nation following regulatory scrutiny. The new token, backed by dollars, complies fully with the country’s newly established stablecoin framework following the passage of the GENIUS Act last year.

As mentioned earlier, USDT is the largest stablecoin in the sector. Its market cap of $184 billion alone accounts for nearly 60% of the total stablecoin market cap. Meanwhile, the closest competitor, USDC, has a market cap of $78 billion.

Overall, the stablecoin sector has done relatively well during the last few months despite a bearish shift in the wider digital assets market, with its combined market cap currently sitting around an all-time high (ATH), according to data from DefiLlama.

Bitcoin Price

Bitcoin recovered above $71,000 earlier in the day, but the coin has seen another setback as its price has now returned to $69,300.

Блокчейн-исследователь ZachXBT раскритиковал компанию Circle — эмитента стейблкоина USDC — за блокировку 16 кошельков, которые, по его оценке, не связаны с незаконной деятельностью и использовались в рамках обычных бизнес-операций.

An Australian pension fund is exploring offering Bitcoin and other digital assets to its members as investment options.

A Rare Bitcoin Move

In what Bloomberg fittingly calls a “rare move”, Hostplus, a A$150 billion+ ($105 billion) Australian pension fund, is considering this cryptocurrency venture due to the high demand from some members, said Chief Investment Officer Sam Sicilia in an interview:

“There’s certainly a demand from some of our members who write in and say ‘why can’t I have access to cryptocurrency?’”

The fund is still in design phase, Sicilia clarified, and there are yet several capital matters to resolve, especially around safeguarding consumers. Besides, its implementation would depend entirely on regulatory approval. The CIO, however, is not worried about the wait and is ready to give regulators room the time they need:

“We’d love to get regulatory tick off, even if it means waiting another six months. We are long-term investors. Six months doesn’t really move the dial for us”

Were it to become a reality, the plan could come to fruition as soon as next financial year. Sicilia explained that the fund would add bitcoin and the other digital assets to its Choiceplus investment option, which lets members manage their own retirement portfolios. At present, only about 1% of the fund’s total assets sit in Choiceplus.

Hostplus first looked at cryptocurrencies a decade ago, and since then both Bitcoin and the broader crypto scene have change and evolved immensely. But the other digital assets the fund plans to incorporate are not just in the crypto asset class: music rights are included in those other digital assets, the Hostplus’ CIO added:

“We’re now at the stage where we’re revisiting digital currencies, not just Bitcoin, but just the broader range of digital currencies”

A Trillion-Dollar Industry

As niche as it sounds, Australia’s pension industry is consolidating into fewer mega-funds and is projected to hit A$5.7 trillion by 2030, concentrating power in a handful of allocators. Therefore, even a limited crypto allocation in a large fund’s self-directed sleeve could be an important signal for global institutions watching pensions as a late-cycle adopter.

Only isolated cases like AMP’s move into Bitcoin futures in 2024 have broken ranks so far. Regulators and many CIOs continue to cite high volatility and drawdowns from prior peaks as the main reason to keep crypto away from “safe” retirement pots.

Large pools of capital are gradually testing Bitcoin as a store-of-value or diversification play, especially after the US opened retirement channels more to crypto and spot ETFs normalized institutional access, as reported by our sister website NewsBTC back in February.

Despite that even a small on-ramp from a fund this size could matter at the margin in a market increasingly driven by institutional flows, pension adoption remains slow and regulators are still skeptical. Traders should treat this as an early test case rather than a green light for broad superannuation FOMO into Bitcoin.

Cover image from Perplexity, BTCUSD chart from Tradingview