Из жизни альткоинов

Управление по конфискации преступных активов Ирландии (CAB) получило доступ к считавшемуся утраченным криптокошельку с 500 BTC. Средства являются частью 6000 BTC, конфискованных у осужденного наркоторговца Клифтона Коллинза (Clifton Collins) по прозвищу «Дублинец».

Российский минфин рассматривает возможность распространения требований об обязательной репатриации экспортной выручки на криптовалюты. Об этом заявил замглавы ведомства Иван Чебесков.

The Solana Foundation announced on Tuesday the Solana Developer Platform (SDP), an application programming interface (API) toolset aimed to assist corporations and financial institutions in developing and deploying blockchain-native products on the newly released platform. 

Framed as an “AI-ready” environment, SDP boasts key infrastructure across the Solana ecosystem into a single interface intended to lower technical and operational barriers for institutional builders while ensuring compliance and scale.

Solana Dev. Platform Breakdown

According to the Foundation’s blog post, SDP is organized around three core API modules that together address issuance, payments, and trading use cases. 

The issuance module lets organizations create tokenized deposits, stablecoins under the United States’ GENIUS Act framework, and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs). 

The payments module supports orchestration of fiat and stablecoin flows — including on-ramps, off-ramps, and on-chain stablecoin transactions — to power business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), and peer-to-peer (P2P) payment scenarios. 

A trading module, which the Foundation says will arrive later in 2026, is intended to enable financial flows such as atomic swaps, vaults, and on-chain FX. At launch, the issuance and payments modules are already live; the trading functionality will follow in a subsequent release, the blog post said.

Catherine Gu, Head of Product, Digital Assets at the Solana Foundation, emphasized that SDP aggregates protocol features such as token extensions for permissioning and privacy and directly integrates with Solana’s developer ecosystem. 

She noted the platform’s initial partner integrations and said the level of early interest from enterprises demonstrates strong demand for a simplified, compliant path to building on Solana.

Mastercard And Western Union Join SDP Pilots

Notably, the Foundation revealed that traditional finance (TradFi) giant Mastercard is tapping the platform for stablecoin settlement, and Western Union is experimenting with cross-border payments. Raj Dhamodharan, Executive Vice President, Blockchain & Digital Assets, Mastercard, stated on the matter:

As an early user of Solana Developer Platform, we’re helping enable direct stablecoin settlement for customers on select blockchain networks — beginning with Solana — combining the speed and programmability of blockchain with the reliability, security, and global reach of the Mastercard network.

To meet institutional needs, Solana selected a slate of infrastructure partners across four categories: node infrastructure, wallets, compliance, and ramps. 

Node providers such as Alchemy, Helius, QuickNode, and Triton are intended to abstract blockchain complexity and enable no-code or low-code onboarding.

The wallet cohort — including Anchorage Digital, BitGo, Coinbase, Crossmint, Dfns, Dynamic, and others — offers custody and experimentation options. 

Compliance partners such as Chainalysis, Elliptic, and TRM aim to ensure know-your-customer (KYC) and Travel Rule requirements are integrated. Ramps like Bridge, BVNK, and MoonPay support the payments module’s on- and off-ramp flows. 

The platform also supports out-of-the-box use by artificial intelligence coding tools such as Claude Code by Anthropic and Codex by OpenAI. 

At the time of writing, the blockchain’s native token, SOL, traded at $89.69, recording losses of 5% in the weekly time frame, according to CoinGecko data. 

Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com 

Блокчейн-сыщик под псевдонимом ZachXBT опубликовал серию сообщений в соцсети X, в которых указал на возможную причастность российского внебиржевого брокера Александра Хинкиса к транзакциям на сумму около $4,7 млн, предположительно полученным хакерскими группами.

Как устроены реальные платежные коридоры с криптовалютой, где сегодня проходят невидимые «красные линии» комплаенса и санкционного контроля, и как выстроить рабочую схему так, чтобы платеж долетал до поставщика, а не зависал на проверках?

Charles Edwards has highlighted how the Bitcoin Yardstick valuation indicator is “off the chart” in deep value at the moment.

Bitcoin Yardstick Is Deep Inside Undervalued Zone

In a new post on X, Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards has talked about the latest trend in the Bitcoin Yardstick. The “Yardstick” is a valuation tool for the cryptocurrency devised by Edwards that is similar to a Price-to-Earnings (PE) Ratio, but in place of “earnings,” the metric instead uses the energy work done to secure the BTC network.

The stand in for this work done is the “Hashrate,” a measure of the total amount of computing power connected to the Bitcoin blockchain by miners as a whole. The Yardstick takes the ratio between the market cap and this metric to represent BTC’s value.

Now, here is the chart shared by Edwards that shows how the Bitcoin Yardstick has changed over the last few years:

As displayed in the above graph, the Bitcoin Yardstick has plummeted over the last few months as the cryptocurrency’s price has gone through a bearish shift. This suggests that the asset’s value has dropped relative to the network Hashrate.

The indicator has recently been floating in the zone below -1 standard deviation (SD) from the mean, which is a region that the analyst’s model describes as pertaining to a “cheap value.” From the chart, it’s visible that the 2022 bear market also saw the Yardstick plummet into this region, but the recent lows in the metric have actually been lower than any level from back then. “Bitcoin yardstick is literally off the chart in deep value,” noted Edwards.

While the cryptocurrency has been severely undervalued from the perspective of the indicator, it may not necessarily mean a bottom is here. In the previous bear market, the indicator was in the undervalued region for months before a turnaround appeared.

An interesting feature in the graph is that the Yardstick saw a sudden spike to a normal-value zone in the final week of January. The BTC price was moving sideways while this happened, so the culprit must have been the Hashrate. And indeed, this spike coincided with a major snow storm in the United States that disrupted the power grid, forcing miners to curtail their electricity usage.

The resulting drop in the Hashrate was very significant, but it lasted only temporarily. Though, before the computing power even returned, the Yardstick plummeted anyway, owing to the sharp price crash that Bitcoin saw to kick off February.

BTC Price

Bitcoin has returned to the $71,000 level following its quick rebound over the past day.

A five-day strike pause ordered by US President Donald Trump after diplomatic talks with Iran sent Bitcoin soaring above $70,000 over the weekend, marking one of the sharpest risk rallies in weeks.

The announcement came after Trump confirmed that American and Iranian officials had held productive discussions, though Iranian media denied any direct communication with Washington had taken place.

Gold Bleeds While Bitcoin Climbs

Since US-Israeli airstrikes began targeting Iranian military infrastructure on February 28, Bitcoin has gained roughly 30%, climbing from around $66,200 to near $72,650.

Gold has moved in the opposite direction. The precious metal dropped from close to $4,400 an ounce to below $4,300 — a loss of about 2% over the same period.

At one point during early trading sessions, gold dipped under $4,250. From its recent all-time high, gold is now down nearly 25%, a pullback that analysts say has wiped out more than $10 trillion in precious metals market value.

Silver has suffered even more sharply, with losses approaching 50% from peak levels.

Iran’s decision to seal the Strait of Hormuz following the initial strikes disrupted roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply and sent shockwaves through commodity and equity markets.

The S&P 500 is down about 1% since the conflict began. The Nasdaq has slipped around half a percent.

Capital Flows Tell The Story

Money has been moving. Between March 16 and 20, Bitcoin spot ETFs logged net inflows of $94.5 million — the fourth straight week of positive flows.

Some gold-backed funds, reports indicate, have seen declining assets under management during the same stretch.

A stronger US dollar and elevated Treasury yields have added pressure on gold, which offers no yield and becomes less attractive globally when priced in a rising currency.

Bitcoin’s performance during this conflict has caught many traditional market participants off guard.

The asset has long been seen as too volatile to function as a store of value during geopolitical crises. This time, the data shows something different.

Traders Eye $75,000 As The Next Test

Analysts are now watching the $72,000 level closely. A sustained break above that threshold, reports note, could open a path toward $75,000.

Momentum indicators currently suggest buyers remain active, though the situation on the ground remains fluid.

Despite Trump’s five-day halt on strikes, US-Israeli forces reportedly hit Iranian energy facilities again Monday, adding fresh uncertainty to what had briefly looked like a de-escalation.

How long Bitcoin can hold its ground — and whether gold can recover — will depend heavily on what happens in the coming days at the negotiating table.

Featured image from Vaulted, chart from TradingView

NYDIG says Strategy’s rapidly expanding STRC issuance has become a meaningful new source of incremental bitcoin demand, but argues the structure is being widely misunderstood. In a March 20 research note, the firm said the preferred-stock complex around Strategy and similar vehicles such as Strive’s SATA should be viewed less as traditional corporate credit and more as a managed, bitcoin-backed liability system whose viability depends on capital markets access and investor confidence.

That distinction matters because Strategy’s latest bitcoin buying has increasingly been financed through preferred equity rather than through the instruments most investors traditionally associate with the company. According to NYDIG, Strategy issued roughly $1.2 billion of STRC over the past week alone, lifting total STRC outstanding to just over $5 billion. Combined with another $5 billion of preferred equity, the company’s total preferred stack now exceeds $10 billion and has overtaken convertible debt in its capital structure.

NYDIG Breaks Down The Bitcoin Flywheel

NYDIG’s central point is that STRC and SATA are “not well understood through the lens of traditional credit or equity.” Instead, the firm wrote, “they are best viewed as actively managed, capital markets–dependent liability structures backed by a reserve asset, bitcoin.” That framing runs through the entire note.

The report argues these securities differ materially from conventional debt. They sit junior to debt but senior to common equity, are unsecured, and come with variable, fully discretionary dividends and limited governance rights. Most importantly, NYDIG says issuers are actively trying to keep them trading near par, usually around $100, through signaling, dividend management and periodic adjustments to dividend rates.

In NYDIG’s view, that means the real constraint is not operating cash flow. “These instruments are not funded by operating cash flow, nor are they designed to be serviced through corporate earnings,” the firm wrote. “Instead, they function as capital markets vehicles in which preferred securities are the core funding product, and the corporate balance sheet, anchored by bitcoin holdings, is constructed to support ongoing issuance.” In that setup, traditional metrics like EBIT-to-interest coverage are not the right tool for judging sustainability.

The note also pushes back on the idea that a bitcoin decline would automatically force liquidations across the structure. Strategy’s debt, NYDIG says, is generally unsecured and carries limited financial covenants unless explicitly specified. Default is “primarily triggered by payment failure or bankruptcy, not mark-to-market declines in asset values,” and that logic extends in important ways to the preferred layer as well. There are no hard triggers tied directly to bitcoin price moves or coverage ratios, even if preferred holders remain more exposed to management discretion and subordination risk.

That leads to the “flywheel” at the center of the report. When preferreds like STRC and SATA trade near par, issuers can raise capital efficiently. That capital is then used to buy bitcoin, expanding the asset base and, in NYDIG’s telling, strengthening balance sheet support. If common equity also trades above NAV, stock issuance becomes accretive on a bitcoin-per-share basis, reinforcing the cycle.

NYDIG describes it as a reflexive loop in which “capital access funds bitcoin purchases, which strengthens the balance sheet and sustains investor confidence, allowing continued issuance.” But it also stresses that the mechanism is conditional rather than permanent. “As long as preferreds remain anchored near par, equity trades above the NAV, and capital markets stay open, the flywheel drives ongoing bitcoin demand,” the report said.

The reverse is also true. If bitcoin falls, confidence weakens, or preferreds slip below par, issuance becomes harder or uneconomic. That can stall the system without requiring insolvency. NYDIG says the burden of adjustment then shifts toward the preferred layer through dividend deferrals, rate changes or deeper subordination as new claims are added.

The firm even frames STRC through an options lens, saying it resembles being short a put on bitcoin asset coverage, with yield earned in exchange for downside risk if bitcoin weakens and erodes the asset cushion. But unlike a standard option, there is no fixed strike or maturity, and outcomes depend heavily on management decisions.

At press time, BTC traded at $70,885.

As the Monday market section nears completion, Bitcoin saw a brief rebound, allowing the crypto king to retest the $71,000 price level once again. BTC’s price may have slightly bounced back up to pivotal levels, but trading activity on cryptocurrency exchanges appears to have significantly cooled down, suggesting underlying weakness in market participation.

Binance Sees Major Drop In Bitcoin Spot Volume

Bitcoin’s price and its trading activity, particularly on cryptocurrency exchanges, are moving in separate directions. On Binance, the world’s largest trading platform, trading activity around BTC is currently demonstrating signs of a notable cool down.

After his research, Darkfost, a verified author at the CryptoQuant platform and data analyst, shared that the BTC spot volume on Binance has fallen sharply, reaching multi-year lows. As of Monday, the spot volume lost over $52 billion, marking its lowest level since the 2023 bear market.

This sharp drop points to a major reduction in market participation, as retail and institutional investors appear to be stepping back in the face of uncertain conditions. In the past, this type of development was known for triggering periods of heightened volatility, making this a crucial moment in BTC’s journey.

With this, March is shaping up to record the lowest spot trading volume on Binance since September 2023. The market is currently experiencing conditions that match the previous bear market, with $52 billion in spot volume lost on Binance. 

According to Darkfost, the decline in spot volumes on Binance reflects the current lack of investor interest in the market, and this signal remains negative in the short term. However, these kinds of difficult periods are typically associated with deep correction phases that end up creating genuine opportunities for investors with a long-term perspective.

Policymakers Are Shifting Toward A More Assertive Tone

What makes this even more interesting is the fact that it is taking place within a tense geopolitical and economic backdrop. Thus, the markets are increasingly pricing in the possibility of a less favorable macroeconomic environment. 

During the latest Federal Reserve (FED) meeting at the Federal Open Market Committee, the tone of policymakers became noticeably more hawkish. At the same time, the labor market is flashing signs of weakness and can no longer be supported by rate cuts, as inflation remains persistent. 

With Q4 GDP (Gross Domestic Product) increasing by +0.7%, this is compounded by an already visible economic slowdown, which will require confirmation from upcoming Q1 GDP figures, increasing worries about stagflation. Meanwhile, the United States long-term yields are experiencing a spike. 

Furthermore, the US dollar is strengthening, and these signals are collectively pointing to a deterioration in the macroeconomic environment, which risk assets are beginning to feel. In this context, Darkfost highlighted that the risk aversion of investors is becoming increasingly evident, and Bitcoin is being directly affected. 

Despite ongoing tensions, institutional demand for BTC has not entirely faded. Michael Saylor’s Strategy recently acquired an additional 1,031 BTC at $74,326 per coin, bringing their total holdings to 762,099 BTC, purchased at $75,694 per coin. At the current pace, Adam Livingston predicts that the company could hit the 1 million BTC mark in October this year.

Ethereum is facing renewed volatility and uncertainty after several weeks of consolidation, with price action reflecting a market struggling to establish a clear direction. While ETH has remained relatively range-bound in recent sessions, underlying dynamics suggest that the current phase may be masking a deeper structural transition.

According to a CryptoQuant report, the Ethereum market may appear stagnant on the surface, but on-chain data points to a tightening supply environment combined with recovering demand. One of the most notable developments is the continued decline in exchange reserves, which have dropped to approximately 16.2 million ETH, the lowest level recorded since 2016. This trend indicates that fewer coins are readily available for sale on centralized platforms.

At the same time, a significant portion of supply is being removed from circulation through staking. Roughly 37 million ETH is now locked, further reducing the liquid supply in the market. This dual dynamic—declining exchange balances and rising staked supply—effectively compresses available liquidity.

In this context, even moderate increases in demand can have a disproportionate impact on price. While short-term volatility persists, the combination of shrinking supply and stabilizing demand suggests that Ethereum’s current consolidation phase could precede a more meaningful directional move.

Demand Recovery and Structural Reset Support Ethereum Thesis

The report further explains that Ethereum’s recovery is increasingly supported by genuine network activity rather than speculative flows. Active addresses have surged in recent weeks, with notable spikes signaling a meaningful increase in usage across the network. This trend reflects real demand, particularly as lower gas fees following EIP-4844 have accelerated Layer 2 adoption and boosted transaction throughput. Unlike previous cycles, where price appreciation drove activity, current conditions suggest that fundamentals are leading the recovery.

In derivatives markets, a similar normalization is taking place. Open interest (OI), which previously expanded to elevated levels, was flushed out during the correction and is now gradually rebuilding. This reset indicates that excessive leverage has been cleared. Importantly, the current increase in OI remains moderate and is not accompanied by extreme funding rates, pointing to healthier positioning and the return of fresh capital.

Institutional developments further reinforce this shift. The introduction of staking-based ETH ETFs, combined with improving regulatory clarity in the US, has lowered barriers to entry for larger investors.

Taken together, Ethereum’s structure is evolving. With tightening supply, rising organic demand, and normalized leverage, the market appears to be transitioning toward a more sustainable phase, potentially marking the early stages of a broader uptrend.

Ethereum Holds Key Weekly Support as Macro Structure Remains Uncertain

On the weekly timeframe, Ethereum is trading around the $2,100–$2,200 zone, a level that is emerging as a critical support area following the recent sharp rejection from the $3,500–$4,000 range. The chart shows that Ethereum has transitioned from a bullish expansion phase into a corrective structure, with lower highs forming since late 2025.

From a trend perspective, Ethereum is now testing the 200-week moving average, a historically significant level that often defines long-term market direction. Price is currently hovering just above this region, suggesting that buyers are attempting to defend it. A sustained hold above this level would indicate structural resilience, while a breakdown could expose deeper downside toward the $1,800 region.

The 50-week and 100-week moving averages are beginning to flatten and converge near current price levels, reflecting a loss of momentum and increasing compression. This typically precedes a larger directional move, though the direction remains unclear.

Volume analysis shows elevated activity during the recent selloff, pointing to distribution or forced selling. However, the subsequent stabilization suggests that demand is absorbing supply at current levels.

Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com 

X Finance Bull, a well-known Ripple advocate and market analyst, has placed XRP back into the spotlight with fresh insights into its design and utility. According to him, XRP was never just a payment token but a digital currency built for far more, with multi-functional capabilities now being backed by Evernorth, a billion-dollar institutional XRP treasury.

Analyst Highlights Ripple’s XRP Strength Beyond Payments

In an X post on March 21, X Finance Bull declared that XRP, the native token of the XRP Ledger (XRPL), was never designed to be just a payments token. Usually, XRP has been used for cross-border transactions, enabling users to execute fast and secure transfers at scale. 

However, X Finance Bull noted that XRP’s infrastructure was always designed to handle much more than its current usage. According to him, the crypto network allows users to create, manage, and trade tokenized digital assets, lend and borrow funds, utilize XRP as collateral, and settle global transactions quickly. All of this occurs directly on the XRP Ledger, making it a unique multi-functional network in the crypto space. 

The analyst also emphasized that major players like Evernorth have publicly confirmed XRP’s wide range of use cases. He stated that Evernorth noted that, aside from XRPL, no other blockchain “combines all these capabilities natively,” while maintaining “the regulatory clarity that institutions require.” 

X Finance Bull highlights the significance of Evernorth’s words because they show that XRP’s utility has evolved beyond simple transfers or remittances, now supporting a wide range of financial operations within a single ecosystem. He highlights that institutions are already deploying XRP in various ways financially. Many now hold it, borrow or lend it, and use it as part of decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure. 

X Finance Bull further noted that XRP receiving support from a major institution such as Evernorth, which is backed by top firms including Ripple, SBI Holdings, Pantera, and Kraken, suggests that the cryptocurrency’s potential is being realized globally. He noted that XRP’s use cases are no longer just theory but a working framework already being implemented by major industry players. 

Evernorth Praises XRP’s Network Utility

In his X post, X Finance Bull shared a screenshot of Evernorth’s remarks about Ripple’s XRP and its blockchain. According to Evernorth, XRP initially began primarily as a payments network. They noted that trillions of dollars remain idle in bank accounts worldwide to facilitate international transfers. However, XRP can move the same money in seconds, at a fraction of a cent.

Evernorth further stated that, in reality, XRP was designed as a single digital asset network capable of bridging various financial and global infrastructure use cases. The firm also noted that it holds XRP in an actively managed institutional treasury while simultaneously contributing to the growth of the XRP DeFi ecosystem. In their words: “we can lend it, deploy it, and put it to work like it was designed  to do.”

As the price of Ethereum picks up again, bullish sentiment among investors has improved. Large Ethereum investors are quietly increasing their exposure to the altcoin following the recent move above the $2,000 price level. Another development acting as a catalyst to this renewed confidence is the latest remarks from Tom Lee about the asset’s outlook.

Tom Lee Backs Ethereum, Large Players Stack ETH

While Ethereum is slowly recovering its upside momentum, a fresh wave of accumulation is emerging underneath the surface of the recent upward trend. This new accumulation is unfolding among large investors or whales, signaling renewed confidence in the asset’s outlook.

Santiment, a popular market intelligence and data analytics platform, reveals that wallet addresses holding between 100 and 100,000 ETH have been rising over the past 2 days. Within this short period, these investors have scooped up an additional 756,950 ETH.

With the accumulation turning up during a price bounce, this suggests that ETH whales are taking advantage of the current state of the market to increase their exposure. Such action from large holders is usually interpreted as a sign of robust belief in the altcoin’s long-term trajectory.

While large investors have been buying more ETH, small holders, those considered as shrimps, have been slowly offloading their stash. Since Mid-December, wallet addresses holding under 0.01 ETH have collectively dumped over 0.9% of their supply. This divergence highlights a shift in market confidence, with deeper-pocketed players leaning bullish while small investors grow more cautious.

Given the influence of large investors’ actions on the market, the shifting of ownership into major players could lead to the tightening of supply, which might impact Ethereum’s price performance in the short term. Should this continue, it is more likely to trigger a stronger upward move for the altcoin.

Bitmine Is Still Buying More ETH In The Face Of Volatility

According to Santiment’s data, the increase in whale accumulation follows recent comments made by Tom Lee, whose upbeat attitude toward the altcoin has contributed to the expanding bullish narrative. Tom Lee, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Bitmine Immersion, stated that the company’s base case for Ethereum is that the auction is in the final stages of the “mini crypto winter.” The statement has simply fueled optimism as institutional voices and on-chain behavior start to converge.

Adding to the bullish statement is the firm’s most recent ETH purchase, amassing 65,341 ETH over the past week. This figure marks a significant uptick in buying activity when compared to an average of 45,000 ETH to 50,000 ETH in prior weekly purchases. According to Lee, “Bitmine has maintained the increased pace of ETH buys in each of the past three weeks.”

As of March 23, Bitmine owns about 4.661 million ETH, representing over 3.86% of the entire supply in circulation. Furthermore, this reinforces the company’s position as the largest Ethereum treasury firm in the world, and the second global treasury behind Michael Saylor’s Strategy, which owns 761,068 BTC valued at a whopping $52 billion.

Bernstein analysts led by Gautam Chugani say Bitcoin (BTC) may have already found its floor with the 50% retrace witnessed since last October, and the firm is sticking with its ambitious price target of $150,000 by the end of 2026 for the cryptocurrency. 

The firm argued that the market’s changing structure—shifting from retail-driven speculation to one increasingly supported by exchange-traded funds (ETFs), corporate balance sheets, and structured capital—is altering how Bitcoin behaves during downturns and may lengthen the current cycle.

Are Institutional Flows Changing BTC’s Price Behavior?

Bitcoin has spent the past few months consolidating between roughly $65,000 and $75,000 after several failed attempts to break higher resistance walls at $76,000 last week. Despite this, Bernstein notes the sell-off lacked the cascade of liquidations that characterized earlier cycles. 

The analysts view that muted volatility as evidence that the market has matured: long-term holders dominate supply, ETFs now account for meaningful ownership, and institutional on-ramps have added steadier sources of demand.

Bernstein highlighted several concrete metrics to support its outlook. The firm estimates that nearly 60% of BTC’s supply has been inactive for more than a year, a concentration of long-term holders that tends to blunt short-term price swings. 

ETFs, too, are shaping the ownership landscape; collectively, they hold about 6.1% of the total Bitcoin supply, which Bernstein says improves market stability. 

Those institutional flows, the analysts argue, are helping Bitcoin “outperform” even through corrections, as exchange-traded fund outflows this year have reversed and bank-led custody and product offerings expand.

$200,000 Bitcoin Possible By 2027

Another focal point of Bernstein’s analysis is the role of publicly traded companies that accumulate Bitcoin on their balance sheets. Strategy (previously MicroStrategy), the world’s largest public Bitcoin holder, received particular attention. 

Bernstein reaffirmed an Outperform rating and a $450 target for the company, and noted how it has weathered the roughly 50% drawdown from last October’s peak. Strategy’s resilience, the analysts say, stems in part from how it sources capital. 

According to Bernstein, Strategy’s buying this year has, at times, exceeded new Bitcoin issuance, meaning the company has absorbed a substantial share of incremental supply even as prices fell.

But Bernstein also warns of attendant risks. A prolonged downturn could force corporate holders to refinance debt on worse terms or sell holdings as obligations come due, and a tightening in capital markets might reduce firms’ ability to raise fresh funds.

So far, Bernstein says, Strategy has managed those exposures conservatively and shown an ability to navigate deep correction cycles without overextending leverage.

Taken together, these developments lead Bernstein to a bullish medium-term view. The firm continues to expect Bitcoin to reach $150,000 by the end of 2026, potentially culminating in a peak near $200,000 by the end of 2027. 

That scenario rests on sustained institutional demand from ETFs, continued accumulation by corporate holders, and the maturation of market infrastructure that reduces the likelihood of new sell-offs.

Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com 

Self-Managed Super Funds (SMSFs) registrations in Australia climbed nearly 70% in the 2024–2025 financial year, with many of those new accounts set up for one specific purpose: buying Bitcoin and other crypto assets.

That surge reflects a growing frustration — retirement savers want digital asset exposure, and most of the country’s big super funds haven’t been offering it.

Pressure From Members Mounts

Hostplus, which manages more than $96 billion in assets for its members, is now moving to change that.

The fund’s chief investment officer, Sam Sicilia, confirmed it is weighing a plan to give members access to Bitcoin and other digital assets through its ChoicePlus investment option — a self-directed stream that lets people shape their own retirement portfolios.

Reports indicate the offering could be available as soon as the next financial year, pending regulatory sign-off and the resolution of consumer protection requirements still being worked through.

“There’s certainly a demand from some of our members who write in and say, ‘Why can’t I have access to cryptocurrency?'” Sicilia said.

The fund ranks third in Australia by member count and fifth by total assets. Its membership of 2.2 million gives any policy shift significant reach across the country’s retirement system.

A Gap The Big Funds Left Open

Until now, Self-Managed Super Funds have been the main path for Australians wanting crypto in their retirement savings. These are accounts set up and run by individuals — a hands-on alternative to conventional institution-managed funds.

The sharp rise in SMSF registrations tracked by crypto exchange BTC Markets points to how many savers have been willing to take on that administrative burden just to gain access to digital assets.

Kate Cooper, the Australian chief executive of OKX, recently said that a growing number of new SMSFs are being created specifically to hold digital assets — because the option simply doesn’t exist inside the major funds.

Hostplus would not be the first big super fund to enter this space. AMP made that move back in May 2024, adding Bitcoin exposure to its strategy through futures contracts. Hostplus is following a path that has at least one set of footprints on it already.

Design Phase Still Has Hurdles

The plan is not finalized. Sicilia said regulatory clearance is still needed, and the fund is prepared to wait for it.

“We’d love to get regulatory tick-off, even if it means waiting another six months,” he said, adding that six months is not a meaningful delay for an institution built around long-term investing.

Australia’s total superannuation pool stood at roughly $4.5 trillion AUD at the end of the September 2025 quarter — a number that underscores how much weight any shift in fund behavior carries for the broader financial system.

Featured image from MarkRubens/Getty Images, chart from TradingView

All has been mostly quiet on the Shiba Inu front, and the meme cryptocurrency is currently moving through a tough price phase. Interestingly, the most recent update on the ecosystem is from ecosystem dApp Woofswap, which confirmed early testing of a Shibarium Layer-3 explorer under the ShibClaw initiative but offered no further details on the L3 itself. That lack of clarity is beginning to stand out at a time when the entire Shiba Inu ecosystem needs stronger direction.

Shibarium L3 Development Exists, But Details Are Missing

Woofswap, a Shiba Inu decentralized application, recently confirmed that early testing of a Shibarium Layer-3 explorer is underway under the ShibClaw initiative. However, the announcement came with no indication of when a mainnet launch would take place, and this silence has drawn a visible reaction from within the community.

The Woofswap X account recently made a post noting the development of the Shibarium L3, but also added that no further information is available at the moment. 

Notably, Shibarium’s Layer-3 is no longer just a concept at this point. Early testing is already underway through initiatives like ShibClaw, with developers experimenting with a dedicated L3 explorer and AI-based applications built on top of the Layer-2 Shibarium network.

However, the problem is in what has not been said. Developers have provided little to no information about timelines, technical specifications, or a potential mainnet launch. Even the teams involved, like Woofswap above, have acknowledged that the L3 is still under testing without offering much detail.

At the same time, the Shibarium network itself is undergoing a major backend overhaul. The system has gone through server migration and a full chain re-indexing process over the past month, and explorer synchronization is currently sitting around 45% completion. 

However, according to Shibizens, the Shibarium-focused X account, the total count of blocks and transactions visible on the explorer reflects only partial data. Actual figures stand at over 14 million blocks and 1.56 billion transactions against the displayed figures of approximately 2.4 million blocks and 168 million transactions.

Can SHIB Still Recover Without Strong Sentiment Support?

Shiba Inu is currently trading at its lowest price range since the 2022 bear market. A large part of this is the lack of inflows into the meme coin niche, but some credit can also be given to the lack of updates and low sentiment surrounding the Shiba Inu ecosystem. 

The bigger issue is how Shibarium L3 ties into Shiba Inu’s ability to stage a price comeback as we saw during the early days of Shibarium’s launch. However, without clear milestones or visible deployment timelines, there is little for traders to anchor their expectations to. At the time of writing, Shiba Inu is trading at $0.000006139.

The future of finance is quietly evolving, and the key players are not traditional banks or fiat systems; they are blockchain networks like Ripple (XRP) and Stellar (XLM). These cryptocurrencies could be the infrastructure that will power the next generation of finance. These networks are faster, more efficient, and more accessible than traditional systems, and they are laying the groundwork for a future where tokenized assets and digital settlements dominate.

How Ripple (XRP) And Stellar (XLM) Are Building The Future

In a recent X post, Versan Aljarrah, founder of Black Swan Capitalist, emphasizes that the evolution of finance is deliberate, structured, and long-term. While headlines often focus on regulatory developments, the real transformation is happening through networks that move and settle value efficiently. Ripple and Stellar are at the center of this change, with growing adoption by banks, fintech companies, and global payment providers showing their ability to reshape international financial flows.

Ripple’s XRP Ledger processes over 1,500 transactions per second, settling payments in just 3–5 seconds, far faster than traditional banks, which can take days for cross-border transfers. Ripple has partnered with more than 350 financial institutions globally and facilitates hundreds of millions of dollars in daily cross-border payments through its On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) platform. Its partnerships span major banks and remittance services, proving XRP’s real-world utility and influence in global finance.

Stellar’s XLM focuses on financial inclusion, enabling low-cost micropayments and cross-border transfers. Its blockchain has been used in collaborations with IBM to create blockchain-based payment solutions for banks and remittance services, reaching thousands of underserved users worldwide. Stellar also supports tokenized fiat and other assets, enabling faster and more programmable transactions. Together, Ripple and Stellar provide the infrastructure for a financial system that is faster, more transparent, and more accessible than traditional banking networks.

Tokenization And Protocol Ownership: The Real Source Of Financial Power

The most transformative aspect of Ripple and Stellar is their role in tokenization and protocol ownership. As assets, including currencies, equities, and commodities, move onto these networks, control shifts from centralized institutions to the protocols themselves. Ripple and Stellar provide the backbone for settlement, liquidity, and cross-border value transfer, positioning them at the core of modern finance.

Ripple allows automatic payments and easy movement of money across global systems. Stellar lets fiat and other assets be turned into digital tokens, making small payments and international transfers faster and cheaper. By using these networks, investors and institutions can access the core of modern finance, where value and influence are built into the system itself.

In short, Ripple (XRP) and Stellar (XLM) are the foundation of the financial system of tomorrow. Through widespread adoption, real-world use cases, and scalable infrastructure, these networks demonstrate that the future of money lies in decentralized, programmable protocols. Those who understand and engage with these systems are positioned at the center of the emerging financial era, where control, efficiency, and access are defined by the networks themselves.

Компания Input Output Global, создавшая криптокошелек Lace для блокчейна Cardano, сообщила о поддельном вебсайте Lacedesktop.io. Сайт пытается красть конфиденциальные данные пользователей.

Комитет по торговле Палаты представителей штата Миссури одобрил законопроект о создании местного государственного фонда криптовалют: шесть депутатов проголосовали за, а два — против.

Криптовалюты являются высокорискованными активами и по своей сути представляют собой «форму валютизации», заявила глава Банка России Эльвира Набиуллина.

On Monday, TRON announced a significant expansion of its AI Fund, increasing its allocation from $100 million to $1 billion, signaling a major strategic shift toward the emerging agentic economy. This move reflects a growing conviction that the convergence of artificial intelligence and blockchain technology will require a new generation of financial infrastructure built specifically for autonomous systems.

The expanded fund will focus on investments and acquisitions of early-stage companies developing core components of this ecosystem. TRON is prioritizing areas considered foundational to machine-driven economic activity, including agent identity systems, stablecoin-based payment rails, tokenized real-world assets, and developer tooling for autonomous financial systems.

The underlying thesis is clear: as AI agents become increasingly capable of participating in economic processes, they will require programmable, permissionless infrastructure to transact, manage assets, and verify identity without reliance on traditional intermediaries. Blockchain networks, particularly those with established liquidity and scalability, are positioned to support this transition.

By scaling its capital commitment tenfold, TRON is not only reinforcing its early positioning in this narrative but also aiming to play a central role in shaping the infrastructure layer of a rapidly evolving digital economy.

TRON Doubles Down on AI–Blockchain Convergence Thesis

The announcement further emphasizes that this expansion builds on a thesis first outlined in 2023: the convergence of AI and blockchain will create structural demand for programmable, permissionless financial infrastructure. What began as an early conviction has now evolved into a strategic commitment, with TRON positioning itself for a future where AI agents actively participate in the global economy.

This vision is anchored in three core theses. First, stablecoins are the most viable form of money for agent-to-agent commerce. While AI systems cannot access traditional banking rails, they can operate digital wallets, making stablecoins the default settlement layer. Second, stablecoins also serve as the primary payment infrastructure for individuals and small teams, particularly as AI enables lean, high-efficiency operations without reliance on intermediaries.

Third, tokenized equity is positioned as the ownership layer of the agentic economy. As AI agents manage and transact value, they require programmable, divisible, and continuously transferable ownership structures—capabilities inherent to tokenized assets.

TRON’s positioning is reinforced by scale. With over 370 million user accounts, more than $21 billion in daily transaction volume, and over $85 billion in circulating USDT, the network already operates one of the largest stablecoin liquidity layers. This existing infrastructure provides a foundation for agent-driven financial systems to scale efficiently.

TRON Tests Key Resistance as Price Recovers Within Range

TRX is currently trading around the $0.30–$0.31 range, showing signs of recovery after a prolonged corrective phase that followed its late-2025 highs near $0.36. The chart reflects a transition from a clear downtrend into a more range-bound structure, with price gradually stabilizing after forming a base near the $0.27–$0.28 zone.

From a technical perspective, TRX is now testing a critical area. Price has moved back above the short-term moving averages (50-day and 100-day), which are beginning to flatten, indicating a potential shift in short-term momentum. However, the 200-day moving average remains overhead, acting as dynamic resistance and capping further upside.

The recent upward move appears constructive but not yet decisive. Price has approached the $0.31 region multiple times, suggesting that this level is functioning as immediate resistance, while the $0.28–$0.29 zone now acts as short-term support.

Volume trends show moderate participation during the recovery phase, lacking the strong expansion typically associated with breakout conditions. This suggests that the current move may still be in the early stages of accumulation rather than a confirmed trend reversal.

A sustained break above $0.31–$0.32 would be required to confirm bullish continuation, while failure to hold above $0.29 could reintroduce downside pressure.

Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com