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Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson is urging the crypto industry to take a harder look at H.R. 3633, arguing that the market structure bill could lock future US token projects into securities status rather than provide the regulatory clarity its backers promise. His criticism goes beyond process: Hoskinson says the bill, as written, could protect legacy networks while making it far harder for new crypto projects to launch and grow inside the United States.

Cardano Founder Issues A Stark Warning

In a video published March 2, the Cardano founder framed the dispute partly as a direct response to Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s view that a flawed bill is still preferable to no bill. Hoskinson rejected that outright. “A bad bill is not better than no bill,” he said. “You start from a principles-based approach. You don’t make everything a security by default, and you upgrade modernized securities laws so that’s not so bad.”

His core objection is that the Clarity Act would treat newly launched digital assets as securities first, then require them to convince the SEC they qualify to “graduate” into commodity status once their networks are sufficiently decentralized. In Hoskinson’s reading, that framework would have captured XRP, Cardano and Ethereum at launch. The difference, he argued, is that older networks may ultimately be grandfathered in, while future projects would face a regulatory maze from day one.

Hoskinson repeatedly returned to the same question: what, in practice, stops the SEC from keeping a token classified as a security indefinitely? “If it starts as a security, what stops them from keeping it as a security forever?” he asked. “And are we really sure that we can trust that to rulemaking that has yet to happen by people who have yet to be appointed by agencies that spent the last four [expletive] years suing everybody and throwing everybody in prison?”

From there, he laid out a series of what he called “attack vectors” that an adversarial SEC could use in rulemaking. One involved procedural delays around filing completeness, where the agency could keep resetting the clock with deficiency notices. Another focused on the bill’s undefined treatment of “common control,” which he said could let regulators interpret open-source coordination itself as evidence of centralized management.

He also argued that proving decentralization could become impossible if issuers were required to identify beneficial owners across pseudonymous wallet systems or rely on compliance categories the SEC has not even created.

The broad point was that the bill may look workable in statute but become punitive in implementation. “A bad bill enshrines into law every single thing Gary Gensler was trying to do to the industry,” Hoskinson said. “A bad bill through rulemaking allows the SEC to arbitrarily and capriciously kill every new project in the United States. A bad bill exposes all DeFi developers to personal liability.”

He also argued the current political fight in Washington is not really about the bill’s structure at all. According to Hoskinson, the real holdup is stablecoin yield, not developer protections, DeFi coverage or the SEC-CFTC split. In his telling, that leaves the industry in a strange place: a bill marketed as market structure reform, but one that “doesn’t cover the core of what’s going on in the industry right now.”

Hoskinson’s preferred alternative is a principles-based rewrite that modernizes securities law itself, builds blockchain-native disclosure rails, explicitly protects developers and DeFi, and limits how much discretion regulators can exercise in later rulemaking. Otherwise, he warned, the practical result may be simple: established networks survive, while the next generation of US crypto projects builds offshore first and only tries to enter the American market years later.

At press time, Cardano traded at $0.2692.

Historically, the Ethereum price has been very bullish for the first quarter of the year, with a few exceptions, and the month of March has been no different from the first two months of the year. Therefore, as the market ushers in another month of March, this report takes a look at the performance of Ethereum this month, and if this historical performance can point out where the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap could be headed.

Ethereum Is Ushering In A Bullish Month, But There’s A ‘But’

According to historical data from the CryptoRank website, the month of March has been one of the most bullish in history. Since its inception in 2015, only the months of January and May have surpassed the month of March in terms of average returns.

Looking at the number of years that the month of March has ended in the green, only the months of January and February can match it. Simply put, March has historically been one of the best months for investors who hold ETH. In that case, the probability of this month ending in green is also high.

As the website shows, over the last 10 years, there have been only three years where the month of March has ended in the red for Ethereum. Taking the monthly returns into account, it comes out to an average 23.7% for Ethereum in March.

However, there is a hitch due to the fact that the first three months of the year have often moved in tandem. There have only been a few years of deviation, and given the trend that the year 2026 has begun with, the Ethereum price might be in trouble.

Despite the high average returns, the months of January and February 2026 have both ended in the red. The former saw a 17.7% decline, while the latter has seen a 19.6% crash. If this trend plays out as it has in history, then the likelihood of March ending in the red has just become higher.

While it is too early to tell where the price might end, there has already been a lot of uncertainty. This is because ETH has continued to skirt around the $2,000 level, with no indications that an upward move is imminent. If it follows the months of January and February, then the Ethereum price could be looking at a double-digit crash.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced Monday that former federal prosecutor David Miller will serve as the agency’s new Director of Enforcement, a key role for crypto regulation. 

Key CFTC Appointment

According to Reuters, Miller previously worked in the securities and commodities fraud task force at the US Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, where he was known for pursuing complex, high-profile financial cases. 

The appointment comes as newly installed CFTC Chairman Michael Selig reshapes the agency’s leadership. Selig joined the commission in late December and has since begun rebuilding staff ranks. 

The regulator has been significantly thinned during President Donald Trump’s administration, with numerous career officials departing over the past year amid a broader reduction in the federal workforce. Selig currently stands as the sole political appointee on what is traditionally a bipartisan five-member commission.

In a statement, Miller said he is eager to support the chairman’s agenda: 

Under Chairman Selig’s leadership, I look forward to working closely with the talented Commission staff to advance the chairman’s mission of fostering innovation and protecting the integrity of U.S. markets, including from fraud, abuse, and manipulation.

End Of Regulation By Enforcement In Crypto

Before returning to public service, Miller worked in private practice, where he represented clients in several digital asset cases brought by US authorities. 

His recent work included defending a manager at a nonfungible token (NFT) platform who faced wire fraud and money laundering charges, as well as a former Coinbase product manager accused of insider trading. 

Chairman Selig underscored what he described as a shift in philosophy at the enforcement division. In a social media post announcing the appointment, he said: 

I’m delighted to announce David Miller as Director of Enforcement. The era of regulation by enforcement and witch hunts targeting crypto and other transformative industries is over. David will focus the division on policing fraud, manipulation and abuse — not policymaking.

The leadership change has been widely interpreted within the industry as aligning with President Trump’s stated ambition to position the United States as “the crypto capital of the world.” 

In mid-February, the CFTC unveiled another initiative aimed at strengthening ties with the digital asset sector: a newly formed Innovation Advisory Committee composed of 35 members drawn from major exchanges, blockchain companies, and other industry leaders.

The committee is intended to provide the regulator with current, technical insight as it evaluates potential rules covering derivatives, market structure, token classification and related issues. 

Chairman Selig said the advisory group would help ensure that the commission’s decisions reflect real-world market dynamics. He added that the collaboration is designed to help establish clearer regulatory guidelines, which he referred to as part of a broader “Golden Age of American Financial Markets.

Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com 

The long-anticipated CLARITY Act, widely viewed as the cornerstone of a comprehensive US crypto market structure framework, has failed to meet the March 1 deadline set by the White House two weeks ago. 

The administration had urged both the crypto industry and the banking sector to reach common ground to move the legislation forward. That agreement has yet to materialize.

Crypto Bill Hits ‘Yield Wall’ 

Representatives from both industries have held a series of meetings at the White House, frequently describing the discussions as “constructive.” However, despite that tone, negotiations have stalled at a critical point. 

While the Senate Agriculture Committee has approved its portion of the bill, progress in the Senate Banking Committee has slowed considerably. 

The sticking point centers on whether stablecoin issuers should be allowed to offer yield or rewards to holders — an issue that has delayed any markup date for the Banking Committee’s section of the legislation.

The disagreement has fueled speculation that if lawmakers fail to strike a deal, federal regulators could revert to a tougher stance toward crypto firms. 

Market commentator Paul Barron said the bill has effectively run into what he described as a “yield wall,” referring to the impasse over stablecoin rewards. He noted that the crypto industry is pushing for the right to provide regulated yield on stablecoins, arguing that without that flexibility, the US risks driving innovation offshore.

If no compromise is reached, Barron suggested that the likely outcome would be continued “regulation by enforcement” from agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). 

On the other hand, a middle-ground solution — for example, restricting stablecoin yield to qualified investors — could unlock substantial institutional capital. 

That possibility aligns with projections from JPMorgan, which has forecast meaningful institutional inflows into digital assets in the latter half of 2026 if regulatory clarity improves.

Institutional Surge Under CLARITY Act

JPMorgan analysts, led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, have described the potential passage of the CLARITY Act as a decisive turning point for the crypto market. 

According to reporting from market expert MartyParty, the bank views the bill not as a minor regulatory adjustment but as a structural overhaul of the US digital asset framework.

In a recent research note, JPMorgan outlined three interconnected effects that could follow the bill’s approval. First, it would end the current reliance on enforcement actions as the primary method of oversight, replacing uncertainty with defined rules. 

Second, it could shift institutional engagement with crypto from tentative exploration to high-conviction participation. Third, it may accelerate the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs), a trend many financial institutions have been cautiously developing.

New negotiations in the Senate are expected to resume in April 2026, with July 2026 seen as an informal deadline before the election cycle begins to dominate the legislative agenda and reduce the likelihood of major policy breakthroughs.

Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com

Bitcoin moved into the headlines after Strategy completed its 101st buy, taking on 3,015 BTC at an average near $67,700. According to reports, the company spent roughly $204 million on the latest lot and now holds about 720,737 BTC in total.

The new purchase nudges down the company’s overall cost basis, which some reports place around $75,985 per coin.

Stock Sales Fund Buys

Reports say Strategy used its market programs to raise the cash. The company sold both common shares and STRC preferred stock under at-the-market arrangements to fund the buys.

Preferred dividends were increased around the same time, a move that drew attention because it makes preferred shares more attractive to investors who finance later acquisitions.

A Big Treasury, Slightly Lowered Cost

The math matters. With the latest buy priced below the company’s average, the overall cost per Bitcoin falls a bit. That improves the accounting picture on paper. It does not erase the fact that a lot of the funding came from issuing equity rather than from regular operating cash flow.

Strategy has acquired 3,015 BTC for ~$204.1 million at ~$67,700 per bitcoin. As of 3/1/2026, we hodl 720,737 $BTC acquired for ~$54.77 billion at ~$75,985 per bitcoin. $MSTR $STRC https://t.co/rqDIhlUDNx

— Michael Saylor (@saylor) March 2, 2026

Some shareholders welcome the strategy. Others worry about dilution and what repeated share sales do to equity value over time.

Market Supply And Sentiment

The purchase is large by any single firm’s standard. Still, the wider Bitcoin market is large too. Moves of this size add to the story about corporate demand and are talked about in trading rooms, but they rarely force dramatic price shifts on their own.

Price reaction depends on broader flows, liquidity, and whether other big holders choose to sell or sit tight.

Strategy’s Action And Investor Signals

Reports note that Strategy’s steady accumulation continues a long pattern. The firm has consistently bought more Bitcoin in recent years and largely stuck to the same playbook: use equity markets to gather crypto.

That sends a clear message that the company plans to keep treating Bitcoin as a core asset. At the same time, the funding approach ties the firm’s finances to both stock market sentiment and Bitcoin price swings.

What This Means For Risk

There are tradeoffs. Owning a huge stash of Bitcoin gives the firm exposure to any long-term rise in price. It also makes the company sensitive to sudden drops; large swings in crypto value can change the balance sheet fast.

Because purchases are often funded through share offerings, the company’s capital structure shifts in step with its bitcoin program. Some risk is shared with new investors who buy those shares.

Strategy Still The Largest Known Corporate Holder

Based on reports, Strategy remains one of the biggest corporate holders of Bitcoin. The latest buy keeps the needle pointing in the same direction: accumulation continues.

Observers will be watching how the company balances fresh buys, dividend moves on preferred stock, and shareholder reactions in the months ahead.

Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView

South Korean financial authorities have pledged to revise their crypto custody practices following public scrutiny over multiple incidents that led to the loss of nearly $30 million in seized digital assets over the past few months.

Authorities Move To Enhance Crypto Custody Practices

South Korea’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Koo Yun-cheol, affirmed that authorities will review their management practices of seized crypto assets by government and public authorities, and develop measures to prevent the theft and loss of these assets.

“In response to the recent digital asset information leak incident at the National Tax Service (NTS), the government will promptly review the status and management practices of digital assets held and managed by government and public institutions—such as those seized from delinquent taxpayers—in collaboration with relevant agencies, including the Financial Services Commission (FSC) and the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS),” the finance minister wrote in a Sunday X post.

“We will also swiftly develop and implement measures to prevent recurrence, including strengthening digital asset security management,” he continued, noting that the South Korean government only holds crypto assets acquired through legal enforcement actions, such as seizure.

The upcoming review and Koo’s statement follow a wave of criticism over the authorities’ practices and management of crypto assets after the tax agency exposed the recovery seed phrase of a seized wallet, leading to unauthorized access and theft of the tokens inside it.

As reported by Bitcoinist, South Korea’s National Tax Service recently published an official press release to highlight its crackdown on tax nonpayers, but accidentally shared a full wallet seed phrase in the process.

The Thursday press release was reportedly part of a broader NTS enforcement campaign targeted at people who owed taxes, showing seized crypto assets as evidence of the agency’s efforts.

Nonetheless, it included an image of two Ledger cold wallets alongside a handwritten sheet of paper that exposed the wallets’ complete mnemonic recovery phrases.

Soon after, one of the confiscated wallets’ entire balance, 4 million Pre-Retogeum (PRTG) tokens worth around $4.8 million, was transferred to another address, blockchain researchers found, but noted that the cryptocurrency has extremely low liquidity.

According to Professor Cho Jae-woo of Hansung University’s Blockchain Research Institute, the other wallets with seed phrases visible in the same image did not appear to carry significant risk, as the leaked tokens are also difficult to convert into cash.

The expert criticized the incident, but shared his hope that it “serves as a turning point for the establishment of a robust virtual asset management system within Korea’s public sector.”

South Korea’s Custody Mishaps

Last week’s incident is the latest in a series of security breaches that have led to the loss of around $27 million in seized crypto assets under the government’s custody since the start of the year.

In January, the Gwangju District Prosecutors’ Office faced backlash after discovering that 320 Bitcoin (BTC), worth around $21 million, had gone missing months ago. According to local reports, authorities only discovered the theft during a routine check of seized financial assets held as criminal evidence.

Prosecutors found that the crypto assets, first seized in 2021, were lost to a scam in August while authorities were handling the assets. Notably, a malicious actor drained the wallets after investigators mistakenly accessed a phishing website.

In an unexpected turn of events, the hacker returned the stolen Bitcoin in mid-February, the Gwangju District Prosecutors’ Office confirmed, vowing to continue to track down the malicious actors involved while conducting related investigations and inspections.

The incident led to a nationwide review, which revealed another security breach at the Seoul Gangnam Police Station last month. The Gangnam station announced it had lost 22 BTC, worth around $1.4 million at the time, that were voluntarily submitted to authorities during an investigation in November 2021.

Local news outlets reported that the leak had not been detected until recently, as the investigation into that case had been suspended. The inspection revealed that the cold wallet storing the Bitcoin was not stolen. However, the assets stored inside had vanished without a trace, deepening concerns about local authorities’ knowledge of cryptocurrencies and proper measures to handle and custody seized digital assets.

A well-known Solana NFT marketplace that once pushed hard into Bitcoin and other chains has quietly started to shrink its footprint.

Reports say the shift will be fast and clear: several services will stop working in March and April as the company focuses where it thinks the money is.

Magic Eden Pulls Back To Solana

The change is not small. Support for EVM and Bitcoin Ordinals and Runes is being wound down on March 9th, with the Bitcoin API shutting on March 27 and the platform’s self-custody wallet set to go fully offline on April 1.

Reports note that the marketplace will keep Solana support and some Pack products, but many cross-chain tools will disappear. Users have been told to move assets or export keys before the cutoff dates to avoid losing access.

Why This Happened

Costs and returns drove the move. According to posts from company leadership, most engineering and infrastructure costs were tied to products that brought in only a fraction of the revenue.

Update on @MagicEden and @DiceyHQ:

It is clear we’re entering a new era where finance and entertainment merge. We are now 2 months into @DiceyHQ’s closed beta and are incredibly bullish on how things have developed (~200 users, >$15M wagered).

To give Dicey the focus it…

— Jack (@0xLeoInRio) February 27, 2026

In plain terms: a lot of work for little money. That math pushed a rethink about where to spend limited resources. One part of the business is being doubled down on: an on-chain casino called Dicey that ran a closed beta earlier this year and drew heavy betting volume.

What The Beta Showed

Dicey’s trial phase attracted around 200 users who placed roughly $15,000,000 in wagers over two months. Reports say that number convinced management the product could make stronger returns than the quieter NFT markets the company had been supporting.

The casino plans to add a sportsbook and other betting features, and the firm argues betting could be a steadier source of fees than low-volume NFT listings.

Market Effects And Reaction

The broader NFT market has been weak for months, and this shutdown is one of several signs that platforms are trimming offerings. Some collectors and builders will be annoyed, since tools and markets they used are being removed.

Others will see the move as pragmatic — a firm choosing fewer products it understands well over many it does not. Coverage from industry outlets picked up the story quickly once leadership posted details on social channels.

A Word From The CEO

Jack Lu wrote that the company was refocusing on its original Solana work and on products with clearer paths to revenue.

He described the closed beta’s results as “encouraging” and said the company will stop its NFT buyback program to free up resources for the betting product.

Featured image from www.outsideonline.com, chart from TradingView

Bitcoin is currently consolidating between $62,000 and $69,000, compressing within a narrowing range as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East inject fresh uncertainty into global risk markets. Rather than trending decisively, price action reflects hesitation. Buyers have defended the lower bound near $62K, yet repeated failures below $69K indicate that upside conviction remains limited in the current environment.

According to XWIN Research Japan, February 2026 marked a notable break in historical seasonality. Bitcoin closed the month down 14.94%, despite February traditionally ranking among its stronger periods, often delivering double-digit average gains. This year, the pattern failed. The decline was not driven by a single headline event but by structural fragilities: thin liquidity conditions, leverage imbalances across derivatives markets, and persistently weak spot demand.

At the beginning of February, Bitcoin was trading near $84,000. However, on-chain indicators already signaled underlying stress. SOPR remained below 1, confirming that coins were being spent at a loss. Realized Cap flattened, pointing to a slowdown in fresh capital entering the network. Meanwhile, the Coinbase Premium lacked consistent strength, suggesting that US spot demand had not materially returned.

Leverage Unwinds and Weak Spot Demand Undermine February’s Rebound

The mid-February drawdown was not simply a directional selloff; it was a leverage event. As the price weakened, liquidation cascades accelerated the decline, forcing long positions out of the market. Open Interest contracted sharply, confirming that the move was driven by derivatives unwinds rather than steady spot distribution. In a thin liquidity regime, these leverage resets tend to exaggerate volatility. When order books are shallow, relatively modest flows can push prices disproportionately, amplifying downside extensions.

Although Fear & Greed dropped into Extreme Fear, sentiment exhaustion alone proved insufficient to engineer a durable reversal. Capitulation without follow-through demand often produces reflex bounces, not structural bottoms.

The more structural constraint was the absence of consistent spot participation. ETF flows recorded intermittent daily inflows, but they lacked sustained weekly momentum. At the same time, stablecoin supply growth remained muted, indicating limited sidelined capital ready to deploy. Consequently, rebounds were largely short-covering rallies, driven by position unwinds rather than fresh accumulation.

Macro context reinforced this fragility. Equity weakness and dollar strength framed Bitcoin as a high-beta liquidity proxy, not a defensive asset. In February, structural supply-demand imbalances overpowered historical seasonality. A durable shift now depends on persistent spot inflows and disciplined Open Interest rebuilding.

Bitcoin Tests Weekly Support as $69K Turns Into Overhead Resistance

On the weekly timeframe, price is attempting to stabilize near the $66,000 region after a sharp rejection from the $90,000–$100,000 supply zone. The structure shows a clear shift from expansion to distribution: following the late-2025 peak, Bitcoin printed a sequence of lower highs and ultimately lost the 50-week moving average (blue), which had previously acted as dynamic support throughout the uptrend.

The breakdown accelerated once price slipped below the 100-week moving average (green), triggering a fast move toward the mid-$60K area. Notably, the 200-week moving average (red), currently rising near the high-$50K region, remains intact. This level historically defines macro bull-market structure. As long as the price holds above it, the broader cycle cannot be considered structurally broken.

Volume expanded meaningfully during the selloff, particularly on large red weekly candles, suggesting forced unwinds rather than gradual distribution. However, the most recent candles show compression and reduced downside momentum, indicating short-term equilibrium between buyers and sellers.

Technically, $69K now acts as immediate resistance, aligning with prior support turned overhead supply. A weekly close reclaiming that zone would open room toward the 50-week average. Failure to hold $62K, however, would increase the probability of a deeper test of the 200-week baseline.

Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com 

Major EU banks, including ING, UniCredit, CaixaBank and BBVA, are no longer content to merely talk about a digital euro: they have grown bolder and are now racing to hunt down crypto partners to launch a bank‑grade euro stablecoin in 2026, as they gear up for the European Central Bank (ECB) digital euro pilot in 2027.

Bank Stablecoin vs. Digital Euro

The ECB’s digital euro project has clearly widened the horizons of some heavyweight lenders, to the point that many of them are now betting on a different route. Through a joint venture called Qivalis, set up in Amsterdam by several major European banks, they plan to issue a MiCA‑compliant, euro‑pegged stablecoin in the second half of 2026, positioning themselves ahead of the ECB’s digital euro pilot. Rather than relying solely on the more conservative central‑bank option of the ECB‑issued CBDC, Qivalis offers a bank‑backed alternative: a fully reserved e‑money token supported by major commercial lenders, designed first and foremost for on‑chain payments, crypto trading and the settlement of tokenized assets.

A Regulated And Domestic Alternative For The EU

As outlined by Qivalis CEO Jan Sell in a recent interview with Spanish outlet CincoDías, the venture is already in advanced talks with several crypto exchanges, market makers and payment providers to distribute the token from day one. According to Sell, the consortium has expanded to 12 banks and is positioning its euro stablecoin as a regulated, MiCA‑compliant alternative to dollar‑denominated stablecoins, backed 1:1 with cash and short‑term European government debt, offering 24/7 convertibility for institutional and retail users alike.

A Broader Perspective With Crypto

Qivalis is not an isolated experiment: its existence is a paradigmatic example of how Europe’s traditional lenders are shifting their approach to digital assets. In recent years, not wanting to be left behind or lose against decentralized crypto alternatives, and under pressure from client demand and tighter regulation, large banks and savings institutions have rolled out crypto custody, trading pilots and tokenization projects, as seen by German lenders exploring crypto services or French and Italian banks backing the ECB’s digital euro plan while lobbying on costs and design.

Europe’s incumbents seem to have realized that instead of fighting on‑chain finance from the sidelines and fading into the background of new paradigms, they are better off trying to rebuild the system on their own terms

Cover image from ChatGPT, XRPUSD chart from Tradingview

Bitcoin is facing renewed pressure as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East reshape the macro backdrop and weigh on risk assets. Rather than responding to isolated headlines, the market is reacting to a broader shift in uncertainty, liquidity expectations, and cross-asset positioning. Price remains fragile, with rallies struggling to gain traction as participants reassess exposure in an increasingly volatile environment.

A recent CryptoQuant report sheds light on a critical behavioral shift through the Short-Term Holder (STH) P&L to Exchanges metric — a tool designed to track how the most reactive cohort is positioning. These investors, often responsible for amplifying short-term volatility, tend to transfer coins to exchanges when under stress, particularly during loss realization events.

During the February 5–6 capitulation episode, STHs sent approximately 89,000 BTC to exchanges at a loss within a single 24-hour window — a clear signal of panic-driven distribution. However, the dynamics have since evolved. Following that event, loss-driven inflows have steadily declined.

This suggests that immediate sell-side pressure from recent buyers is diminishing. The data indicate that acute panic has subsided. What remains is not aggressive accumulation, but a gradual transition from forced liquidation to relative exhaustion — a subtle yet important structural development.

Short-Term Holders Show Restraint As Geopolitical Stress Fails To Trigger New Capitulation

The granular view of the Short-Term Holder P&L to Exchanges metric adds nuance to the broader picture. Even amid the recent geopolitical escalation involving Iran — an event class that has historically triggered reactive risk-off flows — exchange inflows from short-term holders did not materially expand. As Bitcoin probed the $63,000–$64,000 zone, there was no corresponding spike in realized-loss transfers. For a cohort typically hypersensitive to volatility, this restraint is notable.

This behavior suggests a shift from reflexive panic to conditional holding. In prior stress episodes, similar price shocks produced visible surges in exchange-bound coins as weak hands rushed to de-risk. The absence of that pattern now implies that a meaningful portion of forced selling may already have occurred during the early-February capitulation phase.

Markets tend to stabilize only after marginal sellers are exhausted. The progressive decline in loss-driven transfers supports the thesis that liquidation pressure is being absorbed rather than re-accelerating.

Going forward, the signal to monitor is persistence. If short-term holder inflows remain muted, it would reinforce the case for seller fatigue and base-building conditions. Conversely, a renewed spike in realized-loss transfers would indicate that capitulation is incomplete, reopening the path for further downside volatility.

Bitcoin Hovers Near Long-Term Support As Weekly Structure Remains Fragile

On the weekly timeframe, Bitcoin is attempting to stabilize near the $66,000 region after a decisive rejection from the $90,000–$100,000 zone. The broader structure shows a transition from expansion to correction: following the late-2025 highs, price printed lower highs and eventually lost the 50-week moving average (blue), which had acted as dynamic support throughout much of the prior uptrend.

The breakdown accelerated once Bitcoin slipped below the 100-week moving average (green), triggering a fast move toward the mid-$60Ks. That area now represents a critical inflection point. While the 200-week moving average (red), rising near the low-$60Ks, remains intact, price is hovering uncomfortably close to this long-term trend baseline. Historically, sustained closes below the 200-week average have signaled deeper macro weakness.

Volume expanded notably during the sharp weekly selloffs, suggesting forced unwinds and liquidation-driven pressure rather than gradual distribution. However, recent candles show smaller bodies and reduced downside momentum, indicating short-term equilibrium.

Technically, $69,000–$70,000 now acts as immediate resistance, aligning with prior support turned overhead supply. A weekly reclaim of that zone would be the first signal of structural recovery. Conversely, failure to defend the $62,000–$64,000 region could open the path toward a broader macro retracement.

Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com 

Crypto influencers just got a new way to make money on X. The social media platform owned by Elon Musk quietly reversed its long-standing ban on sponsored crypto content over the weekend, rolling out a paid partnership labeling system that now lets creators openly monetize their crypto posts.

It’s a notable shift for a platform that has always been the unofficial home of crypto culture — but the new rules come with significant limitations that not everyone will be happy about.

Influencers Must Police Their Own Reach

Under the updated policy, any post that involves a brand paying or rewarding a user to promote a product or service must be tagged with a visible paid partnership label.

According to X, the label is meant to keep things honest between creators and their followers. Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, said the move is designed to help people grow their businesses on the platform without sacrificing transparency.

But here’s where it gets complicated. The ban on crypto promotions has not been lifted everywhere. Reports say that influencers are personally responsible for making sure their paid crypto posts are not visible to audiences in the European Union, the UK, and Australia — three markets with tough financial promotion regulations.

Today we’re announcing Paid Partnership labels on posts. X’s core value is providing on authentic pulse on humanity.

While we want to encourage people to build their businesses on X, undisclosed promotions hurt the integrity of the product and lead people to distrust the content… pic.twitter.com/CmrRDx5tU1

— Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) March 1, 2026

X is not doing that filtering for them. The burden of compliance sits squarely on the creator, which raises real questions about how consistently those geographic restrictions will actually be enforced.

The updated framework also keeps a number of content categories off the paid promotions table entirely. According to X’s revised guidelines, sponsored posts tied to alcohol, weapons, tobacco, recreational drugs, prescription medications, dating services, adult content, and health supplements remain prohibited. Political and social issue content is also banned from commercial use.

What The New Labels Mean For Crypto Culture

X has long been a central gathering point for crypto projects, communities, and traders. Announcements, token launches, market commentary — much of it has played out on this platform for years.

The ability to now attach paid labels to crypto promotional content formalizes what has already been happening informally, giving brands and creators a structured, above-board way to work together.

Whether this opens a floodgate of crypto promotion remains to be seen. The geographic restrictions are broad enough to exclude a substantial portion of global crypto activity. The EU and UK together represent a massive base of crypto users and investors, and any influencer with a significant European following will need to tread carefully.

X Money And In-App Trading On The Horizon

The crypto policy update arrives as X continues building toward a broader financial services offering. Reports indicate that Musk announced in February that X Money — the platform’s planned payments feature — is expected to launch in a limited beta within two months, ahead of a wider global rollout.

Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView

The ongoing volatility has capped Bitcoin’s most recent upward attempts after retesting the $68,000 level, which has flipped into resistance once again. With the price of BTC still trading in a downward trajectory, many Bitcoin holders, especially those who recently bought the asset, are in the loss.

Bitcoin Short-Term Holders Hold Losing Positions

Bitcoin’s price performance continues to exert pressure on traders and investors across the leading network. During this bearish action in the price of BTC, Darkfost, a market expert and verified author at CryptoQuant, reported that short-term holders are still holding at a loss even with the cryptocurrency trading at around $66,000.

This implies that despite several attempts to stabilize the market, it has been on edge due to bearish pressure, and momentum is still poor. The absence of a clear rebound has led to a greater emphasis on short-term investors, many of whom still have unrealized losses.

According to the expert, these investors presently have an average unrealized loss of 26.3%, which is a comparatively big amount. While the metric is positioned at 26.3%, the most important level to watch out for is the 25% mark. Typically, periods where the average unrealized losses exceed 25% are most often linked to an advanced bear market phase.

As this chart makes evident, these stages, when short-term holders start to carry significant losses, have traditionally been favorable chances for long-term investors to accumulate through DCA. Darkfost noted that the relationship between price dynamics and profitability is another intriguing aspect. When the average unrealized profit of STH moves back above 0%, bullish trends have generally been able to emerge. However, this remains intact only to a certain point.

During periods of highly elevated short-term holder profits, usually around 20% in this cycle, the risk of a trend reversal increases significantly. In the meantime, the expert considers the trend to be largely bearish, with short-term holders holding historically high levels of losses. Nonetheless, these are also classified as periods where building exposure is a logical move.

Pressure Building On The BTC Spot ETFs

Even after several weeks, the Bitcoin Spot Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) are still experiencing bearish action and steady capital outflows. In a post on X, Crypto Tice, an investor, highlighted that the leading funds have been underwater for the past 25 consecutive days, suggesting weakening conviction in the asset’s prospects. 

The persistent waning performance of the funds is more painted as pressure building rather than speculative noise. When passive incomes stall and holders are positioned in drawdown, it often leads to weak hands rotating out or strong hands accumulating quietly. Crypto Tice added that sustained ETF pain is typically followed by volatility expansion.

Currently, the trend is triggering questions in the market about whether the investors are losing or whether it will lead to supply exhaustion. This is due to the fact that 25 days of unrealized losses flip positioning psychologically fast.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse recently commented on ongoing tensions between the crypto industry and traditional banking groups following public comments surrounding stablecoin yield negotiations at the White House. 

His response came after a series of posts on X involving journalist Eleanor Terrett and White House adviser David Sacks, ultimately resulting in Garlinghouse sending a message to banks, urging them to act in good faith.

Stablecoin Yield Talks Spark Online Debate

The latest chapter in the crypto-vs-banks saga unfolded on social media platform X, where journalist Eleanor Terrett reported on the fallout from a contentious White House meeting over stablecoin yield regulations. Interestingly, Patrick Witt, the White House digital asset advisor, was aiming to pass the legislation by March 1, but that timeline has not been met.

According to Terrett, an unnamed source who claimed direct involvement in the talks painted a bleak picture of the negotiations, a characterization that led to pushback from the banking side.

Terrett reported that bank trade representatives from the American Bankers Association (ABA), the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), and the Bank Policy Institute, all of whom attended the White House meeting, were “perplexed” by the unnamed source’s framing and did not share those views. These views are related to claims by the source that there’s a very real likelihood that negotiations will fall apart unless Ripple CEO Brian Armstrong comes to the table.

David Sacks, Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the White House’s crypto czar, responded to Terrett. Praising crypto policy broker Patrick Witt, Sacks wrote that the crypto industry had already made major concessions on stablecoin yield and called on banks to reciprocate. The issue is around stablecoin yield: whether digital dollar issuers should be permitted to offer interest-like returns to holders.

Ripple CEO Says Banks Should Act In Good Faith

There is still an issue with brokering a compromise between the banks and the crypto industry. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong had raised concerns about the crypto bill, saying that banking interests in the bill draft were attempting to suppress competition. However, Armstrong later commented that there’s now a path forward for a “win‑win” outcome for the crypto industry, the banking sector, and American consumers. 

According to comments from Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, the ball is now in the court of the banks, who need to act in good faith. “The door to a deal is wide open. The banks just need to act in good faith and walk through it,” Garlinghouse said.

This posture is consistent with Garlinghouse’s support for collaborative and pro-crypto legislation. The Ripple CEO recently predicted that the long-stalled CLARITY Act will pass by the end of April. The bill is designed to define digital asset market structure and reduce uncertainty over jurisdiction between regulators.

Crypto heads into the week of March 2 with five clear catalysts on deck: a worsening US-Iran conflict under President Donald Trump, a privacy-focused Bitcoin wrapper from Starknet, Polygon’s March 4 agentic-payments gas upgrade, Avalanche’s new incentive round, and Friday’s US jobs report.

Crypto Watchlist For This Week

Bitcoin is still the biggest macro watch this week, but the setup has already changed. The initial war shock over the weekend pushed BTC down toward $63,000, yet that move did not hold. The token rebounded as high as $68,196 on Sunday and was back around $65,807 by European Monday morning, while broader reporting showed traders were already reassessing whether the conflict would become a lasting macro shock or a violent but temporary headline event.

Oil followed a similar pattern: Brent briefly surged to $82.37 before giving back part of the move and easing back into the upper-$70s, which matters because crypto traders are now watching inflation risk and rate expectations more than the initial geopolitical headline itself.

What matters now is not simply that Washington and Tehran are in open conflict, but that the political signals are mixed. Trump has said he is willing to talk to Iran’s “new leadership,” while the White House has also made clear that military operations are continuing.

At the same time, AP’s live coverage says Iranian leaders are publicly rejecting negotiations. For markets, that creates a more nuanced watch item than a straight risk-off story: if diplomacy starts to look credible and oil keeps fading from its highs, Bitcoin’s rebound may hold; if the war widens and energy markets tighten again, crypto is likely to trade under macro pressure first and narrative second.

On the product side, Starknet is preparing to roll out strkBTC, a wrapped Bitcoin asset issued on Starknet and redeemable for native BTC, with optional shielding for balances and transfers. The design matters because Starknet is not pitching privacy as mandatory. In its own words, “Privacy is available when needed. Transparency remains available when required for compliance.”

Polygon’s catalyst lands on March 4, when the Lisovo/LisovoPro hardfork is scheduled around block 83,756,500, with implementation of PIP-82 included in the release. The proposal would recycle up to $1 million in gas base fees spent on agentic-commerce transactions, a direct subsidy aimed at machine-to-machine payments. Polygon’s own proposal says the chain has attracted 20.3% of x402 transactions and 10.4% of total volume since the start of the year.

Avalanche’s watch item is the Retro9000 C-Chain Round, which starts on March 2 and draws from the Foundation’s $40 million Retro9000 funding pool. The key shift is methodological. Avalanche says the program is moving from rewarding who built to rewarding what gets used, with projects ranked by AVAX burned through smart-contract activity and the top 40 becoming eligible for rewards.

The cleanest scheduled macro event arrives on Friday, March 6, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the February US employment report at 8:30 a.m. ET. Reuters expects payroll growth of 60,000 after January’s 130,000 gain, making the release an important test of whether the prior month was a false signal or the start of a firmer labor backdrop. For crypto, that report matters because it can quickly reset rate-cut expectations just as markets are trying to price geopolitical stress.

This leaves crypto focused mainly on macro. If Middle East risk keeps oil, the dollar and broader risk sentiment in motion, Bitcoin and the wider altcoin market could remain exposed to sharp headline-driven swings. But if US-Iran tensions cool, Friday’s jobs report may become the next major trigger, with markets likely to judge it through one question above all: whether it strengthens or weakens the case for Fed easing.

At press time, the total crypto market cap stood at $2.25 trillion.

As bearish pressure returns to the cryptocurrency market, the price of Ethereum has lost the $2,000 level. Despite the fact that volatility still lingers, conviction is building among investors again, as indicated by the steady inflows of capital into ETH accumulation wallet addresses.

A Steady Stream Of Ethereum Flows

Ethereum’s price may be struggling with ongoing volatility, causing it to revisit a key support level, but the activity of investors is painting a different story. A recent report indicates a persistent bullish sentiment and activity among ETH investors, who appear to be buying more of the leading altcoin.

This interesting report from CW, an investor and crypto analyst, reflects a steady flow of ETH into accumulation addresses even as broader market volatility fails to die down. Traders are currently on edge because of price fluctuations and market uncertainty, but the chart shows that deliberate players are gradually growing their exposure to the altcoin.

CW highlighted that the inflow of ETH into accumulation wallet addresses has continued for the past few months, as seen on the chart. Such a trend indicates that strategic investors are showing strong conviction in a turbulent environment and continued waning price action. 

It is worth noting that the full-scale accumulation of ETH by large holders or whales started in May 2025. During the period, the expert noted that the price of Ethereum was trading at around the $2,500 level. Meanwhile, the current price is positioned at $2,000, but these investors are still stacking the altcoin.

Furthermore, whales find the position much more alluring because this is less than the original accumulation price of $2,500. Even with the drop in price, the accumulation of ETH still lingers. In the past, persistent ETH migration into accumulation wallets during turbulent times has frequently indicated a change in positioning from speculative to long-term.

Hedge Funds Turn Bearish On ETH And BTC

The market is highly volatile, and Ethereum and Bitcoin are quietly battling with newfound pressure. This fresh pressure is coming from Hedge Funds, who appear to be significantly stacking up on short positions in both assets across major derivatives markets.

CW took to the X platform to report that these players have been opening short positions in BTC and ETH between February 16 and 20, which signals that sophisticated investors are bracing for further downside or hedging against broader market risk. According to the investor, the cohort is the main factor dragging the market toward the downside direction. 

Last week, these investors held more short positions, but this week has seen further declines. While the data is one week apart, this week’s data will be entering the market next week. As a result, the shifts in their holdings in the data that will be published to the public the following week are crucial. Rising short interest more immediately indicates a defensive posture from institutional participants, and it can also occasionally precede strong squeezes if sentiment changes.

A crypto analyst has drawn a striking comparison between XRP and the Russell 2000 index, a US stock market index that tracks the performance of smaller publicly traded companies. Based on the similarities found between the two assets, the analyst has suggested that the altcoin could be setting up for an explosive move into price discovery. 

XRP Chart Mirrors Russell 2000 Index Trend

A new technical analysis by market analyst Austin compares XRP’s recent price action with historical price movements of the Russell 2000 index. In an X post, the analyst shared two parallel charts, explaining that in late 2021, the Russell 2000 underwent a massive rally followed by a lengthy period of accumulation and consolidation from 2022 through most of 2024. 

When the small-cap index eventually retested its all-time highs in late 2024, it formed a sharp Elliott Wave ABC corrective pattern that shook out weak hands. Following this, the index staged a dramatic V-bottom reversal in early 2025 and broke out into full price discovery territory. 

According to Austin’s analysis, XRP’s current chart appears to mirror a nearly identical blueprint to the Russell 2000 price action between 2021 and 2025. After its own massive pump and prolonged accumulation phase, XRP recently surged to retest its previous all-time high resistance near the $3.30 level on the chart. Following that retest, the cryptocurrency entered a similar ABC correction, mirroring almost step by step the movements of the Russell 2000 before its explosive breakout. 

Notably, the chart reveals that the A and B waves of the corrective three-wave pattern have already completed, and the price is currently working through the C wave. The chart structure suggests a potential crash to the $1.00-$1.27 range before any meaningful reversal attempt. If this occurs, it would represent a decline of roughly 5.22%- 25.37% from current levels of around $1.34. 

The key question Austin is now asking is whether the token is on the verge of the same V-bottom inflection point that was observed in the Russell 2000 chart. If history repeats and structural parallel holds, the analyst suggests that the XRP correction currently unsettling holders could be the final shakeout before a launch into price discovery. 

Analyst Shares Targets For Price Discovery   

The most important aspect of the Russell 2000 analysis is the potential for XRP to enter price discovery mode and begin trading above its 2018 all-time high. The green arrow projection on the price chart points toward price discovery targets well above $5. 

Once XRP completes its wave C correction, Austin predicts that the cryptocurrency could rapidly launch to the $7.5 to $10 range. With its price still hovering below $1.4, a breakout to $10 would represent a staggering increase of more than 645%. 

An on-chain developer has announced that a new wave of deceptive non-fungible token (NFT) scams is sweeping across the XRP Ledger (XRPL), putting wallet holders on high alert. The attacks, which rely entirely on human error, have prompted growing concern within the XRP community about the threat of social engineering in the crypto space. 

Developer Sounds Alarm On New XRP Scam

XRP wallet holders are facing new sophisticated scam attempts as fraudsters flood the XRP Ledger with fake NFT passes designed to trick users into surrendering control of their funds. Wietse Wind, the developer behind the Xaman wallet and a prominent figure in the XRP community, has sounded the alarm on X, urging members to stay vigilant.

Wind made it clear that neither he nor his team is distributing passes or NFTs of any kind. He warned that anything claiming otherwise is the work of bad actors. Notably, the new scam tactic relies on social engineering. Fraudsters send unsolicited NFTs to Xaman wallet owners and then wait for victims to engage with an offer tied to those assets.

When a user willingly accepts or signs the transaction, they may unknowingly hand over something of value in exchange for a worthless or malicious token. Wind described the mechanic plainly, likening it to a situation where someone presents a bad deal, and the victim voluntarily accepts it, walking away with something useless. 

Security observers have warned that the attacks are not the result of any hack, technical breach, or flaw in the XRP Ledger itself. Instead, the entire scheme depends on one moment of human error. They caution that a random NFT appearing in a wallet should be treated as a red flag and strongly advise users not to engage, sign, or click anything related to unexpected tokens. 

Wind confirmed that changes at the NFT code level alone would not fully resolve the scam problem since the vulnerability lies in user behavior rather than the underlying technology. For now, the safest course of action is to cancel any unsolicited offers immediately and spread awareness throughout the XRP community. 

How To Cancel Scam Offers

Wind has offered guidance to affected users on how to protect themselves. He directed wallet holders to navigate to the ‘Events’ and ‘Requests’ sections to locate the suspicious offer, then hit the ‘Cancel’ button. While the developer reassured the community that simply ignoring the offer without any interaction would also prevent loss of funds, he has nonetheless strongly urged users to take the extra steps of canceling any suspicious offers outright.

Meanwhile, on the ground level, members of the XRP community have begun sharing their own encounters with the new scam. A blockchain enthusiast on X, going by the name Crypto Analytics, revealed that he personally received one of the fraudulent offers via his Bithomp wallet. He noted that the team at XRPL Labs had flagged the NFT offers as fraudulent on the wallet, giving users additional warning when they encounter the malicious scams. 

Ethereum’s long-range protocol roadmap may move faster than many expect as AI tools improve, according to Vitalik Buterin, who pointed to a recent experiment that used agentic coding to assemble an ambitious reference client spanning much of Ethereum’s planned 2030-era architecture.

The comment came after developer Jiayao Qi, posting as YQ via X, unveiled ETH2030, an experimental Ethereum client built to target the network’s draft “2030+” roadmap. The project weighs in at 702,000 lines of Go, covers 65 roadmap items across eight phases, passes 36,126 official Ethereum state tests, and can sync with mainnet through an integration with go-ethereum v1.17.0. Qi said the client was built in roughly six days using Claude Code at a cost of about $5,750 and 2.77 billion tokens.

AI Could Speed Up Ethereum Roadmap

Buterin called the effort “quite an impressive experiment,” while also stressing that a prototype built at that speed comes with obvious limits. “Such a thing built in two weeks without even having the EIPs has massive caveats,” he wrote. “Almost certainly lots of critical bugs, and probably in some cases ‘stub’ versions of a thing where the AI did not even try making the full version. But six months ago, even this was far outside the realm of possibility, and what matters is where the trend is going.”

That distinction mattered more to Buterin than the raw demo itself. In his view, AI is not just compressing development time. It could change how Ethereum engineers approach assurance. “Probably, the right way to use it, is to take half the gains from AI in speed, and half the gains in security,” he said. “Generate more test-cases, formally verify everything, make more multi-implementations of things.”

He tied that directly to ongoing formal verification work around Ethereum. Referring to the Lean Ethereum effort, Buterin said one collaborator had already used AI to produce a machine-verifiable proof of a complex theorem underpinning STARK security. “A core tenet of @leanethereum is to formally verify everything, and AI is greatly accelerating our ability to do that,” he wrote. “Aside from formal verification, simply being able to generate a much larger body of test cases is also important.”

ETH2030 itself was presented less as a candidate client than as a stress test for the roadmap. Qi repeatedly framed it as a rough draft, not production software, and argued that its value lies in forcing hard engineering questions into the open now rather than years from now.

The roadmap, as implemented in the project, aims at a version of Ethereum with 10,000-plus TPS on L1, finality in seconds instead of 15 minutes, solo staking for 1 ETH, stateless nodes running on a $7 Raspberry Pi, and more than 1 million TPS across L1 and L2. But the experiment also surfaced deep coupling between upgrades, from block access lists and gas repricing to PeerDAS, native rollups and fast finality.

Qi was blunt about the gaps. Pure-Go cryptographic implementations lag production code by roughly 10x to 100x, the consensus logic has not been battle-tested on a live beacon chain, and the jump from roughly 5 million gas per second today to a 1 billion gas-per-second target remains highly speculative under real-world MEV and contract dependency patterns.

Buterin did not claim AI would make those problems disappear. In fact, he cautioned against expecting a secure protocol from a single prompt. “There WILL be lots of wrestling with bugs and inconsistencies between implementations,” he wrote. “But even that wrestling can happen 5x faster and 10x more thoroughly.”

That, more than the headline numbers, is the point now in front of Ethereum researchers and client teams. If AI can speed both implementation and verification, the roadmap may not just be a distant architectural sketch. As Buterin put it, people should at least be open to the “possibility” that Ethereum’s roadmap could be completed “much faster than people expect, at a much higher standard of security than people expect.”

At press time, ETH traded at $1,956.

Dogecoin and Shiba Inu are currently facing bearish sentiment due to the crypto market downtrend. On-chain metrics also highlight the current sentiment, with market participants choosing to stay on the sidelines amid this downtrend.

On-chain Metrics Signal Bearish Sentiment Towards Dogecoin and Shiba Inu

Santiment data shows that Dogecoin’s Price Daily Active Addresses (DAA) divergence has dropped to -49%, signaling weak demand in the meme coin’s ecosystem even as price continues to drop. This figure marks a two-month low for DOGE and comes amid its recent drop below the psychological $0.10 level. 

Furthermore, the Daily Active Addresses on the Dogecoin network continue to waver. Data from Santiment shows that the DAA on the network dropped from as high as 87,727 on January 31 to as low as 38,696 on February 28. The total Active addresses over the last seven days are below 300,000, which also signals the low demand for the meme coin at the moment. 

Like Dogecoin, Shiba Inu is also facing weaker demand amid the recent price downtrend. Santiment data shows that the Price DAA Divergence has dropped to -29%, the lowest level this year. This notably coincides with SHIB’s decline to its lowest level this year, with the meme coin now down 25% year-to-date (YTD). 

Shiba Inu’s Daily Active Addresses have also remained flat since the start of the year, indicating that investors are opting against investing in the second-largest meme coin by market cap. For context, SHIB’s DAA on March 1 was just 1,984, down from the multi-month high of 377,000 recorded in October last year. Since the start of this year, the Daily Active Addresses have remained below 10,000. 

It is worth noting that Dogecoin and Shiba Inu remain at risk of further declines as tensions between the U.S. and Iran escalate. Further declines in these meme coins are likely to lead to a drop in these on-chain metrics as market participants stay on the sidelines amid this uncertainty. 

Derivatives Metrics In The Red As Traders Sit On The Sidelines

Dogecoin and Shiba Inu’s derivatives metrics are also in the red as crypto traders sit on the sidelines amid the current market sell-off. CoinGlass data shows that DOGE’s derivatives trading volume is down by over 34% down to $2.36 billion. Open interest is down over 9%, dropping to $907 million, while options trading volume has crashed 31%. The long/short ratio is below 1, signaling that most traders are shorting DOGE at the moment. 

Similarly, Shiba Inu’s derivative metrics signal that sellers are currently dominating the market, as bulls remain cautious amid market uncertainty. CoinGlass data shows that SHIB’s derivative trading volume has crashed 28%, down to $132 million, while open interest is down to $54 million.

Iran and the Middle East are on fire again. US and Israeli forces launched a series of airstrikes on Iran over the weekend, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — a development that sent shockwaves through global markets and sparked fresh debate about what comes next for the US economy. And amid all the chaos, one prominent voice in the crypto world is already drawing a straight line from the bombing runs to Bitcoin prices.

Arthur Hayes Makes His Case

Arthur Hayes, co-founder of crypto exchange BitMEX, published a blog post this week arguing that US military action in the Middle East has a historical pattern — and that pattern tends to be good for crypto.

His reasoning goes back decades. According to Hayes, every sitting US president since 1985 has sent forces into the Middle East. Each time, the Federal Reserve followed by cutting interest rates or pumping more money into the financial system to help cover the costs.

The Gulf War in 1990. The aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001. The troop surge in Afghanistan in 2009. Each episode, Hayes argues, came with a looser money supply.

His conclusion: if US President Donald Trump keeps spending heavily on what Hayes calls “Iranian nation-building,” the Fed may eventually feel pressure to ease up on its current tight monetary stance. That, in turn, could send money flowing into riskier assets — including Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Iran-US War: Markets Stay Calm For Now

So far, the markets aren’t panicking. Stock futures dipped only slightly when trading opened Monday. Oil prices spiked at first, then pulled back, erasing nearly half the early gains. The S&P 500 shed less than 1%. Financial newsletter The Kobeissi Letter was blunt about it — this was no doomsday open.

To everyone calling for World War 3:

This is NOT a futures open that is anywhere near WW3.

In fact, oil prices have already erased nearly half of their opening gap higher and the S&P 500 is down less than 1%.

Gold is up a mere 2% and Bitcoin is now positive on the day.

Don’t…

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) March 1, 2026

Crypto social media told a different story in tone, if not in substance. Reports say mentions of “World War 3” spiked across platforms over the weekend, according to data from analytics firm Santiment.

But those numbers were still well below the levels recorded last June, when a prior round of Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear and military sites led to nearly two weeks of direct conflict between the two countries.

A Pattern Worth Watching

Hayes himself is urging caution for now. He admits there’s no way to know how long Trump will stay committed to a costly military campaign in Iran, or how much market pain the administration can stomach before pulling back.

His advice to crypto investors is to wait — specifically for a concrete Fed rate cut or money-printing signal before making big moves.

“The time to back up the truck and buy Bitcoin,” he wrote, is right after the Fed acts, not before.

Featured image from Getty Images, chart from TradingView