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XRP has now recorded five consecutive monthly losses, highlighting its sustained weakness since Q4 2025. The cryptocurrency continues to trade sideways amid growing investor caution amid broader market volatility and ongoing geopolitical tensions. Notably, a crypto analyst has pointed out that this marks the second time in XRP’s history that it has posted a five-month negative streak. The last time it happened, the cryptocurrency rebounded with a staggering 4,300% increase. If historical patterns were to repeat, XRP could be setting the stage for a similar breakout.

XRP Repeats Rare 5-Month Red Streak

A new report from crypto analyst @erasurev_v disclosed that the XRP price has officially closed five consecutive months in the red, a pattern that has only appeared once before in the asset’s entire trading history. Sharing the revelation in an X post this week, @erasurev_v pointed out that the first and last time this negative streak occurred, XRP went on to post one of the largest price increases ever recorded in the crypto market.

The previous five-month red streak ran from October 2016 through February 2017, with each month ending on a negative note. Following that sequence, XRP entered three straight green months and climbed 4,300% before the bull run was over. This massive price surge had helped the cryptocurrency propel to its current all-time high above $3.84, which was achieved during the bull rally in 2018. 

Notably, the current five-month negative streak runs from October 2025 through February 2026, matching the earlier period month-for-month. Based on this recurring 5-month streak, @erasurev_v predicts that the altcoin could mirror the same explosive rally that occurred during the 2017 bull run. 

If the pattern plays out the same way, the analyst projects that the price could reach $60 by June 2026, reflecting the same 4,300% price increase from 2017. If this bull run occurs, XRP would close three consecutive months in the green starting in March this year. 

While this outlook may carry some weight, a repeating chart pattern does not guarantee the same result. Market conditions in 2026 differ significantly from those of 2017, particularly in terms of market capitalization, global adoption levels, XRP Spot ETFs, macroeconomic dynamics, and the evolving regulatory landscape. Still, five consecutive red monthly closes on XRP is rare enough that when it happens twice and lines up this perfectly, it tends to get significant attentions 

Monthly Returns From October 2025 To February 2026

According to monthly returns data from CryptoRank, XRP began its 5-month red streak in October 2025, closing the month down 11.9%. The bearish momentum intensified in November, when the token fell another 13.8%, and deepened further in December with a 14.8% decline. 

As the market entered 2026, the cryptocurrency continued to trade sideways, ending the month down 10.6%. The sell-off accelerated in February, with the month recording the sharpest drop of the five-month slide at 16.2%. In total, XRP has lost more than a 26% of its value so far in 2026. 

The XRP downside pressure has intensified, and is now moving beyond its price dynamics into on-chain activity. Following a prolonged period of downward performance, key areas such as Open Interest have heavily turned bearish, experiencing a steady drop over the past few days.

Market Turbulence Triggers XRP Open Interest Meltdown

With the price of XRP struggling with volatility, its derivatives market has sharply flipped into negative territory, reflecting the intensity of the current market condition. A report from Xaif Crypto, a market expert and investor, outlines a massive drop in Open Interest (OI) since the beginning of this year.

The chart shows that XRP has seen a startling 70% decline in open interest across key derivatives platforms due to a violent wave of volatility. In just a few days, a large amount of speculative exposure was wiped out, and investors were forced out of positions in what had been a highly leveraged market.

Over the past 5 months, the multi-exchange open interest fell from $660 million to $203 million. This sharp contraction signals a potential market structure reset in the short term. Within the same period, over $457 million in leverage has been wiped out of the market, accompanied by a drop in the token’s price from $3 to $1.35.

According to Xaif Crypto, this dramatic deleveraging event is not fresh shorts. Rather, it is an indication of liquidations, triggered by forced exits and resets. With this development, XRP is now at a crucial juncture where real demand will drive the next stage rather than leverage. However, it is worth noting that the last time the open interest reached this level of compression, the altcoin experienced a move that led to the formation of a major bottom. Currently, the market lacks leverage and awaits the wave of fresh capital.

Even with the ongoing bearishness of XRP, the token remains one of the best-performing altcoins. This cycle’s altcoin volume during the accumulation phase already surpasses the bottom of the entire previous cycle after experiencing a persistent multiple green walls and yellow trends.

At the forefront of this charge is XRP, and other alts beneath the token are coiling harder than ever. When compared to the last cycle, this is the main event, which could play a role in shaping the next price direction.

Realized Volatility At A Record Level

Following an analysis of the XRP Realized Volatility metric, Xaif Crypto reveals that the altcoin has entered a new phase of turbulence. Data shows that realized volatility is on the rise, surging to its highest level in the past year. In the 30-day indicator, the chart is positioned at level 1.16, demonstrating increased uncertainty and aggressive repositioning by investors in the futures and spot markets.

Historically, these kinds of volatility spikes have preceded big moves upward or downward. However, when the indicator last reached this level, it led to a major price move for the altcoin, which suggests that the recent calm may be over and raises the possibility of a rally in the near future.

Crypto analyst Ardi has alluded to Bitcoin’s last cycle to provide insights into when the leading crypto could end its downtrend this time around. This comes as BTC continues to show strength amid the rising tensions between the U.S. and Iran. 

Analyst Points To Bitcoin’s Last Cycle Bottom For When This Downtrend Could End

In an X post, Ardi noted that during the last cycle bottom, it wasn’t just Bitcoin’s price that found a floor, but that the Open Interest was completely wiped out back then. He highlighted how leverage was reset to zero back then, which was when the real bottom accumulation started. The analyst suggested that BTC may again be on its way to finding a bottom, as the market has already flushed a lot of leverage. 

However, he noted that if the last cycle is any guide, the Bitcoin bottom doesn’t form until the speculative excess is almost entirely gone. CoinGlass data shows that leverage in the BTC market remains well above levels recorded at the last cycle’s bottom. Bitcoin’s open interest is currently at $43.86 billion, while the derivatives trading volume is at $87.68 billion. 

Meanwhile, Ardi also commented on the ongoing war between the U.S. and Iran and how it affects Bitcoin. When asked whether his analysis factored in the war for when a bottom could occur, the analyst stated that BTC’s price has already factored in most of that. He added that the worst phase for price is likely over from a war perspective. 

Bitcoin has so far maintained a tight range amid the war between the U.S. and Iran. The leading crypto had climbed to $70,000 earlier in the week but faced significant selling pressure at that psychological price level. 

BTC Could Rally To $80,000 This Month

Crypto analyst Michaël van de Poppe predicted that Bitcoin could rally to between $75,000 and $80,000 this month. The analyst also touched on the current price action, highlighting how it has held above $65,000 and even rallied towards the $70,000 level. He added that BTC is likely to see some days of consolidation before a breakout to the upside likely occurs. This breakout also looks likely, considering that Bitcoin has been establishing this range for a while now. 

A positive for Bitcoin is that the selling pressure may be easing. Glassnode analyst Chris Beamish stated that the long-term holders (LTH) net position change is now easing after months of sustained net selling. This suggests that selling pressure from seasoned holders is moderating as BTC stabilizes. 

At the time of writing, the BTC price is trading at around $67,800, down in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Инвестиционный директор управляющей криптоактивами компании Bitwise Мэтт Хоуган (Matt Hougan) заявил, что военная операция США и Израиля против Ирана ускорит переход традиционных финансов на блокчейн.

Ripple says it is tightening the XRP Ledger amendment process after a critical flaw was found in the proposed Batch amendment (XLS-56), an incident that exposed gaps in review even as the network’s last-resort safeguards prevented any mainnet impact.

In a post on X, RippleX Head of Engineering J. Ayo Akinyele said the bug was identified last week by Cantina AI, reported responsibly, and quickly validated as critical. The issue never became exploitable on mainnet because the amendment had not yet been activated, and a hotfix was issued to disable both Batch and the related fix amendment while a broader remediation is reviewed.

Ripple Responds To The Critical Bug

Akinyele did not try to soften the significance of the lapse. “The Batch amendment progressed further than it should have,” he wrote. “As active participants in the amendment lifecycle, we share responsibility for ensuring that review, signaling, and activation safeguards meet the highest standard. In this case, we must do better.”

At the same time, Ripple is framing the episode as a failure of early-stage review rather than of the XRPL governance model itself. Akinyele said “the amendment process functioned as designed,” noting that activation gating prevented harm to mainnet and the bug bounty disclosure route worked as intended. But he added a sharper warning: “Those safeguards matter, but they should serve as a final line of defense, not the primary one.”

That distinction runs through the rest of Ripple’s response. Rather than suggesting tighter centralized control, Akinyele argued that amendment security on XRPL must remain distributed across core contributors, validators, the XRPL Foundation and outside researchers. “No single entity controls activation. No single entity owns risk in isolation,” he wrote, describing that structure as both a consequence of decentralization and a strength, provided it is matched by layered defenses and better coordination.

Ripple’s proposed fixes are broad. Akinyele said future releases that introduce features carrying “theoretical risk of disruption” will go through multiple independent audits with reputable security firms in coordination with the XRPL Foundation. The idea is straightforward: different teams catch different classes of issues, and redundancy reduces blind spots when code touches consensus-critical behavior.

The company also plans to expand the bug bounty program and formalize adversarial testing campaigns before activation. Akinyele pointed to initiatives such as the Lending attackathon and a UBRI-sponsored hackathon as models for that approach, arguing that incentivizing white-hat attackers before launch is far cheaper than reacting after the fact. He added that lessons from the Batch incident have already affected other roadmap items, saying Ripple “deliberately held lending back” to allow for more review, testing and scrutiny before moving toward activation.

Part of that next phase will rely more heavily on AI. Akinyele said Ripple is incorporating AI-assisted code review, automated invariant discovery, agentic fuzzing and simulated attack scenarios into its software development lifecycle. “AI does not replace expert C++ engineers, but rather augments them,” he wrote, especially when “subtle logic interactions at critical points can create outsized risk.”

Longer term, Ripple says it wants formal verification to become standard for high-risk ledger components. That includes modeling amendment behavior before activation, proving safety properties for critical components and integrating formal methods from XLS specification through implementation and testing. The broader aim, Akinyele said, is end-to-end assurance that amendment code is not only functionally correct but aligned with defined security and safety properties.

At press time, XRP traded at $1.3698.

Созданный американской криптобиржей Kraken банк Kraken Financial открыл счет в Федеральной резервной системе США. Теперь дочерний банк криптобиржи может использовать платежную инфраструктуру центробанка наряду с другими американскими банками, сообщает The Wall Street Journal.

Сооснователь Эфириума Виталик Бутерин признался, что его блокчейн не способен решить все мировые проблемы, но обнадежил: Эфириум может помочь в создании систем, защищающих финансовую свободу.

Europe’s top central bank is watching stablecoins with growing caution. What began as a niche crypto tool is now large enough to draw attention in Frankfurt.

Based on reports, the European Central Bank has warned that wider use of privately issued digital tokens tied to major currencies could chip away at traditional bank deposits across Europe.

The concern is simple. If households and firms start parking more of their cash in stablecoins instead of bank accounts, lenders could end up with less money to fund loans.

Deposit Flight Could Strain Eurozone Banks

According to an ECB working paper cited by Reuters and other outlets, stablecoins may pull funds out of the banking system if people see them as safe and easy to use for payments or savings.

Even small shifts can matter. Eurozone banks rely heavily on deposits to finance mortgages, business credit, and consumer loans.

If deposits fall, banks may have to look for other funding sources. Those often cost more. When funding becomes more expensive, lending can slow, or borrowing rates may climb. That ripple effect could be felt by households and companies across the region.

Reports note that dollar-backed stablecoins are a particular worry. If Eurozone residents increasingly hold tokens linked to the US dollar, it may also weaken the role of the euro in daily transactions.

The ECB has long guarded its control over monetary policy. That control depends on how smoothly interest rate changes pass through the banking system.

It was stressed in the paper that a sharp rise in stablecoin adoption could weaken that transmission channel.

Monetary Policy Could Lose Some Bite

The ECB adjusts interest rates to cool inflation or support growth. Those decisions filter through banks, which adjust deposit and loan rates in response. If a chunk of savings sits outside the traditional system, that chain can be disrupted.

Based on reports, ECB researchers modeled scenarios where stablecoins capture a meaningful share of deposits. In such cases, the impact of rate hikes or cuts may become less predictable. Policy moves could take longer to influence spending and investment.

On Interference & Predictability

According to the report’s authors, they find that stablecoin adoption “interferes with multiple monetary policy transmission channels that would potentially weaken the predictability of policy actions.”

There is also a liquidity angle. During times of market stress, digital tokens can be moved quickly. Large outflows from banks into stablecoins, or back again, could amplify swings in funding conditions. That risk has been flagged before in global debates on crypto regulation.

The paper forms part of the ECB’s broader push to keep a close watch on stablecoins, a sector whose total market value has surged to more than $300 billion after more than doubling in the last three years. Forecasts suggest that figure could climb to $2 trillion by 2028.

European officials have not called for a ban. Instead, attention has focused on oversight. The European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework is already in place, setting rules for issuers and service providers.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView

Правоохранительные органы Красноярского края объявили в международный розыск депутата регионального законодательного собрания Алексея Бойкова. Он проходит фигурантом уголовного дела о мошенничестве в особо крупном размере, которое связано с майнингом криптовалют, утверждают источники ТАСС в российских силовых структурах.

Падение крипторынка связано с действиями центрального банка Китая, который слишком активно наращивает запасы золота, считает аналитик австралийской криптоинвестиционной компании Ainslie Wealth Крис Типпер (Chris Tipper). По его мнению, Китай сейчас доминирует в формировании глобальных денежных потоков.

Мемкоин Sanae Token обвалился почти на 60% — с $0,0137 до $0,0058 — после того, как премьер-министр Японии Санаэ Такаити (Sanae Takaichi) заявила, что не имеет отношения к проекту. Политик подчеркнула, что разработчики токена не получали разрешения на использование ее имени.

Paraguay’s state power utility ANDE has signed a memorandum of understanding with crypto infrastructure firm Morphware, setting up a formal cooperation framework that explicitly includes exploring Bitcoin mining as a national-level opportunity tied to the country’s energy and digital infrastructure strategy. The move matters because it signals a shift from Paraguay merely hosting private miners to the state evaluating a more direct, utility-controlled model.

Morphware framed the MoU as a starting point for “analysis and development of initiatives related to digital assets, advanced processing infrastructure, and strategic energy driven technology opportunities in Paraguay,” with Bitcoin mining positioned as one candidate use case inside that broader mandate.

The company said the agreement creates an “official path” for technical evaluation and project development “under Paraguay’s legal and regulatory framework,” language that reads less like a one-off pilot announcement and more like a governmental process being put on rails.

In Morphware CEO Kenso Trabing’s telling, the economic logic is straightforward: put stranded or underutilized electricity to work, and keep the deployment inside regulated sites controlled by the utility.

“ANDE has unlocked a powerful new asset, and Morphware is here to turn that asset into a new revenue engine for Paraguay. By redeploying Bitcoin miners on regulated, utility controlled sites, we can transform unused electricity into productive compute that serves both the Bitcoin network and the global AI economy,” Trabing wrote. “This is what the future of midstream electricity looks like: grids that do not just deliver power, but own a stake in the digital infrastructure they enable.”

The reference to “midstream electricity” and “productive compute” is doing double duty. It links Bitcoin mining to a more general pitch: high-density power-to-compute infrastructure that can, in theory, flex between mining and adjacent workloads, particularly as the “AI data center” narrative continues to bleed into the public-market mining story globally.

Seized Bitcoin Miners Enter The Conversation

While Morphware’s statement did not publish deployment numbers, the MoU language about “redeploying” miners arrives amid an enforcement backdrop: Paraguay has been seizing ASIC hardware tied to alleged illegal operations. Trabing told Bitcoin Magazine that ANDE is exploring turning seized equipment into Paraguay’s first government-run Bitcoin operation in partnership with Morphware.

According to Trabing, the Paraguayan government is currently holding around 30,000 seized Bitcoin miners, many of them taken from facilities accused of electricity theft or tariff fraud.

“They’re literally stacked to the ceiling,” Trabing told Bitcoin Magazine, describing government warehouses filled with idle ASIC machines. “They have no experience mining Bitcoin. Our role is an advisory role.”

Morphware’s proposal, now formalized in the memorandum with ANDE, is to redeploy those machines at utility-controlled sites rather than leaving them idle. The initial phase would reportedly involve around 1,500 confiscated miners, installed near existing electrical substations where infrastructure already exists to handle large energy loads.

Under the structure being discussed, ANDE would retain ownership of the machines and operate the sites directly, while Morphware would provide technical guidance and training for utility staff. The company’s role, according to Trabing, is primarily operational support rather than revenue participation. “This is about regulated, utility-controlled sites,” he said. “Not people hiding in the countryside.”

At press time, BTC traded at $68,644.

22 из 36 протестированных моделей искусственного интеллекта выбрали биткоин в качестве основного денежного актива. Ни одна из нейросетей не отдала предпочтение фиатной валюте как базовому инструменту накопления и финансовых операций, показало исследование Bitcoin Policy Institute.

Аналитики криптосообщества London Crypto Club, объединяющего трейдеров и инвесторов из Великобритании, заявили, что военная операция Израиля и США против Ирана может стать положительным фактором для биткоина и всего крипторынка.

Председатель совета директоров компании KindlyMD и бывший советник президента США Дональда Трампа Дэвид Бэйли (David Bailey) заявил, что американские власти могли бы сделать больше для поддержки биткоина.

After hitting an all-time high of $291 back in January 2025, Solana has begun what has been a year of steady declines. While there have been some relief bounces along the way, the main direction has been downward. At the time of writing, the price of Solana is now sitting more than 71% below its all-time high levels. Other major metrics have also seen significant declines during this time, with Open Interest and Weight Funding Rate falling to two-year lows.

Solana Open Interest And Weighted Funding Rate Reflect The Bear Trend

According to data from the Coinglass website, the Solana open interest had actually peaked long after its price hit its peak, which is usually not the case. The open interest topped out at $17.1 billion, nine months after the price hit its all-time high. However, in the five months following the open interest hitting a new high, things have changed drastically.

The website shows that Solana’s open interest has now crashed below $5 billion, sitting at $4.89 billion at the time of writing. Interestingly, the open interest has followed closely with the price decline, and the crash below $100 for the first time since January 2024 has triggered a cascade.

Since open interest measures the open contracts on an asset, it is often a signal of how much attention a coin is getting. With the open interest sitting so low, it suggests that investors are not taking as many bets on Solana as they used to. This is normal in bear markets, when investors are still fearful and wait to see the market improve before jumping back in again.

In the same vein, the weighted funding rate has taken a nosedive.  Similar to the open interest, the funding rate had hit a new all-time high back in 2025 before moving downward again, and has now hit its lowest level in more than one year.

The funding rate is essentially what traders pay to hold perpetual positions, with long traders paying short traders when the rates are positive and short traders paying long traders when the rates are negative. Simply put, the funding rate can encourage traders to open positions in different directions in favor of not paying fees.

Currently, the Solana weighted funding rate is fluctuating between positive and negative. However, it has been mostly negative with the decline in price. This means that currently, short traders are paying to keep their positions open.

Экономист и инвестиционный аналитик Лин Олден (Lyn Alden) заявила, что период «максимальной боли» на рынке биткоина уже пройден, а сама криптовалюта сейчас находится в зоне перепроданности.

Американская майнинговая компания Riot Platforms объявила о рекордных финансовых результатах по итогам 2025 года. Доход компании составил $647,4 млн против $376,7 млн годом ранее.

Губернатор штата Индиана Майк Браун (Mike Braun) подписал законопроект, запрещающий местным органам власти вводить дискриминационные налоги и ограничения на операции с криптовалютами, а также разрешающий направлять пенсионные накопления в криптовалютные инвестиционные фонды.

Вице-президент американской компании Strive Джо Бернетт (Joe Burnett) предположил, что к первому кварталу 2036 года курс биткоина может достичь $11 млн, а капитализация актива превысит $230 трлн.