源聚合

С начала февраля Московская биржа фиксирует взрывной рост активности инвесторов в криптовалютные фьючерсы. Показатели объема торгов и количества сделок достигли исторического максимума с момента запуска инструментов.

Recent data shows that the Bitcoin mining difficulty has experienced a major decline in the last day. This development follows significant bearish price struggles in the past week, which saw Bitcoin fall by an aggregate 11%.

Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Records Historic Fall Since China’s Crackdown

The mining difficulty, as the name implies, measures how hard it is for miners to solve the mathematical problem required to add a new block to the Bitcoin blockchain. Therefore, a rise in difficulty suggests that mining is challenging for the average network node and vice versa.

Generally, the Bitcoin network adjusts this metric every 2,016 blocks (approximately two weeks). According to the developer mononaut, Bitcoin recorded an 11.6% drop in mining difficulty over the past 24 hours, representing the largest single adjustment since China’s ban and the tenth largest negative adjustment of all time.

In 2021, the Asian nation issued a prohibitive order against all forms of Bitcoin mining activities within its borders, effectively eliminating over half of the global hashrate. In line, mining difficulty also crashed, dropping the participation barrier for new miners.

According to more data shared by mononaut, the Bitcoin mining difficulty now stands at 125.86T after the recent decline, which kicked in at block 935,429.

Mining Difficulty Crash Reflects Harsh Price Environment 

While a fall in Bitcoin mining indicates an increased ease in mining activity, it also suggests a surge in miner capitulation, i.e., where miners become unprofitable and shut down. This is usually due to energy cost spikes, a regulatory crackdown like in China, or market crashes, as recently seen. Notably, Bitcoin prices recorded an initial loss of 28% in February’s opening week, to trade as low as $60,000 before rebounding to $70,000. Therefore, it’s likely this latest correction pushed many miners into a heavy loss position. 

However, it’s worth noting that Bitcoin’s difficulty adjustment is a self-sustaining mechanism designed to ensure new blocks are continuously mined regardless of how many miners are participating. In addition, a new influx of miners is expected, considering the most recent negative adjustment, thus raising no cause for alarm.

Meanwhile, data from MARA Holdings’ disclosure in Q3, 2025, indicated the average Bitcoin mining cost to be at $67,704. According to Julio Moreno, Head of CryptoQuant, most Bitcoin mining companies are likely in steep losses at present market prices and are expected to increase selling activity, contributing to the recent miner flight. At press time, Bitcoin trades at $69,357 after a 1.71% loss in the past day.

Crypto expert Cypress has highlighted developments that XRP holders should be paying attention to. The expert alluded to Ripple’s roadmap for institutional DeFi on the XRP Ledger (XRPL), with the firm noting that XRP is at the core of all these plans. 

Developments XRP Holders Should Focus On

In an X post, Cypress stated that every holder should pay attention to the developments Ripple outlined in its institutional DeFi roadmap. The expert highlighted features such as native on-chain privacy, permissioned markets, and institutional lending, which are set to live in the coming months on the XRP Ledger (XRPL). 

Ripple noted that with these features, the XRP Ledger isn’t just positioning itself as a chain for tokenization but as an end-to-end operating system for real-world finance. Meanwhile, Cypress highlighted Ripple’s statement about how the indirect impact that they can focus attention on is through how XRP is used in base-layer operations. 

These operations include reserve requirements, transaction fees, which result in burning XRP, and bridging currency in FX and lending flows. Ripple also mentioned that each feature, both the ones that are already and the upcoming ones, is not a silo but a building block for “composable financial ecosystems,” which is tied together by XRP. 

Ripple declared that institutional DeFi is no longer theoretical as the XRPL is delivering the infrastructure these institutions need with programmable lending, privacy-preserving collateral, and regulated token markets. 

The firm added that XRP sits at the center of that infrastructure as a transactional asset and also as a utility-rich protocol token that connects the pieces together. Ripple added how stablecoin FX, tokenized treasuries, on-chain loans, and smart escrows all depend on XRP’s functionality. 

Ripple’s Roadmap Boosts Market Sentiment Towards XRP

Ripple’s institutional roadmap appears to have boosted market sentiment towards XRP, with the token one of the top gainers among the top cryptos by market cap. Specifically, this may have contributed to the spike in whale transactions during the recent dip, with 1,389 whale transactions of $100,000 or more, which is the highest in four months, according to Santiment. 

Furthermore, the number of unique addresses on the XRPL has surged to 78,727 in just one 8-hour candle, which is the highest in six months. This suggests a bullish sentiment not just among whales but also among retail investors. 

Meanwhile, Santiment noted that the increase in whale accumulation and spike in unique addresses are both major signals of a price reversal for any asset. As such, there is the possibility that the drop to $1.15 may have marked the bottom for XRP. 

At the time of writing, the XRP price is trading at around $1.47, up 15% in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

For decades, SWIFT has served as the backbone of global payments, enabling banks to message one another across borders but not to settle value in real time. As global commerce becomes faster, more digital, and more interconnected, the limitations of legacy messaging-based systems are becoming increasingly visible. This has brought renewed attention to XRP and Ripple’s payment infrastructure that aims to enable near-instant, low-cost settlement of value.

From Bank Messaging To Real-Time Settlement Rails

A massive 1.5 quadrillion financial shift is quietly unfolding, and it’s already shaking the foundations of global banking. Crypto analyst Archie has mentioned on X that SWIFT, the decades-old backbone of cross-border payments, is copying Ripple’s playbook for a real-time transfer system and testing the XRP Ledger integration that could flip the script on slow, outdated cross-border payments.

Meanwhile, analysts are suggesting that if XRP captures even a fraction of SWIFT’s estimated $150 trillion annual flow by 2030, the upside could be enormous, while some stated that the altcoin might surge to $3,000+. With Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin integrating directly into core banking and treasury platforms, the bridge between crypto rails and fiat liquidity is rapidly taking shape.

Currently, there’s a speculation that XRP is being reviewed as a full SWIFT replacement in the US document, and trillions are flowing into the XRP Ledger. Meanwhile, banks like Citi are tokenizing, and Ripple technology is capable of leading the charge. Archie believes that Citi is already somewhere running on Ripple technology.

How The Last Major XRP Breakout Took Shape

A side-by-side comparison chart of XRP’s historical and current market cycles suggests that history may be rhyming once again. Analyst Archie has also pointed out that in the 2016 to 2018 cycle, the price started trading at a low level around $0.003, gradually building along a rising trendline, then dipping in the orange box, before the price exploded to highs near $3.50.

During that period, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) formed a clear low around the 50 level, signaling a momentum reset rather than a breakdown. The current 2025 to 2027 cycle is showing a structurally similar pattern. XRP is consolidating around the dollar mark, following a similar trend line, with a dip marked in an orange box to $0.70, and the formed bottom closer to the 40 mark. 

Archie noted that the patterns in price action, the dips, and the indicator signals across cycles are repeating almost identically. While history never repeats perfectly, these recurring fractal patterns suggest that XRP may be priming for an epic bull run phase, from fractions to dollars, now potentially from dollars to triple digits, like the projected $117 range. Archie is bullish because the riddlers were right all along, and believes Phoenix will rise.