Ripple launches a $750M share buyback, valuing the company at $50B as it expands its digital asset infrastructure business.

The post Ripple Labs launches $750M share buyback, valuing firm at $50B appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Foundry plans to launch an institutional grade Zcash mining pool in April 2026, expanding compliant mining infrastructure for the network.

The post Foundry expands mining infrastructure with Zcash pool launch appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Revolut receives PRA approval to launch a UK bank, enabling FSCS protected deposits and new services for its 13 million UK customers.

The post Revolut secures UK banking license enabling deposit and lending services appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The integration of AI agents with blockchain infrastructure could revolutionize secure transaction execution, enhancing the onchain economy.

The post CoinFello unveils open source OpenClaw skill with MetaMask for AI agent transactions appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The potential acquisition could reshape the competitive landscape in the pizza industry, impacting market dynamics and investor confidence.

The post Papa John’s weighs $1.5 billion takeover offer from Irth Capital, stock jumps 20% appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Samourai Letter #4: Notes From The Inside

Dear Reader,

As I write this letter to you it is January 19th, 2026. I have been in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons for 31 days. One full month. I figure that is a milestone worthy of penning another letter to you. The time has simultaneously crawled at a snail’s pace and raced by quicker than I can understand. From day to day time moves unbearably slowly. The day crawls by, I feel as if I am walking through quicksand, every step an enormous effort. A minute feels like an hour, and hour feels like a day. But at the same time it feels as if just yesterday I was surrendering myself to FPC Morgantown.

The one month milestone has been able to creep on me surprisingly quickly while I was concerned with how slow time has been passing. I was sentenced by Judge Dusty Coat, excuse me, Judge Denise Cote for a period of 60 months of incarceration. One month down, 59 more to go.

Prison is a totally alien environment. Everything is seemingly backwards and designed to frustrate you. As many prisoners have said to me, “BOP stands for Backwards On Purpose”, and they really aren’t wrong.

Here is a quick example, because the US taxpayer is now responsible for my health and well being I have been placed on the waiting list for a dental check, cleaning, and any basic work that might be needed (filling, extraction, etc…). Being a logical person I concluded that the wait would not be too long considering the population of FPC Morgantown is so low (around 160 inmates when well over 800 can be held here) it wouldn’t take too long for my name to reach the ‘top of the list’.

I was then informed that the waiting list includes all inmates within the entire BOP at every facility. So even though our dentist here only has 160 people to see, I must wait for someone in Oklahoma who is higher than me on the list to receive treatment before I can be seen. Backwards on Purpose. Nothing works logically or as expected.

On my 28th day here I received my A&O – Admission and Orientation – which is mostly a box checking operation as we have all been orientated by the other inmates in the 28 days we have been here.

In any case, we were told that being here is not a punishment. The punishment is the sentence the judge hands down, the time away from family, being here at the Federal prison is just our home for a short time. They tell you this with a straight face while counting you five times a day, forcing you to work for slave wages, and restricting the number of people you can communicate with per month. Not a punishment.

There are vaguely motivational posters placed around the inside of the housing unit. Most are so saccharine they make me queasy, I could do with out the ‘HR-ization’ of prison thank you very much. They are all clearly printed from the internet without permission as they are all pixelated to hell, but there is one that is my favorite. I get a good laugh whenever I walk by it or think about it. There is a vignette of a iron barred cell door with the words “You are only incarcerated by the walls you build yourself”.

What a hilarious thing to put in a prison. I would love to imagine a CO or administrator putting that up because they found it funny, but I know it is more likely someone put it up because they found it inspiring and insightful, which I suppose makes it even funnier.

Over the month I have been here I have somewhat succeeded in finding a routine – something many people who have been to prison have told me is essential – and sticking to it. I wake up every day at 4:00 AM. This suits me greatly because I am the only one awake at that time and getting any sort of alone time in prison is surprisingly difficult (at least while you are in general population. If you are in Solitary Confinement, it is very easy).

Upon waking up I make myself what I have taken to calling a “prison latte” which is a mug of hot milk made from powdered milk with two heaping scoops of Folgers instant coffee added in. I collect my pen, notebook, and my prison latte and find a well lit area. Where that area ends up being tends to change by the day, there is no rhyme or reason as to which overhead lights the COs turn on throughout the week.

Usually I end up in the common room or the computer room, which ever one has lights on or enough light bleeding in from the hallway lights. I sit and write for the next hour. I write these letters to you, a daily journal, or responses to any mail I have received. I return to my bunk to await the 5:00 AM count. At 12:00AM, 3:00AM, 5:00AM, 4:00PM, and 9:00PM (and 10:00AM on weekends) we must be at our bunks as two guards come by our beds and count us to make sure we are all still there.

I await the count by beginning my full body stretching routine. I learnt this routine many years ago – during martial arts training – which focuses on stretching every major muscle group from neck to toe. It has become an essential part of my day since I wake up so sore and stiff from the paper thin mattress on the sheet metal bunk. Stretching makes me feel somewhat normal.

The 5:00 AM count usually takes place around 5:20. Two guards walk briskly by, their chains and keys jingling with their gait, and they presumably count you by shining a bright flashlight in your face – to be fair, only one particular CO does that, the others seem to be a bit more courteous and mindful that people are still trying to sleep.

While stretching I listen to my AM/FM radio. This radio is my prized possession, it connects me to the outside world unlike anything else in here. At 5:00AM I tune to the local public radio station 90.5 which plays the BBC World Service news and documentaries. I look forward to these daily programs greatly.

At 6:00AM the telephones and computers turn on. I check my prison email first. The computers aren’t like normal computers, imagine instead a 1990’s PC terminal with extremely limited functionality and designed specifically to be as frustrating as possible.

It costs $0.06/minute to read, reply, and compose emails. So I try to be as quick as possible when reading and responding to any emails I receive from my approved contacts. Right after checking email I call my wife Lauren.

There are 8 payphone style telephones in the housing unit, but only 2 of them work before 5:00 PM. There is no real reason for this restriction. BOP, backwards on purpose. The telephone line is usually quite bad. You often have to yell to be heard and a computerized woman interrupts you often to announce a reminder that this is indeed a call from a Federal Prison, as if we weren’t aware.

Despite the frustrations of the phone system I live for that 6:00AM call. You only are allocated 510 minutes per month, and the most you can spend on the phone in one session is 15 minutes. You then need to wait 30 minutes before you can use the phone again.

However, 510 minutes means you can only make a single 15 minute phone call per day and be left with three 15 minute phone calls extra for the month. So, I call Lauren once per day for 15 minutes and place one 15 minute call to my mother, my father, and my grandmother per month.
Rationing the phone minutes is stressful, making sure I have enough minutes left to make the calls I want to make is something I check and double check every week. But not to worry, being here is not a punishment, rationing my connection to the outside world must be one of those walls I built in my mind.

After my 15 minute call concludes I change into athletic clothing and head towards the recreation building which usually opens around 6:30 to 7:00 AM most days. I have made a friend in here and we play handball together most mornings for about an hour. It is good exercise and a fun game to play. A nice way to kill and hour. If we don’t play handball I try to spend some time doing cardio or strength training in the gym, depending on the day.

By 8:00 AM I am back in the housing unit getting ready to make breakfast. I usually make oatmeal with dried fruit and honey, but sometimes will opt for a vanilla protein shake. I purchase all these items from the commissary weekly. I choose to make both my protein shake and my oatmeal with powdered milk instead of water, for extra protein and because it tastes better and creamier than just using water.

Since I no longer go to breakfast in the chow hall at 6:00AM I do not have access to any milk cartons. I instead buy the powdered milk and either add hot water to it for oatmeal or cold water for the vanilla shake.

I prefer to cook for myself whenever I can now. By this time I have turned off the public radio station, the BBC world service is off air and has been replaced by NPR, which is so self important and out of touch that I cannot stand to listen to it. I switch to 101.9 FM WVAQ where a fun and casual “drivetime” radio show is airing. “Josh and Nikki in the morning” offers a casual and funny morning show that is easy to listen to. They play whatever the hits of the day are, which I do not recognize at all, but most of what they play is quite catchy.

There is one song performed by a female singer going on and on about “Ophelia”. I am not 100% certain but I suspect it may be Taylor Swift. I enjoy the song which I guess makes me a Swiftie? Maybe someone will write me a letter telling me who sings that.

After my breakfast, at around 9:00 AM I like to start my job. I actually have two prison jobs, but one is only on weekends. The one I do daily at 9:00 AM is “Bathroom Orderly”. Orderly is a fancy word for janitor.

At 9:00 AM I close the B-Wing bathroom and begin the grueling and frankly disgusting process of cleaning up after 80 men who seemingly are incapable of cleaning up after themselves. I am provided two rags, a spray bottle of disinfectant, a straw broom, and a musty mop. I have come up with a system that seems to be efficient and the most sanitary.

I sweep the entire bathroom and shower room first, trying to get all the pubic hair and dust into piles I can sweep into the dustbin. Afterwards I spray and wipe down the shelf and sinks using one of the allocated rags. I wipe away any hair or soap scum left in the sinks and ensure they are spotless.

I then move on to the showers, spraying the shelf, bench, and faucet handle and wiping them down. Again, I am aiming to remove errant hairs and dust. Sometimes there are other things I must wipe up that is not fit to discuss in this letter, but you can use your imagination.

Once the showers are complete, I wash out the rag and move on to the urinals. I wipe the top (how in the world does pubic hair get onto the top of a urinal. Please dear reader, I cannot figure it out) and sides, and most importantly the rim. It is not very nice, but it doesn’t take too long and it is satisfying when it is done.

Once the urinals are done I move onto the toilets. Spraying the bowl, the rim, the seat, the flush handle I wipe the underside of the seat and the rim down. I use a toilet brush to scrub inside the bowl. Finally I take the one unused rag and first wipe the handles of the flusher and then the top side of each toilet seat. Once all that is complete I mop the entire floor including the showers and each bathroom stall.

It usually takes about 45 minutes to an hour. I work up quite a sweat but I try to do a good job as I also use that bathroom and I prefer my bathroom to be clean. Once finished I take a shower. One of the only perks of the job of bathroom orderly is that I get to use the bathroom while it is freshly ‘clean’, before anyone else has the opportunity to desecrate it.

By 10:30 I am done with the shower and and the rest of my day is free. I am still working on how to fill this part of my day into my routine. Right now I mostly read and nap, and then read and nap some more.

I hope to become more productive with my time soon. Maybe I will take some classes when some become available to help fill the time. I try to avoid the several TV rooms as it seems mostly filled with people who do nothing else but watch TV and get quite territorial about the remote. Many times each of the TV rooms will be playing the same football game, which I have no interest in watching. So, TV is not a reliable or desired way to pass the time.

I cannot believe it has been one month already. It often feels like I am stuck in a bad dream I cannot wake from. An unending nightmare that me and many others here with me are living. The most we can do is figure out a way to make the time go by as quickly as possible so we can get back to our families and our lives. One month down, 59 left to go.

Thank you for reading,

Keonne Rodriguez

Write to Keonne:

Keonne Rodriguez
11404-511
FPC Morgantown
FEDERAL PRISON CAMP
P.O. BOX 1000
MORGANTOWN, WV 26507

Mailing Guidelines:

Please note: You can only send letters (no more than 3 pages long). No packages or other items are allowed. Books, magazines, and newspapers must be sent directly from the publisher or an online retailer like Amazon. All letters must include a full return address and sender name to be delivered.

This is a guest post by Keonne Rodriguez. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

This post Samourai Letter #4: Notes From The Inside first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Keonne Rodriguez.

Bitcoin Magazine

Michael Saylor’s Strategy (MSTR) Estimated To Have Already Bought Over 1,200 Bitcoin Today

Data from STRC.live and market trackers indicate that Michael Saylor’s bitcoin‑focused firm, Strategy, has purchased an estimated 1,200 BTC so far today via its preferred equity issuance. 

Yesterday, on March 10, Strategy’s Variable Rate Series A Preferred Stock (STRC) posted a record $409 million in daily trading volume, accompanied by 3% 30-day volatility and a one-month VWAP near $99.78, the highest sustained average since issuance. 

According to on‑chain indicators and STRC.live X posts, over 2000 bitcoin were accumulated that day, marking one of the largest one‑day buying events since the instrument’s launch and surpassing prior highs.

Strategy, the world’s largest public corporate holder of Bitcoin, has started to really lean on its Stretch (STRC) perpetual preferred shares to finance additional BTC purchases.

By amending its at‑the‑market program earlier this year, the company enabled multiple agents to sell STRC concurrently, boosting liquidity and enabling significant capital raises specifically earmarked for Bitcoin acquisition.

This latest estimated purchase comes on the heels of a $1.28 billion acquisition of 17,994 BTC announced in a recent SEC filing, which lifted Strategy’s total holdings to approximately 738,731 BTC, or roughly 3.5 % of Bitcoin’s circulating supply. 

That buy was funded through a combination of common stock and STRC issuance, underscoring the firm’s multi‑pronged funding approach.

How does Strategy’s STRC work?

STRC functions as a bridge between traditional income investors, who prefer predictable distributions, and Strategy’s Bitcoin-heavy balance sheet, which carries both long-term asymmetry and short-term volatility. 

The preferred stock’s variable-rate structure maintains demand near its $100 par value while paying a monthly dividend yielding roughly 11.5% annually, effectively translating Bitcoin treasury economics into a format accessible to fixed-income investors.

The combination of record liquidity and low volatility signals a shift in the investor base toward income-focused capital, which stabilizes trading behavior. These trends are early signs of product-market fit: a financial instrument meeting structural demand rather than relying on promotion.

For corporate leaders evaluating Bitcoin treasury strategies, STRC represents a way to add Bitcoin into broader capital structures.

It channels capital from multiple investor classes toward a common strategic reserve, potentially reshaping how companies finance operations and deploy Bitcoin as a structural asset.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading near $71,000 and Strategy’s stock (MSTR) is trading down half a percentage point on the day. 

This post Michael Saylor’s Strategy (MSTR) Estimated To Have Already Bought Over 1,200 Bitcoin Today first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin is Now a Global Financial Player as Institutions Take the Helm: Bitwise

Bitcoin is crossing a structural threshold, evolving from an experimental digital asset into a macro-scale instrument with global capital relevance, according to analysis from Bitwise.

Bitcoin’s market capitalization, liquidity depth, and volatility profile now resemble established macro markets, with price dynamics being shaped by institutional flows rather than retail-driven reflexive cycles.

More than $1 trillion in capital has been absorbed by the Bitcoin network, showing its growing intrinsic value. The protocol continues to function as a high-value settlement system, with trillions of dollars in economically meaningful transfers moving across the base layer in recent years, Bitwise wrote.

Institutional participation has accelerated through US spot ETFs, which began trading on January 11, 2024. These products rapidly realised latent demand for regulated Bitcoin exposure, recording the fastest asset growth in ETF history. 

According to Glassnode and Bitwise data, current holdings in US spot ETFs total 1.26 million BTC, equivalent to roughly 6.3% of circulating supply and $84.9 billion in economic value. 

Net cumulative inflows reached $54.4 billion, suggesting ETFs are absorbing a substantial share of on-chain profit, estimated at close to 9% of realised gains.

The expansion of Bitcoin options markets further signals institutionalisation. Open interest across Deribit and IBIT reached tens of billions of dollars, providing liquid instruments for hedging and yield generation. 

IBIT has gained parity with Deribit, reflecting broader participation from institutions employing options strategies to manage exposure and deploy larger spot positions.

On-chain activity shows structural transformation in investor behaviour. Large transactions above $1 million now dominate total volume, accounting for nearly 69% of all transfers since the November 2022 low. 

Bitcoin’s long-term holders are increasing as price behavior changes

Long-Term Holders, defined as addresses holding coins for more than 155 days, captured 75% of realised profit this cycle, marking a shift from prior cycles where mature holders accounted for roughly half of profit. Coin age analysis indicates older, dormant supply is re-entering circulation, aligning with the phase of mature investor distribution.

Price behavior has also shifted. Bitcoin’s realised volatility has declined, and its drawdown profile now more closely resembles that of major equities, such as the QQQ.

Institutional participants have acted as a structural backstop during stress events, absorbing forced selling and mitigating extreme drawdowns. While the market remains sensitive to shocks, the combination of ETF accumulation, options hedging, and large-scale on-chain flows has created deeper market structure and liquidity.

Recent macro events have tested Bitcoin’s resilience. During geopolitical shocks over the last couple of weeks and market turbulence, BTC traded near $70,000, briefly dipping to $60,000. 

Options positioning reflects cautious rebuilding of exposure, with risk reversals indicating sustained interest in downside protection. 

The macro backdrop, characterised by higher Treasury yields, inflation pressures, and energy market volatility, has created a stagflationary environment, yet Bitcoin has maintained stability relative to traditional high-beta assets, according to analysis from QCP. 

In other words, Bitcoin is moving beyond being just a speculative digital asset. It’s becoming a tool that plays a real role in the global financial system. 

Long-time holders are gradually letting go of coins that have sat untouched for years, while ETFs and other big investors are stepping in to absorb them. 

This shift shows that Bitcoin is increasingly seen as both a reliable store of value and a global settlement network — a sign that its role in finance is evolving for the long term.

This post Bitcoin is Now a Global Financial Player as Institutions Take the Helm: Bitwise first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

The Core Issue: Outrunning Entropy, Why Bitcoin Can’t Stand Still

Intro

Bitcoin’s “don’t trust, verify” culture requires that the ledger can be rebuilt by anyone from scratch. After processing all historical transactions every user should arrive at the exact same local state of everyone’s funds as the rest of the network.

This reproducibility is at the heart of Bitcoin’s trust-minimized design, but it comes at a significant cost: after almost 17 years, this ever-growing database forces newcomers to do more work than ever before they can join the Bitcoin network.

When bootstrapping a new node it has to download, verify, and persist every block from genesis to the current chain tip – a resource-intensive synchronization process called Initial Block Download (IBD).

While consumer hardware continues to improve, keeping IBD requirements low remains critical for maintaining decentralization by keeping validation accessible to everyone – from lower-powered devices like Raspberry Pis to high-powered servers.

Benchmarking process

Performance optimization begins with understanding how software components, data patterns, hardware, and network conditions interact to create bottlenecks in performance. This requires extensive experimentation, most of which gets discarded. Beyond the usual balancing act between speed, memory usage, and maintainability, Bitcoin Core developers must choose the lowest-risk/highest-return changes. Valid-but-minor optimizations are often rejected as too risky relative to their benefit.

We have a significant suite of micro-benchmarks to ensure existing functionality doesn’t degrade in performance. These are useful for catching regressions, i.e. performance backslides in individual pieces of code, but aren’t necessarily representative of overall IBD performance.

Contributors proposing optimizations provide reproducers and measurements across different environments: operating systems, compilers, storage types (SSD vs HDD), network speeds, dbcache sizes, node configurations (pruned vs archival), and index combinations. We write single-use benchmarks and use compiler explorers for validating which setup would perform better in that specific scenario (e.g. intra-block duplicate transaction checking with Hash Set vs Sorted Set vs Sorted vector).

We’re also regularly benchmarking the IBD process. This can be done by reindexing the chainstate and optionally the block index from local block files, or doing a full IBD either from local peers (to avoid slow peers affecting timings) or from the wider p2p network itself.

IBD benchmarks often show smaller improvements than micro-benchmarks since network bandwidth or other I/O is often the bottleneck; downloading the blockchain alone takes ~16 hours with average global internet speeds.

For maximum reproducibility -reindex-chainstate is often favored, creating memory and CPU profiles before and after the optimization and validating how the change affects other functionality.

Historical and ongoing improvements

Early Bitcoin Core versions were designed for a much smaller blockchain. The original Satoshi prototype laid the foundations, but without constant innovation from Bitcoin Core developers it would not have been able to handle the network’s unprecedented growth.

Originally the block index stored every historic transaction and whether they were spent, but in 2012, “Ultraprune” (PR #1677) created a dedicated database for tracking unspent transaction outputs, forming the UTXO set, which pre-caches the latest state of all spendable coins, providing a unified view for validation. Combined with a database migration from Berkeley DB to LevelDB validation speeds were significantly improved.

However, this database migration caused the BIP50[1] chain fork when a block with many transaction inputs was accepted by upgraded nodes but rejected by older versions as being too complicated. This highlights how Bitcoin Core development differs from typical software engineering: even pure performance optimizations have the potential to result in unintended chain splits.

The following year (PR #2060) enabled multithreaded signature validation. Around the same time, the specialized cryptographic library libsecp256k1 was created, and was integrated into Bitcoin Core in 2014. Over the following decade, through continuous optimizations, it became more than 8x faster than the same functionality in the general-purpose OpenSSL library.

Headers-first sync (PR #4468, 2014) restructured the IBD process to first download the block header chain with the most accumulated work, then fetch blocks from multiple peers simultaneously. Besides accelerating IBD it also eliminated wasted bandwidth on blocks that would be orphaned as they were not in the main chain.

In 2016 PR #9049 removed what appeared to be a redundant duplicate-input check, introducing a consensus bug that could have allowed supply inflation. Fortunately, it was discovered and patched before exploitation. This incident drove major testing resource investments. Today, with differential fuzzing, broad coverage, and stricter review discipline, Bitcoin Core surfaces and resolves issues far more quickly, with no comparable consensus hazards reported since.[2].

In 2017 -assumevalid (PR #9484) separated general block validity checks from the expensive signature verification, making the latter optional for most of IBD, cutting its time roughly in half. Block structure, proof-of-work, and spending rules remain fully verified: -assumevalid skips signature checks entirely for all blocks up to a certain block height.

In 2022 PR #25325 replaced Bitcoin Core’s ordinary memory allocator with a custom pool-based allocator optimized for the coins cache. By designing specifically for Bitcoin’s allocation patterns, it reduced memory waste and improved cache efficiency, delivering ~21% faster IBD while fitting more coins in the same memory footprint.

While code itself doesn’t rot, the system it operates within constantly evolves. Every 10 minutes Bitcoin’s state changes – usage patterns shift, bottlenecks migrate. Maintenance and optimization aren’t optional; without constant adaptation, Bitcoin would accumulate vulnerabilities faster than a static codebase could defend against, and IBD performance would steadily regress despite advances in hardware.

The increasing size of the UTXO set and growth in average block weight exemplify this evolution. Tasks that were once CPU-bound (like signature verification) are now often Input/Output (IO)-bound due to heavier chainstate access (having to check the UTXO set on disk). This shift has driven new priorities: improving memory caching, reducing LevelDB flush frequency, and parallelizing disk reads to keep modern multi-core CPUs busy.

Recent optimizations

The software designs are based on predicted usage patterns, which inevitably diverge from reality as the network evolves. Bitcoin’s deterministic workload allows us to measure actual behavior and course correct later, ensuring performance keeps pace with the network’s growth.

We’re constantly adjusting defaults to better fit real-world usage patterns. A few examples:

• PR #30039 increased LevelDB’s max file size – a single parameter change that delivered ~30% IBD speedup by better matching how the chainstate database (UTXO set) is actually accessed.
• PR #31645 doubled the flush batch size, reducing fragmented disk writes during IBD’s most write-intensive phase and speeding up progress saves when IBD is interrupted.
• PR #32279 adjusted the internal prevector storage size (used mainly for in-memory script storage). The old pre-segwit threshold prioritized older script templates at the expense of newer ones. By adjusting the capacity to cover modern script sizes, heap allocations are avoided, memory fragmentation is reduced, and script execution benefits from better cache locality.

All small, surgical changes with measurable validation impacts.

Beyond parameter tuning, some changes required rethinking existing designs:

• PR #28280 improved how pruned nodes (which discard old blocks to save disk space) handle frequent memory cache flushes. The original design either dumped the entire cache or scanned it to find modified entries. Selectively tracking modified entries enabled over 30% speedup for pruned nodes with maximum dbcache and ~9% improvement with default settings.
• PR #31551 introduced read/write batching for block files, reducing the overhead of many small filesystem operations. The 4x-8x speedup in block file access improved not just IBD but other RPCs as well.
• PR #31144 optimized the existing optional block file obfuscation (used to make sure data isn’t stored in cleartext on disk) by processing 64-bit chunks instead of byte-by-byte operations, delivering another IBD speedup. With obfuscation being essentially free users no longer need to choose between safe storage and performance.

Other minor caching optimizations (such as PR #32487) enabled adding additional safety checks that were deemed too expensive before (PR #32638).

Similarly, we can now flush the cache more frequently to disk (PR #30611), ensuring nodes never lose more than one hour of validation work in case of crashes. The modest overhead was acceptable because earlier optimizations had already made IBD significantly faster.

PR #32043 currently serves as a tracker for IBD-related performance improvements. It groups a dozen ongoing efforts, from disk and cache tuning to concurrency enhancements, and provides a framework for measuring how each change affects real-world performance. This approach encourages contributors to present not only code but also reproducible benchmarks, profiling data, and cross-hardware comparisons.

Future optimization suggestions

PR #31132 parallelizes transaction input fetching during block validation. Currently, each input is fetched from the UTXO set sequentially – cache misses require disk round trips, creating an IO bottleneck. The PR introduces parallel fetching across multiple worker threads, achieving up to ~30% faster -reindex-chainstate (~10 hours on a Raspberry Pi 5 with 450MB dbcache). As a side effect, this narrows the performance gap between small and large -dbcache values, potentially allowing nodes with modest memory to sync nearly as fast as high-memory configurations.

Besides IBD, PR #26966 parallelizes block filter and transaction index construction using configurable worker threads.

Keeping the persisted UTXO set compact is critical for node accessibility. PR #33817 experiments with reducing it slightly by removing an optional LevelDB feature that might not be needed for Bitcoin’s specific use case.

SwiftSync[3] is an experimental approach leveraging our hindsight about historical blocks. Knowing the actual outcome, we can categorize every encountered coin by its final state at the target height: those still unspent (which we store) and those spent by that height (which we can ignore, merely verifying they appear in matching create/spend pairs anywhere). Pre-generated hints encode this classification, allowing nodes to skip UTXO operations for short-lived coins entirely.

Bitcoin Is Open To Anyone

Beyond synthetic benchmarks, a recent experiment[4] ran the SwiftSync prototype on an underclocked Raspberry Pi 5 powered by a battery pack over WiFi, completing -reindex-chainstate of 888,888 blocks in 3h 14m. Measurements with equivalent configurations show a 250% full validation speedup[5] across recent Bitcoin Core versions.

Years of accumulated work translate to genuine impact: fully validating nearly a million blocks can now be done in less than a day on cheap hardware, maintaining accessibility despite continuous blockchain growth.

Self-sovereignty is more accessible than ever.

Don’t miss your chance to own The Core Issue — featuring articles written by many Core Developers explaining the projects they work on themselves!

This piece is the Letter from the Editor featured in the latest Print edition of Bitcoin Magazine, The Core Issue. We’re sharing it here as an early look at the ideas explored throughout the full issue.

[1] https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0050.mediawiki

[2] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Common_Vulnerabilities_and_Exposures 

[3] https://delvingbitcoin.org/t/swiftsync-speeding-up-ibd-with-pre-generated-hints-poc/1562 

[4] https://x.com/L0RINC/status/1972062557835088347

[5] https://x.com/L0RINC/status/1970918510248575358 

All Pull Requests (PR) listed in this article can be looked up by number here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pulls

This post The Core Issue: Outrunning Entropy, Why Bitcoin Can’t Stand Still first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by willcl-ark, l0rinc and hodlinator.

Bitcoin Magazine

Mastercard Launches Global Crypto Partner Program to Bridge Digital Assets and Traditional Payments

Mastercard has unveiled a new global initiative aimed at bringing crypto into the mainstream of financial services. 

The Crypto Partner Program, announced Wednesday, gathers more than 85 companies across the blockchain, fintech, and traditional banking sectors, including Binance, Circle, Gemini, PayPal, Paxos, Ripple, BitGo, and Crypto.com. 

The program is designed to explore practical applications for on-chain technology within existing payment infrastructure, focusing on areas such as cross-border transfers, business-to-business payments, and global payouts.

Executives at Mastercard, including Raj Dhamodharan, executive vice president of Digital Asset Blockchain Products & Partnerships, and Sherri Haymond, executive vice president of Digital Commercialization, described the launch as a response to the evolving role of digital assets in financial markets. 

They said that digital assets are entering a new phase, noting that blockchain and crypto are increasingly used to solve real-world problems rather than operate purely as parallel systems. 

For instance, blockchain tools can enable instant settlement, programmable payments, and round-the-clock cross-border transfers—capabilities that complement existing payment rails rather than replace them.

Mastercard’s collaboration across crypto

The Crypto Partner Program is structured to promote collaboration across the ecosystem. Participants will work directly with Mastercard teams on product development and strategic direction, helping to shape services that integrate the speed and flexibility of on-chain payments with the global infrastructure of card networks. 

The program also provides forums for partners to exchange ideas, share expertise, and coordinate on industry standards. 

According to Mastercard, the goal is practical execution: translating technical innovation into solutions that are scalable, compliant, and capable of operating across multiple markets.

This initiative builds on years of previous engagement with the crypto sector. 

Mastercard has supported crypto-linked payment cards, backed blockchain startups through its Start Path accelerator, and developed services to help banks manage compliance and risk around digital assets. 

By creating a structured partnership framework, the company hopes to accelerate adoption of digital assets while maintaining the trust, oversight, and global connectivity that define its core business.

The move comes amid broader efforts by traditional payment networks to integrate digital assets. Visa, for example, has tested settlements using stablecoins and collaborated with blockchain firms to explore tokenized dollar payments. 

Banks are similarly experimenting with blockchain-based deposits and payment systems. Mastercard’s approach emphasizes the integration of innovation into the systems consumers and businesses already rely on. 

Its network touches banks, merchants, and consumers in over 200 countries, providing a scale and reliability that on-chain solutions alone cannot match.

Mastercard describes the program as “built for innovators, designed for deployment.” By fostering collaboration among crypto-native companies, payment providers, and financial institutions, the initiative aims to align innovation across the industry while supporting responsible growth. 

For Dhamodharan and Haymond, the objective is clear: “By bridging on-chain innovation with the framework that powers everyday payments, we’re helping ensure that what’s next works with what already does.”

This post Mastercard Launches Global Crypto Partner Program to Bridge Digital Assets and Traditional Payments first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Binance returns to Iran sanctions scrutiny after its $4.3 billion U.S. plea

The Justice Department is reportedly probing Iran’s use of Binance to evade sanctions, pulling the world’s largest crypto exchange back into a national security case less than three years after it pleaded guilty in the U.S. and agreed to a resolution worth more than $4.3 billion.

The clearest fact at the outset is the contradiction. Binance already admitted to sanctions and anti-money-laundering failures in 2023.

It accepted penalties, a monitor, and years of U.S. oversight. Now prosecutors are reportedly examining alleged Iran-linked activity that earlier Wall Street Journal reporting said Binance’s own investigators had flagged internally.

The most concrete detail in that earlier report is the alleged route. More than $1 billion was reportedly tied to Blessed Trust, and about $1.7 billion in suspect transfers was allegedly identified overall.

One key account was reportedly marked “internal.” Those details raise questions about how intermediary accounts were handled and how internal controls were applied when investigators reviewed activity connected to Iranian entities and proxies.

Binance disputes that account. The company said its review found no sanctions violations, that the entities in question were investigated and offboarded, and that no Iran-based entities transacted directly on the platform.

Binance also filed a defamation suit over the coverage, turning a compliance dispute into an active courtroom fight.

The central question is whether the largest offshore venue in crypto still has weaknesses in the parts of its business regulators examine most closely under sanctions law.

Crypto can be misused in many settings, but this case centers on whether controls introduced after the 2023 plea were strong enough to detect and stop activity linked to Iran.

That is a direct test of the credibility Binance has tried to rebuild with users, counterparties, and regulators since the U.S. settlement and founder Changpeng Zhao's pardon.

The scale raises the stakes well beyond a public relations problem. Kaiko research showed Binance reached 300 million registered accounts in December 2025 and processed more than $20 billion in daily spot volume across 1,630 trading pairs.

Separate market share data from CoinGecko put Binance at 38.3% of centralized exchange spot activity in December 2025, with $361.8 billion in monthly spot volume that month and $7.3 trillion across 2025.

Exchange data showed about $10.0 billion in 24-hour spot volume and $151.2 billion in reported reserve assets. When a venue that large reenters an Iran sanctions case, the issue extends to offshore price discovery, settlement, and market-making across the wider sector.

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What current prices show, and what they do not

Current price action points to legal-risk pricing, with no sign of panic yet. CryptoSlate market data showed Bitcoin at $69,909, down 1.17% over 24 hours and 2.01% over seven days, while BNB traded at $643, down 0.59% over 24 hours and 1.15% over seven days.

Over 30 days, Bitcoin was up 1.12%, and BNB was up 2.65%. Bitcoin dominance stood at 58%, a sign the market still leans toward the deepest and most liquid asset while treating Binance-specific risk as separate from Bitcoin’s institutional position.

That split matters for market structure. Bitcoin’s role in ETF portfolios and large institutional allocations does not automatically move with confidence in offshore exchanges.

Users and trading firms can cut exposure to exchange-linked risk without abandoning Bitcoin itself. They can rebalance between venues, trim exposure to exchange-linked tokens, or reduce activity in pairs that depend more heavily on offshore liquidity.

BNB remains the cleaner pressure valve because it sits closer to Binance’s brand and business. With a market cap of $87.75 billion, BNB is far smaller than Bitcoin and can absorb reputational stress more abruptly if the legal dispute produces visible user behavior.

No public reserve cliff has emerged so far. No sharp break in spot share data has surfaced, and no broad counterparty retreat is visible in the available market snapshot.

Even so, confidence can shift quickly once users decide to diversify balances across venues.

The scale of any balance migration is already large in dollar terms. Using Binance’s disclosed assets of about $150.36 billion, a 2% shift would equal roughly $3 billion.

A 5% shift would equal about $7.5 billion, and a 10% shift would equal about $15 billion. Those figures are scenario markers, not predictions.

They show the size of the balance base that could move if the dispute widens from legal scrutiny into a trust problem among users, market makers, and trading firms.

Those same ranges also help frame trading activity. Against Binance’s current 24-hour spot volume of about $10 billion, a 2% asset shift would equal about 30% of one day’s turnover.

A 5% move would equal about 75%, and a 10% move would equal about 150%. The comparison is imperfect because reserves and daily volume measure different things, but it gives readers a concrete sense of how quickly a legal dispute can overlap with exchange liquidity if behavior changes.

There is also a legal limit on what can be stated today. The report did not establish whether prosecutors are examining Binance itself, specific users, intermediary accounts, or some combination of them.

That distinction shapes the whole case. A probe centered on customer misuse would still be serious.

A probe that shifts toward whether Binance enabled or failed to stop the activity after the 2023 plea would carry much heavier consequences.

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Nov 17, 2025 · Liam 'Akiba' Wright

Why the Iran angle extends beyond Binance

The broader enforcement backdrop suggests U.S. agencies are already focused on crypto routes tied to Iran. On Jan. 30, the Treasury Department designated Zedcex and Zedxion, two UK-registered digital asset exchanges tied to Iranian sanctions evasion and the IRGC.

Treasury said Zedcex had processed more than $94 billion in transactions. That action shows regulators are examining venues, intermediary companies, and cross-border settlement networks rather than limiting their attention to isolated wallet addresses.

Blockchain data points in the same direction. TRM Labs research said stablecoin activity exceeded $1 trillion in monthly transaction volume multiple times in 2025.

It also said illicit entities received about $141 billion through stablecoin wallets, with sanctions-related activity accounting for 86% of all illicit crypto flows in 2025.

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Those figures put stablecoins near the center of sanctions-linked crypto activity and help explain why alleged Binance activity connected to Iran draws attention well beyond one exchange.

Iran’s own crypto market structure reinforces that point. A separate TRM Labs analysis said Nobitex handled more than 87% of Iranian crypto volume in 2025 and processed about $3 billion.

About $2 billion moved over TRON, mainly in TRC-20 USDT and TRX. Regulators following sanctions evasion through digital assets are therefore likely to focus on stablecoins, partner entities, and chain-specific settlement corridors that can support trade and transfers at scale.

Activity in Washington over the past few weeks fits that broader pattern. Sen. Richard Blumenthal opened an inquiry on Feb. 24 that cited the reported $1.7 billion in transfers, the alleged roles of Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale, and roughly 2,000 accounts associated with Iranian entities.

Senate Banking Democrats then pressed Treasury and DOJ on Feb. 27 to investigate Binance over sanctions and illicit-finance concerns.

Those steps do not prove prosecutors will act against Binance. Pressure has, however, shifted from media reporting to formal questions within the U.S. enforcement system.

Binance’s defense remains significant. The company said exposure to wallets linked to illicit activity fell nearly 97% from early 2024 to mid-2025, including a 97.3% reduction in exposure to major Iranian crypto exchanges.

It also said there were no direct transactions involving Iran-based entities on Binance. If that account holds up, the dispute could narrow to intermediaries, offboarding decisions, and whether published claims overstated what internal reviews actually found.

The lawsuit filed today is meant to push that dispute into discovery and court filings.

Markets reprice risk on uncertainty, reassessing whether Binance’s offshore dominance still deserves the same trust premium.

At the moment, the most likely path is a prolonged probe with limited immediate market damage. A softer outcome would keep the focus on users or intermediaries and leave balance migration below roughly 2% of disclosed assets, or about $3 billion.

A harsher outcome would shift attention toward Binance itself, pressure counterparties, and push migration into the 2% to 5% range, or roughly $3 billion to $7.5 billion.

A low-probability shock would involve direct action touching linked entities or routes and could force more than 10% of disclosed assets, or more than $15 billion, to move or be repositioned.

The next set of public facts should clarify whether this dispute stays in the zone of reporting, denial, and litigation or develops into a visible market event.

The most important signals are reserve changes, spot share shifts, BNB weakness versus Bitcoin, and any steps by DOJ, Treasury, FinCEN, or OFAC that put names and allegations behind the current scrutiny.

For now, the clearest point remains unchanged. Binance already paid to resolve one major U.S. sanctions and AML case, and it is now back under fresh Iran-linked scrutiny while trying to fight the allegations in court.

The post DOJ probes Binance again over Iran-linked crypto flows after $4.3B settlement and CZ pardon appeared first on CryptoSlate.

An Oil Scare Near Hormuz Showed How Fast Bitcoin Reverts to a Risk Trade

While Bitcoin has rebounded and held above $70,000 over the last 48 hours, the acute phase of the latest oil shock showed the market’s first instinct: sell crypto when inflation fear rises, and the path to easier money gets harder.

Still, why does the price of oil even matter for Bitcoin? Few Bitcoin miners use oil to power machines, so shouldn't Bitcoin be detached from energy volatility?

Well, on March 9, Bitcoin fell to a seven-day low as Brent crude surged and traders cut exposure across risk assets.

You see, energy pricing is a major factor in determining inflation, which Bitcoin is meant to be a hedge against. That axiom, however, has become a long-running debate.

The move did not settle whether Bitcoin can protect holders from inflation over the long term. It did, however, clarify something narrower and more immediate.

In the first phase of a war-driven oil scare, traders treated Bitcoin like a liquidity-sensitive macro asset rather than a refuge. Fresh attacks near the Strait of Hormuz and the threat of wider shipping disruption pushed oil higher before any fully confirmed physical closure of the route.

The Strait of Hormuz still carries about 20 million barrels a day of oil and oil products and nearly 20% of global LNG trade.

The surge lifted the energy risk premium, revived inflation concerns, and hardened the market’s view that central banks may have less room to ease.

The direct Bitcoin link appeared in both price action and flows.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded net outflows of $227.9 million on March 5 and $348.9 million on March 6. Flows then flipped to inflows of $167.1 million on March 9 and $246.9 million on March 10 as oil cooled and reserve-release discussions gained traction.

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Bitcoin’s market cap fell from about $1.453 trillion on March 5 to about $1.322 trillion on March 9, a roughly $131 billion drop. By March 11, the asset had rebounded to around $70,200, up about 0.9% over 24 hours, 1.3% over seven days, and 2.0% over 30 days.

It's now clear that real-world inflation panic, especially when it arrives through oil and shipping risk, still pushes Bitcoin to trade like a risk asset first.

The rebound indicates the selloff belonged to the acute shock window, when traders reacted to higher energy costs, tighter financial conditions, and a rapid repricing of macro risk.

Hormuz Still Hits Bitcoin Even if the U.S. Does Not Need Many of Its Barrels

The United States does not need to import large volumes of crude through Hormuz for Bitcoin to feel the shock. EIA data shows the U.S. imported about 0.5 million barrels a day of crude and condensate through the strait in 2024, equal to roughly 2% of U.S. petroleum liquids consumption.

The familiar “America is energy independent” shorthand, therefore, offers limited guidance in this situation. Physical dependence is low, but financial exposure remains significant.

Hormuz remains the world’s primary oil chokepoint.

The IEA estimates flows through the strait at roughly 20 million barrels a day in 2025, about a quarter of global seaborne oil trade. Bypass capacity is only about 3.5 million to 5.5 million barrels a day.

The route also carries LNG exports from Qatar and the UAE equal to nearly one-fifth of global LNG trade. Asia absorbs most of that exposure. EIA data shows about 84% of Hormuz crude and condensate flows and 83% of LNG flows move to Asian markets.

However, benchmark pricing does not remain confined to Asia. Brent resets globally, as do freight costs, insurance pricing, airline fuel assumptions, and inflation expectations.

Those pricing shifts reach Bitcoin through macro channels.

When oil rises quickly, traders begin pricing in stickier inflation and less urgency for rate cuts.

U.S. five-year breakeven inflation rose from 2.46% on March 4 to 2.56% on March 6 and March 9, before easing slightly to 2.53% on March 10.

We're talking about market expectations here, not the final verdict on inflation, and they shifted before any full physical shortage at the pump appeared.

The timing is important.

The latest U.S. CPI data, at 2.4% year-over-year, largely predates the latest oil shock.

Yet, the war now keeps the issue alive ahead of the March 17–18 Federal Open Market Committee meeting.

If oil holds in the high $80s or $90s instead of retreating, inflation expectations may shift again. That environment makes it harder for policymakers to signal easier financial conditions, and speculative trades tend to react quickly.

Bitcoin sits within that category.

The asset still benefits from long-run scarcity narratives and periodic distrust of fiat systems. During an abrupt oil scare, however, traders often reduce positions in liquid and volatile assets first.

Shipping risk can therefore tighten Bitcoin’s macro backdrop before any American refinery faces a crude shortage.

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The ETF Wrapper Has Made the Macro Transmission Faster and Easier to Read

March volatility also highlighted how much Bitcoin’s market structure has changed. The ETF era has not insulated crypto from macro stress. Instead, it has made the impact easier to measure in real time.

When the oil scare intensified, money left U.S. spot products quickly. When pressure eased, the same wrapper showed buyers returning just as rapidly.

This provides a clearer signal than older exchange-based narratives centered on offshore leverage or crypto-native sentiment.

The sequence is straightforward. On March 5 and March 6, net flows across U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs were sharply negative. By March 9 and March 10, those flows had turned positive again.

The reversal followed the same macro pattern visible in oil. Risk assets sold off amid rising inflation fears, then recovered after discussions about reserve releases and signs of de-escalation eased pressure.

IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said all options, including emergency stock releases, were discussed. Member countries hold more than 1.2 billion barrels of public emergency reserves plus another 600 million barrels of industry stocks under government obligation.

The possibility of reserve releases helped establish a potential ceiling for the most extreme oil outcomes. That shift encouraged buyers to return to Bitcoin.

The initial reaction resembled a conventional sell-the-risk trade; it also carried a measurable cost.

The roughly $131.5 billion decline in Bitcoin’s market cap between March 5 and March 9 provides a concrete measure of how quickly an external shipping shock can erase value from crypto markets.

The market recovered part of that decline once crude prices cooled. Even so, the drawdown highlighted Bitcoin’s sensitivity to the same inflation and interest-rate dynamics that affect high-beta equities.

The oil surge also puts pressure on gasoline, travel, and household budgets. In the U.K., the OBR warned the crisis could push inflation to 3% by the end of 2026, one percentage point above its earlier projection.

One narrow waterway can therefore influence fuel costs, inflation expectations, central-bank policy signals, and Bitcoin demand within the same week.

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What Traders Need to Watch Before the Fed Meets

The next phase depends on several immediate variables.

Traders should monitor whether attacks on commercial shipping continue, whether insurers and tanker operators avoid the route, and whether emergency stock discussions turn into formal action.

Also, whether Brent holds in the high $80s and $90s or falls further, and whether ETF inflows remain positive.

The March 17–18 FOMC meeting is the next major checkpoint.

It will not resolve the oil market, but it could clarify whether policymakers treat the latest energy shock as temporary noise or a complication for the easing path.

EIA’s base case still points to lower oil later in the year. Its March outlook projects Brent averaging $91 in the second quarter of 2026 before falling to $70 in the fourth quarter and $64 in 2027. The forecast assumes global inventories rise by 1.9 million barrels a day in 2026 and 3.0 million barrels a day in 2027.

Standard Chartered, by contrast, raised its 2026 Brent average forecast to $70 from $63.50, citing upside risk if conflict damages production or shipping further.

JPMorgan has warned that if Hormuz remains effectively closed for more than 25 days, storage constraints could force Gulf producers into shut-ins, or involuntary production stoppages.

That range leaves multiple possible outcomes.

The base case assumes disruption without catastrophe, enough tension to keep inflation expectations elevated but not enough to trigger a sustained collapse in flows.

A bullish outcome for Bitcoin would involve oil retreating further, stronger confidence that reserves can cap prices, and steady ETF inflows.

A bearish outcome would involve renewed attacks, persistent shipping avoidance, and crude moving back toward triple digits.

The tail risk involves a prolonged effective closure that forces production shut-ins across Gulf producers and keeps the inflation impulse alive long enough to shift policy expectations more sharply.

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For now, the clearest take is that the inflation-hedge narrative faced a real-time test.

Inflation concerns driven by oil prompted traders to sell Bitcoin during the initial shock.

The rebound above $70,000 shows how quickly sentiment can reverse once crude prices cool and supply fears ease.

The next test arrives with the Fed meeting on March 17–18, and any developments affecting shipping through Hormuz.

If oil remains elevated, the tension between Bitcoin’s hedge narrative and its behavior as a macro risk asset will remain unresolved.

The post Why oil panic hitting global markets caused traders to dump Bitcoin instead of hiding in it appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Kalshi's first move outside the United States is not London, not Singapore, not any of the financial centers that have spent years building crypto-friendly regulatory frameworks.

It is Brazil, through XP International and its brokerage arm, Clear, offering prediction markets to Brazilian investors as a “new asset class” anchored at launch to economic events such as inflation prints and interest rate decisions.

The company frames the product as a federally regulated derivative rather than a bet.
Brazil's government frames what it is already dealing with as a public health emergency.
Both things can be true. The tension between them is the story.

What Kalshi and XP actually built

The Mar. 9 announcement describes prediction markets as “derivative financial instruments” under the CFTC's regulatory framework.

Access begins with Clear clients who already hold international investment accounts through XP International. Bloomberg reported the initial contracts center on Brazilian macro variables, such as IPCA inflation and Selic rate decisions, rather than sports outcomes or electoral results.

That product framing matters: Kalshi's entry pitch is macro-first, brokerage-distributed, and aimed at an investor base that already navigates international markets.

XP is not a niche vehicle for this. The firm reported 4.762 million active clients, R$1.491 trillion in client assets, and 18,000 advisors as of the fourth quarter of 2025.

Kalshi's cofounder cited the logic directly: international partners “already have the customers” and “the brand.” The distribution math explains the geography before any cultural argument is made.

The country Kalshi is entering

Brazil spent 2025 building anti-addiction infrastructure at the national scale.

The Finance Ministry blocked more than 25,000 illegal betting sites that year. The government's centralized self-exclusion platform received more than 217,000 self-blocking requests in its first 40 days of operation.

The amount is equivalent to 73% of users choosing indefinite blocks, and 37% explicitly cited loss of control or mental health as the reason.

Brazil's Health Ministry launched a betting health observatory, a dedicated line of care for gambling-related harms, and tele-mental-health support beginning in February 2026, with 20,000 professionals in training.

The prevalence data behind these moves is not soft.

A LENAD-based study reported by FAPESP found roughly 10.9 million Brazilians over age 14 gamble in ways that harm their finances, family life, or mental health, with about 1.4 million fitting a more severe gambling disorder profile.

Brazil's Justice Ministry put it more bluntly: 38.6% of people who participate in betting show some degree of addiction risk or disorder, a figure that climbs to 55.2% among adolescents aged 14 to 17.

Brazil's Central Bank documented 24 million people making at least one Pix transfer to betting firms between January and August 2024, with monthly flows later revised upward to as much as R$30 billion in 2025.

The country Kalshi is entering already treats binary event speculation at mass retail scale as a consumer protection problem that requires government infrastructure to contain it.

Why 2026 makes the contradiction visible

The launch calendar accelerates the tension without requiring Kalshi to have planned it that way.
Brazil's general election runs on Oct. 4, with a runoff on Oct. 25 if needed. The 2026 FIFA World Cup runs from Jun. 11 through Jul. 19.

Kalshi's first foreign market is now live in the year most saturated with exactly the binary, high-stakes, headline-driven events that prediction market platforms typically monetize most.

Kalshi has not announced any election or sports contracts for Brazil, and the official rollout language remains macro.

However, the brokerage infrastructure now exists, the distribution partner has nearly five million active clients, and the product category has already demonstrated that event contract volume can scale rapidly when the public perceives an election outcome as genuinely uncertain.

Whether Kalshi expands its Brazilian contract menu toward those events is a product decision, not a foregone conclusion. The surrounding conditions make the contradictions harder to contain, if they do.

The economics that the “Market of Truth” pitch skips

Prediction markets carry an idealistic intellectual framing, surrounding Vitalik Buterin's “info finance” thesis, the idea that contract prices aggregate dispersed knowledge into useful probability estimates.

Academic work on Kalshi's own contracts adds friction to that story.

A CEPR analysis of more than 300,000 Kalshi contracts found that prices become more informative as expiry approaches, but also a favorite longshot bias, and that makers consistently outperform takers. The average pre-fee contract returns are around -20%, and the average after-fee returns are around -22%.

On Polygon-based Polymarket, a Dune dashboard shows on-chain wallet-level analysis of roughly 1.7 million addresses found about 70% realized losses, with profits heavily concentrated. This is equivalent to fewer than 0.04% of accounts capturing more than 70% of total realized gains, approximately $3.7 billion.

That data describes a user economics structure in which retail participants lose at rates consistent with negative sum speculation, and in which gains concentrate at the top of the participant distribution.

Brazil's regulators did not build a national self-exclusion system and block 25,000 websites because that description sounded unfamiliar.

The bet Kalshi is making on Brazil

The bull case for this launch is coherent: Brazil's macro environment in early 2026 is genuinely “tradable” in binary form.

The Central Bank's Mar. 6 Focus survey showed median 2026 expectations for IPCA at 3.91%, GDP growth at 1.82%, and the Selic rate at 12.13%, with active market debate over whether the March Copom meeting would deliver a 25- or 50-basis-point cut.

Interest rate and inflation contracts on a platform like Kalshi, distributed through an investment brokerage to clients who already think in portfolio terms, look more like structured macro exposure than a sportsbook.

The bear case is that the brokerage wrapper does not permanently insulate the product from the regulatory and reputational environment in which it operates.

If contract scope broadens during a World Cup year and an election year, in a country where the state already frames event-driven retail speculation as a public health issue, the “regulated derivative” label absorbs pressure from both sides.

The pressure will come from Brazilian regulators looking for jurisdictional footholds, and from US regulators who have watched state gaming authorities challenge Kalshi's not-gambling classification in domestic courts.

Kalshi is betting that distribution through a brokerage, a macro-first product frame, and a CFTC regulatory backstory are enough to keep the product in a different legal and cultural category than what Brazil is already fighting.

Brazil's own infrastructure is built on the premise that the category distinction breaks down in practice at scale.

One of them is right. The answer will be visible in Brazil by the end of the year.

The post Kalshi’s Brazil prediction market launch lands in a country already fighting a betting addiction crisis appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The infrastructure race for agentic commerce is already producing winners.

Anthropic's Model Context Protocol now runs on more than 10,000 public servers and pulls 97 million monthly SDK downloads, connecting AI applications to external tools and data.

Google's Agent-to-Agent protocol launched in April 2025 with 50 partners and scaled to more than 100 supporting companies before moving under Linux Foundation governance.

On Jan. 11, Google unveiled the Universal Commerce Protocol, pulling in Shopify, Walmart, Target, Mastercard, Stripe, Visa, and American Express as early supporters, aiming to standardize how agents navigate live checkout flows.

Coinbase's x402 protocol handles the payment transport layer, enabling automatic stablecoin payments over HTTP. The project reported more than 100 million payments processed across APIs, apps, and AI agents by late 2025.

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That is a lot of standardization for a technology category that barely existed three years ago.

However, every one of those protocols addresses the same narrow slice: how agents connect, coordinate, and initiate payments.

None of them answers the harder commercial question sitting one step further down the stack: Who decides the work was actually done?

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Escrow as the missing primitive

ERC-8183, a draft Ethereum standard published Feb. 25, is crypto's attempt to make that judgment programmable.

Strip the jargon, and the proposal is a minimal state machine for task-based commerce: a client locks the budget into escrow, a provider submits work, and an evaluator marks the job complete or rejects it.

Expiry refunds the client automatically. The spec calls this sequence: Open, Funded, Submitted, Terminal. Additionally, it explicitly states that the evaluator alone may mark a job as completed once work lands.

That architecture is narrower than its “agentic commerce” framing implies.

Critics in the Ethereum Magicians discussion thread pointed out that there is “nothing especially ‘agentic'” about the proposal. One commenter called it “a job registry with escrowed funds.”

The critique is accurate, and also the most useful thing about the story.

What ERC-8183 actually specifies is a programmable escrow primitive applicable to any task-based transaction, human or machine.

The AI framing is layered on top of a structure that predates agents entirely. The more interesting question is whether that structure is the one piece the stack currently lacks.

The authorization-verification gap

The payments incumbents building around agentic commerce are solving authorization, not verification.

Google's Agent Payment Protocol frames payments around cryptographically signed mandates that prove what an agent was permitted to spend.

Mastercard's Verifiable Intent, co-developed with Google and introduced on Mar. 5, creates a trust layer for proving what a user authorized and an audit trail designed for dispute resolution.

Those are robust answers to “Was this purchase sanctioned?” They say nothing about whether the purchased outcome materialized.

That gap is the productive contradiction in the stack.

A2A ensures agents can talk across organizational boundaries. MCP ensures they can reach the right tools and data. AP2 and x402 ensure money moves automatically. ERC-8183 proposes that the funds be held conditionally until an evaluator attests that the deliverable has cleared.

Whether that evaluator is the client, an oracle network, a staking system, or a zkML proof is left to implementers, but the spec explicitly names ERC-8004's trust and reputation layer as the recommended composition point for higher-value jobs.

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The power center nobody named

The evaluator role is where the proposal becomes politically interesting.

ERC-8183's security section warns that a malicious evaluator can arbitrarily complete or reject jobs, recommends reputation or staking mechanisms for higher-value contracts, and acknowledges that there is no dispute resolution within the core spec.

One builder in the Magicians thread wrote that “the Evaluator is where the real complexity lives.” Another summarized the broader problem as “everyone verifies the payment, nobody verifies the work.”

Those observations point to a structural dynamic in any open agent marketplace: whoever controls evaluation controls the marketplace.

The spec's design makes the tension explicit.

For enterprise deployments where the client and evaluator are the same entity, the complexity is manageable. For multi-party agent networks where a provider in one organization submits work to a client in another, the evaluator becomes a trust bottleneck with platform-level leverage.

ERC-8183 names the choke point without yet having a durable answer for it.

Where the stack actually stands

The adoption numbers suggest the surrounding layers are moving faster than verification.

Gartner says 33% of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI by 2028, and 15% of day-to-day work decisions will run autonomously by that year, up from 0% in 2024.

Deloitte pegs the global agentic AI market at $8.5 billion in 2026, rising toward $35 billion by 2030, with 75% of companies potentially investing in the category by the end of this year.

IBM and NRF reported in January that 45% of consumers already use AI during buying journeys, including 41% for product research.

That volume of agentic activity needs settlement infrastructure.

The bull case for ERC-8183 and its surrounding stack is that open agent marketplaces, covering research, code, inference, data, and microservices, generate enough cross-organizational, machine-to-machine commerce that on-chain conditional settlement becomes genuinely necessary.

The bear case is that payments incumbents and enterprise software absorb the verification problem before crypto builds a durable wedge.

AP2's cryptographic mandates, Verifiable Intent's authorization audit trail, and UCP's live retailer integrations are already positioning card networks and Big Tech at exactly the layer that ERC-8183 targets from the other direction.

Who owns the judgment layer

If Gartner's 2028 projections hold, and agentic AI handles a meaningful share of enterprise procurement, research outsourcing, and service buying, the highest-margin position in that stack will not be held by the model provider.

It will belong to whoever owns the moment of conditional payment, which is the infrastructure that holds funds, attests to outcomes, and releases money only when the work clears verification.

ERC-8183 may be that layer, or it may be marketplace escrow wearing better branding.

The Magicians thread is right that the underlying structure predates AI entirely. Yet the same holds for most financial primitives that turned out to matter.

Escrow predates the internet. Conditional payment predates blockchains.

The theory being stress-tested right now is whether the verification problem in agentic commerce is best solved by Big Tech's authorization standards or by programmable on-chain escrow with composable trust layers.

Both approaches are live, neither is settled, and the answer will likely depend on where agents are doing the most economically meaningful work when adoption crosses the threshold that makes the infrastructure fight worth having.

The post Is crypto needed to protect the security of AI agents paying each other online? appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Washington sent two messages about crypto privacy in the same week.

Treasury told Congress that lawful users of digital assets may leverage mixers to protect personal wealth, business payments, charitable donations, and consumer spending habits from public view on transparent blockchains.

Days later, SDNY prosecutors filed a letter proposing to retry Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm in October 2026 on the two counts where jurors deadlocked last August: conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate sanctions. Each count carries a maximum of 20 years.

The policy thaw is real. It may just stop where privacy tools begin.

For retail investors, what matters is if markets have priced the shift in Washington's crypto posture correctly. The evidence suggests they may not have.

Related Reading

Jurors deadlocked in Roman Storm trial over Tornado Cash allegations

Court considers partial verdict as Tornado Cash case stirs debate on software development risks.

Aug 6, 2025 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo

What the jury left unresolved

Last August's verdict was a split decision that clarified almost nothing.

The jury convicted Storm on the unlicensed money-transmitting count, which carries a maximum of 5 years, but deadlocked on the money-laundering and sanctions counts.

Prosecutors now want those two counts retried, with a proposed start date around Oct. 5 or Oct. 12 and an expected three-week run. Storm's Rule 29 motion for acquittal also argues that the evidence was insufficient on the convicted count, and that argument will be presented to a judge on Apr. 9.

The distinction between the counts matters for anyone trying to read this case as a policy signal.

DOJ's April 2025 memo, the one that declared an end to “regulation by prosecution,” said the department would stop targeting exchanges, mixers, and wallets for the acts of end users or unwitting regulatory violations.

That language fits awkwardly around the unlicensed-transmission count, where the theory of liability is closest to holding a developer responsible for running infrastructure.

It's less awkward around money laundering and sanctions, where prosecutors can argue Storm knew specific illicit activity was flowing through the protocol and continued anyway.

The government is retrying the counts it chose to keep, rather than the one that most directly conflicts with its own stated policy evolution.

The real limits of the thaw

Treasury delisted Tornado Cash on Mar. 21, 2025, citing “novel legal and policy issues” raised by the sanctions regime in an “evolving technology and legal environment.”

DOJ disbanded its crypto enforcement unit and narrowed its prosecution priorities, resulting in a major reduction in the department's crypto posture. None of that is theater.

The administration deliberately chose to pull back from the broadest definition of crypto legal risk.

However, Treasury's delisting statement did not arrive alone.

The same document said Treasury remained “deeply concerned” about DPRK-linked hacking and money laundering. It warned US persons to exercise caution when dealing with transactions that may benefit North Korean cyber actors.

DOJ's memo preserved priority treatment for cases involving terrorism, organized crime, hacking, and sanctioned states. The administration narrowed the target, it did not eliminate it.

Storm's remaining exposure sits precisely in the preserved bucket: laundering and sanctions, with prosecutors arguing the protocol was used as infrastructure for North Korea-linked theft proceeds. Treasury's March 2026 report to Congress adds the sharpest numbers to that story.

Related Reading

US Treasury says lawful crypto users may use mixers for financial privacy

March 2026 Treasury report draws new line between crypto privacy and crypto crime.

Mar 9, 2026 · Liam 'Akiba' Wright

Since May 2020, bridges on public blockchains received roughly $1.6 billion in deposits originating from mixing services. More than $900 million of those mixer-originated deposits flowed into a single bridge that faced scrutiny for failing to intervene in DPRK-linked laundering activity.

Treasury acknowledged lawful privacy uses in the same document while also recommending that Congress consider a new “hold law” that would give institutions a safe harbor to freeze suspicious digital assets during short-term investigations.

The report that validated mixer privacy is also the one asking for stronger tools to freeze suspected mixer flows.

What investors are likely mispricing

The market narrative around US crypto policy has largely been a single theme: the administration has become friendlier, the legal overhang has receded, and the sector deserves a lower-risk discount.

That framing holds reasonably well for the parts of crypto Washington is actively trying to normalize, such as exchange regulation, ETF infrastructure, stablecoin payment rails, and mainstream market structure.

It holds less well for anything that can be narrated through privacy, obfuscation, and sanctions evasion.

The developer-liability question cuts directly to the point. Post-verdict legal analysis argued that the mixed outcome leaves substantial uncertainty for builders of decentralized privacy-preserving platforms, noting that the jury was not persuaded by arguments that Storm lacked sufficient control over who used the protocol.

The case suggests that “decentralized” and “non-custodial” provide less legal insulation than the market often assumes, particularly when there is evidence of continuing business activity, fee collection, governance involvement, or promotion.

Prosecutors can use any of these factors to argue that the developer maintained meaningful operational contact with the protocol.

For a retail investor holding tokens tied to privacy protocols, mixer-adjacent infrastructure, or any project whose team could face the argument that they knew illicit activity was flowing through their software, the Storm case suggests those assets carry a legal risk premium that a broadly “pro-crypto” administration does not automatically eliminate.

Related Reading

Roman Storm's defense hints at mistrial after agents fail to trace funds stolen from witness to Tornado Cash

The dispute arose after MetaMask security lead Taylor Monahan published a thread on July 18, in which she shared her review of the witness' transactions.

Jul 21, 2025 · Gino Matos

The contradiction that clarifies

The most useful thing about the Treasury's lawful-privacy acknowledgment, next to SDNY's retrial push, is that it reveals where the line is.

Washington appears willing to say that privacy tools can be legitimate, that mixers serve lawful purposes, and that developers should not be prosecuted for what users do with neutral infrastructure.

It is less willing to drop cases where prosecutors believe the developer knew about specific illicit flows, continued operating, and where those flows connect to North Korea.

It frames privacy as potentially lawful unless the government can also tell a national-security story.

For markets, that distinction matters more than the headline policy shift. The bull case for Storm is that his Rule 29 motion succeeds, DOJ backs away from the retrial, and Treasury's lawful-privacy language matures into a clearer developer safe harbor.

The bear case is that the retrial proceeds, prosecutors win on one or both deadlocked counts, and the market relearns that the privacy-adjacent sector carries durable legal exposure that “friendlier” rhetoric did not actually resolve.

Neither outcome changes the core lesson: legal clarity in crypto is becoming sector-specific. Investors who treat the policy shift as a uniform discount across the market may be applying it to assets where the government's own posture, in its own documents, says the fight is not over.

The post Prosecutors push to retry Tornado Cash founder even after Washington said crypto mixers have legal uses appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Payments giant Mastercard has officially launched its Global Crypto Partner Program, a massive initiative designed to weave blockchain technology directly into the fabric of traditional global banking. This is not just another pilot; the program unites over 85 high-profile companies to standardize how digital assets move across the world’s existing financial rails.

What is the Crypto Partner Program?

The Mastercard Crypto Partner Program is a unified integration framework. Unlike previous one-off partnerships, this initiative provides a set of technical and compliance standards that allow crypto-native firms to connect their on-chain tools to Mastercard’s network. It leverages the Mastercard Multi-Token Network (MTN) to handle tokenized deposits and stablecoins, aiming to make blockchain "invisible" to the end user while providing the speed of digital assets.

Solving the "Plumbing" Problem

For years, the friction between "crypto" and "banks" has been the primary barrier to adoption. Mastercard is addressing this by focusing on three specific pillars:

• Cross-Border Remittances: Bypassing the slow SWIFT network to settle international transfers in minutes using stablecoins like USDC.
• Mastercard Crypto Credential: Replacing complex wallet addresses with human-readable aliases (e.g., user.mastercard) to reduce send-errors.
• Real-Time Settlement: Enabling merchants to receive fiat instantly while the consumer pays from a self-custodial wallet like MetaMask.

Who is Involved in the Global Crypto Partner Program?

The program features an "Avengers-level" lineup of industry leaders. Key partners confirmed include:

• Infrastructure & Settlement: Ripple, Circle, and Paxos.
• Payments & Wallets: PayPal, Gemini, and MetaMask.
• Global Exchanges: Binance, Crypto.com, and Bitget.

Why This Matters Now

According to reports from The Block, Mastercard believes the "next phase of on-chain payments will be built through collaboration." By bringing 85+ firms under one roof, they are effectively creating a "Common Language" for money. This move follows the recent integration of SoFiUSD for card settlement, signaling that the company is moving aggressively to dominate the $300 billion stablecoin settlement market.

XRP Price Prediction: Why the $2.00 Level is the Next Major Target

Current market data suggests that a return to the $2 level is a high-probability target supported by record-low exchange liquidity, massive spot ETF inflows, and the integration of the $XRP Ledger into global financial infrastructure. As of March 11, 2026, XRP is trading in a "coil" formation that often precedes a violent breakout. Breaking above the 200-day Moving Average is the technical trigger required to turn this psychological resistance into a launchpad for further gains.

Understanding XRP Liquidity Magnets and Market Structure

To understand the $2 target, one must look at market structure and liquidity magnets. In trading, a "liquidity magnet" refers to a price zone where a large cluster of orders (often liquidations) resides. For XRP, the $2.00 to $2.20 range represents a massive area of short-position liquidations. If the price of $XRP moves into this zone, a "short squeeze" could rapidly accelerate the rally beyond previous resistance levels.

1. Institutional Infrastructure: The Ripple Prime Effect

The most significant fundamental driver for XRP in 2026 is its transition from a speculative asset to a core piece of financial infrastructure. Following its acquisition of several fintech firms in 2025, Ripple has launched Ripple Prime, a unified institutional platform.

On March 2, 2026, it was revealed that Ripple Prime's integration with major clearing houses has begun routing institutional post-trade volumes directly onto the XRP Ledger. This provides a fundamental "floor" for the price as the network begins processing real-world transaction volume rather than just retail speculation.

2. Institutional Inflows via Spot XRP ETFs

Since the landmark approval of Spot XRP ETFs, institutional adoption has accelerated. As of this week, XRP ETFs have surpassed $1.44 billion in cumulative inflows. Notably, banking giants like Goldman Sachs have emerged as top holders, signaling that the "smart money" is positioning for long-term appreciation.

According to recent reports from Nasdaq, the elimination of the SEC legal overhang in late 2025 allowed conservative wealth managers to finally include XRP in their digital asset portfolios. This persistent buying effectively reduces the circulating supply on exchanges, creating a supply-demand imbalance that favors the bulls.

3. Technical Breakout and Symmetrical Triangle Compression

From a technical standpoint, XRP is currently testing the apex of a massive symmetrical triangle on the daily chart. Historically, such compressions lead to significant price expansions.

• RSI Bullish Divergence: While price has stayed flat, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) is making higher lows, suggesting hidden strength.
• Exchange Balances: XRP held on centralized exchanges has hit a 3-year low, according to CryptoQuant data.
• Network Activity: The XRP Ledger recently hit 2.7 million daily transactions, a record high that proves network utility is outpacing price action.

XRP Resistance Levels and Support Zones for 2026

To track the progress toward the $2 target, investors should monitor the following support and resistance zones:

XRP Future Outlook: The Impact of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act

While the path to $2 seems clear, investors must remain aware of broader macro risks. The upcoming US Digital Asset Market Clarity Act vote later this month will be the final piece of the puzzle. A "Yes" vote would provide the ultimate regulatory green light, likely triggering the final surge past $2.00.

The landscape of digital assets in 2026 is unrecognizable from the "wild west" era of a few years ago. While Bitcoin has reached psychological milestones above $70,000, the broader ecosystem of independent crypto projects is struggling for air. The "hidden truth" behind this stagnation isn't just a lack of funding; it is a fundamental shift in who the market is built for.

The 2026 Stagnation: A Market in Transition

As of March 2026, the crypto industry is grappling with the aftermath of the late 2025 "liquidity flush," which saw over $20 billion in leverage wiped out in a single month. This event, often called the 2026 Crypto Crisis, forced a pivot from speculative retail-driven growth to a more rigid, institutional-grade structure.

Recent data suggests that while the $Bitcoin price remains resilient due to ETF inflows, nearly 80% of new blockchain startups fail within their first year. The era of "launch now, fix later" has been replaced by a "stagnation" where projects simply cannot gain traction without massive corporate backing.

1. The Death of Retail "Degen" Culture

The most visible reason for project failure in 2026 is the Retail Investor Exodus. For years, small-scale investors fueled the fire of decentralized finance (DeFi) and NFTs. Today, that fire has dimmed for three primary reasons:

1. Aversion to Leverage: After the 2025 crash, retail traders have largely moved their capital back to traditional equities or "safe-haven" assets like tokenized gold (XAUT).
2. The Yield Trap: Regulatory crackdowns on stablecoin interest, such as the proposed Digital Asset Market Clarity Act in the US, have made it harder for independent protocols to offer the "passive income" that once attracted millions.
3. Institutional Domination: Retail participants now feel like "exit liquidity" for Venture Capital (VC) firms. Most new tokens launch with "low float, high FDV" (Fully Diluted Valuation), leaving no room for retail profit.

2. The MiCA Effect: Compliance as a Barrier

In Europe, the full implementation of the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation has been a double-edged sword. While it provides a professional exchange environment, it has effectively priced out the "garage developer."

"MiCA's licensing costs and rigorous whitepaper requirements act as a filter. It weeds out scams, but it also smothers the small, innovative teams that don't have $500,000 for legal compliance." — Industry Insight, March 2026.

Startups are now forced to choose between expensive compliance or operating in "offshore" shadows that institutional capital—and savvy retail—will no longer touch.

3. Corporate "Colonization" of Web3

The hidden truth of the 2026 stagnation is that crypto technology is succeeding, but crypto "projects" are failing. Big banks and corporations have successfully "unbundled" blockchain. Instead of using public, decentralized protocols, they are building private, permissioned versions of the same tech.

• Asset Tokenization: Real World Assets (RWAs) are moving onto the blockchain, but they are managed by entities like BlackRock and Goldman Sachs, not decentralized DAOs.
• Stablecoin Utility: Stablecoins have become the "Internet's dollar," yet the market is dominated by centralized issuers who work closely with central banks.

4. Technical Debt and "Zombie" Chains

Thousands of projects are currently "mostly dead" because they were built on foundations that cannot scale or lack a real use case. Many 2021-era blockchains have become "Zombie Chains"—networks with high theoretical value but zero organic traffic. The market is currently undergoing an aggressive consolidation where only 5-10 major "hub" chains will likely survive.

Is There a Way Out?

The stagnation of 2026 isn't the end of crypto; it is the end of the "hobbyist" era. Projects that survive this period are those that prioritize Sustainable Revenue over token inflation and Real-World Utility over Discord hype.

It is up to creators, enthusiasts, small startups, and individuals to create and innovate more in this space. Only then, would we be able to see a new breakthrough in crypto and web3.

While the broader crypto market often thrives on volatility, Bitcoin ($BTC) has recently entered a period of relative calm that has left many long-term holders checking their screens in boredom. Over the past 30 days, the Bitcoin price has seen a negligible drop of only 0.9%. However, beneath this surface-level stability lies a high-stakes tug-of-war between bulls and bears, with prices oscillating sharply between $63,000 and $73,000.

For "HODLers," this sideways movement feels like a standstill. For active traders, however, this range-bound environment has become a goldmine for "buy low, sell high" strategies. Understanding why the king of crypto is moving horizontally is essential for navigating the current market cycle.

Why is Bitcoin Moving Sideways?

Market consolidation is rarely a random event; it is a sign of equilibrium where neither buyers nor sellers have enough momentum to force a breakout. As of March 11, 2026, three primary factors are pinning the price down.

1. Macroeconomic Uncertainty and the "Wait-and-See" Approach

The global financial landscape in early 2026 is dominated by mixed signals. With US CPI data looming and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East fluctuating, institutional investors have moved into a defensive posture. According to J.P. Morgan Global Research, the probability of a global recession remains a "sticky" theme for the year.

When the macro environment is foggy, liquidity tends to stay on the sidelines. $Bitcoin, often acting as a high-beta risk asset, struggles to find the "fuel" needed for a rally beyond $74,000 until there is more clarity on Federal Reserve interest rate cuts or a de-escalation in global conflicts.

2. Spot ETF Inflow Fatigue

After the massive surge of institutional interest in 2024 and 2025, the "ETF honeymoon phase" has reached a plateau. While Spot Bitcoin ETFs are still seeing net positive inflows—roughly $735 million so far this month—it is no longer the overwhelming wave that characterized previous rallies.

This steady but moderate inflow is enough to keep Bitcoin from crashing below the $60,000 floor, but it lacks the explosive volume required to shatter the heavy resistance sitting at the $73,000 mark. We are essentially seeing a "supply-demand equilibrium" where ETF buying is being matched by long-term holders taking profits from the 2025 highs.

3. Market Indecision: Traders Controlling the Short-Term

The most significant reason for the current sideways trend is that traders are now in the driver's seat. When the market lacks a clear fundamental direction (indecision), the price action is governed by technical levels rather than news.

In this scenario, rather than "buying and holding," market participants are playing the range. They are buying the support at $63,000 and selling the resistance at $73,000. This self-fulfilling prophecy creates a feedback loop that keeps the price trapped. As long as the volume remains concentrated within these boundaries, the sideways "crab market" will persist.

Bitcoin Price Analysis: Navigating Support and Resistance

Analyzing the current Bitcoin chart reveals a clear rectangular consolidation pattern. Since February, BTC has established a rigid structure that offers a blueprint for short-term trade setups.

Key Support Levels

• $63,000 - $64,000 (The Immediate Floor): This area has been tested multiple times. It coincides with the daily 50-period moving average and has shown strong "buy the dip" interest from retail and small-scale whales.
• $60,000 (The Macro Line in the Sand): This is the psychological must-hold level. A daily close below $60,000 would likely signal the end of the sideways trend and the start of a deeper correction toward $52,000.

Key Resistance Levels

• $71,500 - $73,000 (The Supply Zone): This is where "sellers' exhaustion" occurs. Every attempt to breach $73,000 has been met with significant sell orders, often referred to as a "bull trap."
• $74,100 (The Breakout Trigger): To confirm a new bullish trend, Bitcoin needs to flip this level into support.

Pro Tip: In a sideways market, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) is your best friend. Look for "oversold" signals (below 30) near the $63,000 support to enter, and "overbought" signals (above 70) near the $73,000 resistance to exit.

Should You Trade Bitcoin Hold Bitcoin?

The current environment favors the active trader. With a 15% price swing available between the support and resistance zones, there are ample opportunities to grow a portfolio while waiting for the next major move. However, if you are a long-term investor, it is crucial to ensure your assets are protected in Hardware Wallets during these periods of chop, as high-leverage trading in a range can often lead to liquidations if a sudden "wick" occurs.

Pi Network (PI) is currently trading at $0.221, marking a 2.15% increase in the last 24 hours. This price movement aligns with a broader recovery in the digital asset market but is significantly amplified by the upcoming Pi Day on March 14. As the community anticipates major roadmap updates and ecosystem milestones, the token has managed to sustain its position above critical psychological support levels.

Is Pi Coin Bullish?

For traders asking if $Pi can break its current resistance, the short-term outlook remains cautiously bullish. The convergence of a major protocol upgrade on March 12 and the annual Pi Day celebration provides a strong fundamental backdrop for a potential move toward $0.24.

Why is Pi Coin UP?

The Pi Network is a social cryptocurrency and developer platform that allows mobile users to mine PI tokens without draining battery life. Unlike traditional Proof-of-Work assets like $Bitcoin, Pi uses a consensus mechanism based on the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP).

Currently, the network is in its "Open Network" transition phase. The primary drivers for today's price action include:

• Protocol v20.2 Upgrade: A mandatory node update set for completion by March 12, 2026.
• Pi Day Speculation: The annual March 14 event where the Core Team historically announces major utility updates or Mainnet progress.
• Market Beta: Pi is benefiting from a 3.48% rise in Bitcoin, showing a positive correlation with market leaders.

Pi Day and Network Upgrades

The current rally is a classic "buy the rumor" scenario. Daily trading volumes have surged to approximately $39 million, indicating a sharp increase in retail participation.

The v20.2 Transition

The Core Team has moved the deadline for the v20.2 protocol upgrade to March 12. This upgrade is essential for the network's stability and is rumored to be a precursor for the launch of Pi Decentralized Exchange (DEX) tools. Successful implementation is expected to reduce network latency and prepare the infrastructure for higher transaction throughput.

Market Sentiment and Social Buzz

According to data from Santiment, social volume for Pi Network has spiked in the first week of March. While increased "social whispering" often precedes a local top, the proximity to a scheduled event (Pi Day) suggests that the speculative premium may hold until the actual announcements are made.

Pi Coin Analysis: Resistance and Support Levels

From a technical perspective, PI is showing signs of a bullish pennant formation on the daily chart.

If PI holds above the $0.20 support, the probability of a retest of the $0.24 level before March 14 remains high. However, an RSI reading near 70 suggests the asset is approaching overbought territory, increasing the risk of a "sell the news" correction post-event.

Microsoft filed a court brief backing Anthropic's lawsuit against the Pentagon—a move that reveals just how much the tech giant has riding on Claude's survival.

Wells Fargo has applied for a trademark for "WFUSD" for potential use in service categories that mention crypto and stablecoins.

A vulnerability in some MediaTek-powered phones could allow attackers to extract encrypted data, including wallet seed phrases, using only a USB connection.

The prediction market is the first to use the USD1 stablecoin as its main settlement layer, creating a “faster, simpler” user experience.

The Trump SEC appears to contend a token connected to Sun was offered as a security. The admission could complicate the regulator’s new views on crypto.

XRP golden cross emerges as investors weigh recently released inflation report, impacting expectations for an interest rate cut.

Nassim Taleb officially backs Elon Musk's X Money launch, calling it "much smarter than Bitcoin." Discover how the author of "Black Swan" is championing the rise of private currencies.

Shiba Inu eyes potential breakout as layer-2 chain Shibarium sees transaction boost.

Dogecoin's price saw a rejection following a sharp rise to $0.10, with derivatives traders capitalizing on the move.

US spot Bitcoin ETFs are demonstrating "remarkable resilience" as fresh capital injections bring year-to-date flows to the brink of turning positive.

Ohio hit the prediction markets platform Kalshi with a hefty legal setback, with a federal court denying its injunction against Ohio gambling regulators. The challenges to the CFTC’s claim of exclusive jurisdiction over prediction market contracts. Kalshi will start the appeals process, but the regulatory landscape for prediction markets has become more unclear.

At the same time, the Pepeto price prediction is in focus as presales grow in popularity. However, since meme coins are falling, smart traders are actually opting for substance and are thus choosing DeepSnitch AI.

With a 31 March TGE locked down, $2M being raised, and the utility centered on analytics sourced by five AI agents, the 100x-300x are gaining solid ground, according to DeepSnitch AI’s growing community.

Prediction markets hit a roadblock

US District Court Chief Judge Sarah Morrison denied Kalshi’s request to block Ohio gambling regulators from treating its contracts as unlicensed betting products. The reasoning behind the ruling is that Kalshi didn’t establish that the Commodity Exchange Act preempts Ohio’s sports gambling laws.

The decision splits from a Tennessee federal court ruling issued just weeks earlier. Despite Kalshi’s planned appeal, both rulings directly contradict CFTC Chair Michael Selig’s February claim that the federal regulator holds exclusive jurisdiction over prediction markets.

This is another piece of evidence that regulatory clarity in the US remains fragmented.

At the same time, retail traders are more interested in price action, and with the bear market in full swing, are rotating toward presales. Even though the Pepeto price prediction lends itself well for a quick flip, many are parking their assets in DeepSnitch AI and Bitcoin Hyper as their utility-focused approach could result in larger long-term gains.

Top ICOs to put on your radar

1. DeepSnitch AI: DSNT ticks down to anticipated 100x-300x TGE

DeepSnitch AI raised over $2M at $0.04399 during a bear market, confirmed a March 31 TGE, and shipped a live central intelligence layer ahead of schedule.

That’s three things most presales never manage to do.

Case in point: The Pepeto price prediction may lend itself well for flipping a profit, but the project is a simple meme coin with a cross-chain bridge that may or may not happen after the TGE.

When you compare that to DeepSnitch AI, which practically completed a complex analytics suite running on five AI agents a month ahead of schedule, it’s clear who the hard-hitter is.

The utility itself could land DeepSnitch AI on the list of tools that active traders rely on daily. No surprise, as the solution can do rug detection, track sentiment in real time, conduct instant smart contract audits, or even help you dig out some hidden gems.

The DSNT token will be available via Uniswap post-TGE, but since 100x-300x are quickly stacking up and exclusive DeepSnitch AI bonus codes that unlock extra tokens on purchases are still available, the best time to reserve your spot is now.

2. Pepeto price prediction: Is PEPETO worth it?

Based on the Pepe legacy, Pepeto not only brings the lore, but the team plans to deliver a cross-chain bridge post-launch.

The biggest issue is apparent after a short Pepeto market analysis, though: the coin will likely deflate a few days after the initial hype dies down and large investors take the profits.

This is to be expected as the Pepeto crypto outlook fits the lifecycle of most memes. There’s simply no reason to return to the project as it only offers meme value.

So, is Pepeto a hard pass?

Well, the Pepeto price forecast does maintain that a quick flip is valid, but you have to be realistic about long-term expectations. The token is priced at $0.000000186, and the community-sourced Pepeto price prediction sees the coin going to $0.00007128.

3. Bitcoin Hyper price prediction: Worth the wait?

One of the biggest presale fundraises of the current cycle, Bitcoin Hyper is building a Bitcoin L2 rollup that attempts to solve fee limitations and transaction speeds by implementing the Solana Virtual Machine.

Priced at $0.01367, the community expects the coin to target $0.3482, which is a solid 25x upside.

While Bitcoin Hyper is a much better play than what the Pepeto price prediction describes, it’s not without its flaws. This is primarily limited due to slower development and the lack of confirmed dates despite the whitepaper promising a Q1 mainnet launch.

Final thoughts: Don’t settle for scraps

The Pepeto price prediction may be heaven for traders making scalps, but the DeepSnitch AI presale is nothing short of a project with massive breakout potential.

With the presale closing on March 31, the window to secure your gains is getting smaller. Since you don’t want to miss out on the projected 100x-300x gains and DSNTVIP300 bonus that unlocks a 300% bonus on allocations above $30K, the best time to get on board is right now.

Don’t settle for scraps and secure your spot in the DeepSnitch AI presale ASAP. Keep an eye on the posts on X or Telegram to stay on top of the latest developments.

FAQs

1. How does the Pepeto price prediction stack up against DeepSnitch AI’s March 31 TGE potential?

Pepeto’s community targets of $0.00007128 from $0.000000186 make it a valid flip play, but structurally it’s a one-cycle bet. No recurring utility means no daily retention once the launch hype fades. DeepSnitch AI raised $2M, shipped a live intelligence layer ahead of schedule, and has a confirmed March 31 Uniswap TGE with 100x-300x community projections backed by a platform traders will return to daily. The comparison isn’t close on fundamentals.

2. What does the Ohio court ruling mean for prediction markets and crypto regulation broadly?

Chief Judge Morrison denied Kalshi’s injunction, ruling that the Commodity Exchange Act doesn’t preempt Ohio’s sports gambling laws, which directly contradicts CFTC Chair Selig’s exclusive jurisdiction claim. With a Tennessee court ruling the opposite way just weeks earlier, the regulatory landscape for prediction markets is now actively fragmented.

3. Is Bitcoin Hyper a better long-term play than the Pepeto price prediction suggests for meme coins?

Bitcoin Hyper’s $31.6M raise and 25x community price target of $0.3482 from $0.01367 make it a substantially stronger fundamental play than Pepeto. The Bitcoin L2 thesis is legitimate, and the Solana Virtual Machine integration is technically ambitious. The main risk is the lack of a confirmed TGE date despite the Q1 2026 whitepaper targets.

The post Pepeto Price Prediction: Pepeto $7M Raise Looks Fully Priced In While DeepSnitch AI Could Catapult $10,000 Into $1M After March 31 DEX Launch appeared first on Blockonomi.

As per the crypto news today, Blockchain analytics platform Arkham flagged Bhutan shifting 175 BTC worth $11.85 million from its main national holding address to a fresh wallet that was created only a month ago and had already received 184 BTC from the government before today’s move.

That kind of structural buying at the macro level does not stay isolated at the Bitcoin layer for long. It filters down into the highest conviction plays sitting below it, and the presales like DeepSnitch AI with working utility and exchange listings still ahead are historically the first place that rotating capital lands when the market is in absorption mode like this.

Bhutan’s $11.8M BTC move can be a bull run loading signal?

Today, Bhutan sits at around 5,600 BTC, ranked the 5th largest among nation-state holders globally.  Arkham pointed out on X that the last time Bhutan executed a similar transfer in February, it sold $7 million worth of Bitcoin directly with QCP Capital, and historical patterns show the kingdom sells in consistent clips of $5 to $10 million with its heaviest activity running through mid-to-late September 2025.

This does not look like panic selling. Bhutan appears to be running a structured government-level selling strategy, offloading Bitcoin at prices far above its mining costs while the market steadily absorbs the supply.

For traders watching the tape, that is actually a bullish signal. It shows that real demand is strong enough to absorb nation-state selling, and the traders already positioned in the right coins are usually the ones who benefit when the next rotation across the market begins.

Top three coins to watch in today’s market

1. DeepSnitch AI (DSNT)

The craziest crypto news in the presale market right now is that DeepSnitch AI is closing its presale on March 31, with the current entry sitting at $0.04399 per $DSNT while demand continues to push the price higher.

You can already open the platform and use five AI tools built to give you a real trading edge in a market where speed and information decide who wins. Just buy $DSNT and run SnitchGPT for market analysis, scan contracts with AuditSnitch, and track whale wallets with SnitchFeed before the crowd catches on. Every tool is live, in a unified dashboard, and designed to help you make smarter trades right now.

The latest crypto news today for presale hunters is that Uniswap is the first listing milestone, and rumored tier-1 and tier-2 CEX listings follow in Q2, meaning the traders who are in at $0.04399 right now are positioned ahead of every demand wave that exchange listings are going to bring.

It is currently running a 150% bonus exclusively for entries of $10,000 or more on top of the already low presale price of $0.04399.

Run the math on a $10,000 entry at $0.04399 with the 150% bonus applied, and you are looking at roughly 568,000 $DSNT tokens. Now think about what happens if $DSNT reaches $30 post-launch. It sounds crazy at first, but remember how RENDER ran from under $1 to about $13.60 in one cycle on the decentralized GPU narrative. Or how TAO jumped from under $50 to over $700 simply on the decentralized AI infrastructure story.

DeepSnitch AI is not asking you to trust a narrative without a product behind it because five live AI tools are already generating real daily users, the smart contract has been independently verified by both Coinsult and SolidProof, and tier-1 exchange listings may be coming in Q2.

At $30 per DSNT, a 568,000 token bag becomes about $17 million.

2. Zcash (ZEC)

The breaking crypto news on Zcash this week is that the Zcash Open Development Lab just raised $25 million from Paradigm, a16z crypto, and Coinbase Ventures in one of the most significant privacy coin funding rounds of the cycle, sending ZEC spiking 10.9% on the announcement alone.

ZEC is trading around $223 as of March 10, still miles below its $2,034 all time high from 2016, which is why a lot of traders see a solid recovery play here. If the privacy coin narrative comes back strong, the upside math from these levels starts looking pretty interesting.

Some analysts are putting ZEC’s 2026 range between $480 and $850 if institutional interest in privacy infrastructure keeps building after the latest funding news. ZEC is a strong cycle hold with real money backing it, but at a $3.7 billion market cap, it is not the ground-floor entry that the $DSNT presale still offers at $0.04399.

3. Dash (DASH)

The cryptocurrency news update on Dash is moving fast in March 2026, and traders who have been sleeping on this one are going to feel it if the momentum holds.

On March 4 this week, Dash went live on NEAR Intents via a dedicated contract that now enables swaps across more than 35 blockchains, which is a meaningful DeFi expansion for a coin whose narrative has historically been limited to payments.

DASH is currently trading around $33 on March 10. Analysts are placing the 2026 range between $400 and $1,200 if the privacy coin rotation that already lifted XMR extends to the rest of the sector.

Final thoughts

ZEC and DASH are both worth holding this cycle. Neither of them offers the ground-floor entry math that $DSNT still has available right now.

DeepSnitch AI is sitting at $0.04399 in presale with five working AI tools, over $2M raised, and a March 31 deadline that does not come back once it passes. The latest crypto news today for traders who want the highest conviction play before the market fully reprices is still the $DSNT presale entry that turns $10,000 into a whopping $17 million when the exchange listing hits.

Visit the official presale website and load your bags before the tier-1 exchange listing send this to the moon. Join X and Telegram for the latest updates before the presale closes.

FAQs

What does today’s breaking crypto news about Bhutan selling BTC actually mean for traders trying to time the market right now?

When a nation-state is selling Bitcoin in $5 to $10M clips, and the market holds above $70K, that is breaking crypto news, confirming demand is absorbing supply with ease. Rotate into the best crypto presale setups like DeepSnitch AI before the recovery fully prints.

Is Zcash the best privacy coin to hold based on the latest crypto news today, after the $25M Paradigm and a16z funding round?

ZEC picking up $25M from Paradigm, a16z, and Coinbase Ventures is some of the most bullish latest crypto news today for the privacy sector. It’s a solid cycle hold, but DeepSnitch AI at $0.04399 still beats it on entry price and upside math.

What is the most important cryptocurrency news update traders should act on before the end of March?

The most urgent cryptocurrency news update on any serious trader’s radar right now is the DeepSnitch AI presale closing March 31 at $0.04399. It has five live AI tools, $2M raised, and 500x potential.

The post Crypto News Today: Bhutan Shifts $11.8M BTC to New Wallet While DeepSnitch AI, Zcash, and Dash Flash the Best Setups in Today’s Market appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Binance filed a defamation lawsuit against Dow Jones in a federal court in New York.
• The lawsuit targets a February 23 report published by The Wall Street Journal.
• The report alleged that Iranian entities may have used Binance to evade U.S. sanctions.
• Binance denied the allegations and called the claims false and defamatory.
• The exchange stated that it provided factual corrections before the article was published.

Binance has filed a defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal in federal court in New York. The exchange sued Dow Jones after a report linked its platform to Iranian sanctions evasion. The filing comes days after a U.S. judge dismissed a separate case tied to alleged terror financing claims.

The complaint targets an article published on February 23 that cited a Justice Department probe. Binance claims the report contains false statements about its compliance controls. The exchange seeks compensatory damages, legal fees, and a jury trial.

Binance Challenges Report Over Iran Sanctions Claims

Binance filed the lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The company named Dow Jones, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, is the defendant. The action followed a report that questioned whether Iranian entities used Binance to bypass sanctions.

The article stated that the U.S. Justice Department had begun examining Iran’s use of the exchange. It cited concerns from investigators and lawmakers about possible sanctions violations. Binance rejected the claims and said the publication misrepresented its compliance framework.

An American reporter, Eleanor Terrett, disclosed details of the filing on March 11. She reported that Binance acted after the outlet published the February story. The lawsuit marks a direct legal response to the allegations.

Binance Seeks Jury Trial and Damages

In the complaint, Binance argued that the article included “false and defamatory” statements. The company stated that those claims harmed its reputation and business interests. It also asserted that it had provided factual corrections before publication.

Binance claimed that The Wall Street Journal ignored those corrections and proceeded with the story. The exchange stated that it maintains strict anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance procedures. It denied facilitating transactions for sanctioned Iranian entities.

The lawsuit requests compensatory damages, though Binance has not disclosed the dollar amount. It also seeks recovery of legal fees and related costs. The company demanded a jury trial to resolve the dispute.

The filing follows a recent legal development involving Binance in another federal case. A U.S. judge dismissed allegations tied to an alleged terror financing matter. That dismissal cleared the exchange of those specific claims.

Binance now faces a new legal battle centered on defamation. The case will proceed in federal court in New York. Court records show that the complaint was filed on Wednesday, March 11.

The post Binance Sues Wall Street Journal Over Iran Report appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Wells Fargo filed a U.S. trademark application for the wordmark WFUSD on March 9.
• The USPTO lists the application as live and pending review.
• The filing covers software for digital asset trading, payments, and wallet services.
• It also includes cryptocurrency exchange services and financial data processing.
• The application references tokenization and blockchain-based trading infrastructure.

Wells Fargo & Company has filed a U.S. trademark application for the wordmark “WFUSD.” The filing covers software, trading, payments, and tokenization services tied to digital assets. The United States Patent and Trademark Office lists the application as live and pending.

Wells Fargo Moves to Secure ‘WFUSD’ Trademark

Wells Fargo & Company submitted the trademark application on March 9, according to USPTO records. The filing appeared publicly on the USPTO site early Wednesday. The agency confirmed the application met minimum filing requirements. However, it has not yet assigned an examining attorney.

The application spans three international classes that cover digital asset services. Class 009 includes downloadable software for digital asset trading, payments, and wallet functions. Class 036 covers cryptocurrency trading and exchange services and financial information processing. Class 042 includes software-as-a-service for tokenizing assets and operating blockchain trading infrastructure.

The filing also references software used to process stablecoin transactions. The name “WFUSD” resembles ticker symbols for U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins. However, Wells Fargo has not issued any public statement about the application.

Filing Aligns with Wells Fargo’s Prior Crypto Activity

Wells Fargo has backed digital asset infrastructure firms in recent years. In February 2020, Wells Fargo Strategic Capital invested $5 million in Elliptic. The blockchain analytics firm counts SBI Holdings and Santander InnoVentures among its investors.

In May 2022, the bank joined a $105 million Series B round for Talos. Citigroup, BNY, and DRW also participated in that funding round. The investment valued Talos at $1.25 billion.

The trademark filing follows commentary from the Wells Fargo Investment Institute. In March 2025, the institute stated that digital assets have “evolved into a viable investment asset.” The report classified digital assets as “part of real assets within an asset-allocation framework.”

The institute also described digital assets as “potential portfolio diversifiers.” The report cited low five- and ten-year correlations with traditional asset classes. It framed digital assets within a broader allocation strategy.

Wells Fargo reported net income of $5.36 billion for the fourth quarter of 2025. The bank posted $1.62 per diluted share during that period. In the same quarter a year earlier, it reported $5.08 billion, or $1.43 per share.

Wells Fargo manages approximately $2.1 trillion in assets. The USPTO currently lists the “WFUSD” application as live and pending. The agency has not yet assigned the filing to an examining attorney.

The post Wells Fargo files WFUSD trademark for crypto services appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Nebius shares rose more than 13% to $110 after Nvidia announced a $2 billion investment.
• NVDA stock traded near $185 and recorded a modest gain during Wednesday’s session.
• Nvidia confirmed it will support Nebius in building large-scale cloud systems for artificial intelligence workloads.
• Jensen Huang said Nebius is developing a cloud platform optimized for autonomous agents.
• The partnership focuses on deploying advanced computing infrastructure and managing large compute fleets.

Nebius Group shares climbed to $110 on Wednesday after Nvidia ( NVDA) disclosed a $2 billion investment in the company. The stock gained more than 13% before the Wall Street opening bell. Meanwhile, Nvidia shares traded near $185 and posted a modest increase during the session.

NVDA Stock Jumps as Nvidia Expands AI Cloud Partnership

Nvidia confirmed a $2 billion investment in Nebius to support large-scale cloud systems for artificial intelligence workloads. The announcement lifted NVDA stock and pushed Nebius shares sharply higher in early trading. Nvidia stated that the partnership will focus on deploying advanced computing infrastructure and managing large compute fleets.

NVIDIA Corporation, NVDA

Jensen Huang, Chief Executive Officer of Nvidia, said, “Nvidia has begun building a cloud system optimized for autonomous agents.” He added that the platform integrates hardware, software, and networking around Nvidia-accelerated computing. As a result, both companies will coordinate on designing AI factories for next-generation applications.

Nebius plans to build infrastructure designed specifically for artificial intelligence tasks and distributed systems. The company will manage large compute clusters and support advanced inference workloads. Nvidia will supply core technologies and align its computing roadmap with Nebius cloud expansion plans.

The companies outlined joint efforts to scale data center operations and optimize performance for complex model training. Nvidia will provide graphics processing units and networking solutions for these deployments. Nebius will oversee system integration and cloud platform management across its facilities.

Nvidia Strengthens AI Ecosystem Investments

Nvidia has increased investments across the artificial intelligence ecosystem in recent months. The company disclosed $2 billion investments in Lumentum and Coherent to expand infrastructure capabilities. Nvidia also backed Thinking Machines Lab, founded by former OpenAI executive Mira Murati.

The chipmaker participated in OpenAI’s $100 billion funding round earlier this year. Nvidia also outlined plans to invest up to $10 billion in Anthropic. These transactions position Nvidia across hardware supply and platform development segments.

The company continues to allocate capital toward research labs and infrastructure providers. Nvidia integrates its accelerated computing systems across partner platforms. Through these agreements, the company strengthens coordination between hardware design and cloud deployment.

NVDA Stock Technical Levels in Focus

NVDA stock trades within an ascending triangle pattern on the weekly chart. Analysts identify $174 as a key support level for the structure. If the price drops below $174, traders expect a move toward the $164 to $166 range.

However, the stock remains positioned near the midpoint of the formation. If buying pressure increases, analysts project a breakout target between $192 and $196. Current trading levels reflect consolidation inside the established technical pattern.

Nvidia shares traded near $185 during Wednesday’s session following the Nebius investment disclosure. Nebius shares held gains above 13% after the market opened. The companies continue executing infrastructure plans announced with the $2 billion agreement.

The post NVDA Stock Rises After Nvidia’s $2B Nebius Investment appeared first on Blockonomi.

Bitcoin could reach $1 million if it captures roughly 17% of a projected $121 trillion global store-of-value market, according to Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise Asset Management.

In a recent memo, he explained how long-term market expansion could support significantly higher prices for the digital asset.

Math Behind The Target

Hougan said the idea initially appears unrealistic because a $1 million valuation would require Bitcoin to increase roughly 14 times from its current price, a target he himself once dismissed in 2018, when BTC was trading near $4,000.

However, after studying the asset’s role in financial markets, he said the common mistake in evaluating Bitcoin’s long-term potential is treating the store-of-value market as fixed rather than expanding. Hougan described Bitcoin as an emerging digital store-of-value asset that competes with gold by allowing investors to hold wealth outside traditional fiat currencies and banking systems, although he acknowledged that the cryptocurrency remains more volatile and less established than the metal.

According to the Bitwise exec, estimating BTC’s potential value involves calculating the total size of the global store-of-value market, estimating the portion Bitcoin could capture, and dividing that value by the asset’s maximum supply of 21 million units. Based on current figures, Hougan said the store-of-value market totals just under $38 trillion, including about $36 trillion in gold and roughly $1.4 trillion in Bitcoin. This implies that BTC currently represents slightly less than 4% of that market.

Under those conditions, he said a $1 million BTC price would appear unrealistic because the cryptocurrency would need to capture more than half of the existing store-of-value market. He described this scenario as a “high bar.” However, the CIO noted that the market itself has grown significantly over time and may continue expanding. He pointed to the growth of the metal’s market capitalization over the past two decades, and added that when the first US gold exchange-traded fund launched in 2004, the global market was worth about $2.5 trillion.

Since then, the value of gold has increased to nearly $40 trillion, representing a compound annual growth rate of roughly 13%, driven by concerns about government debt levels, geopolitical uncertainty, loose monetary policy, and other macroeconomic factors. Hougan said that if the broader store-of-value market continues growing at a similar pace, it could reach approximately $121 trillion within the next decade.

Under that scenario, Bitcoin would only need to capture about 17% of the market to reach a valuation of $1 million per BTC. Hougan acknowledged that this would still represent significant growth, as BTC’s current share remains around 4%, but said recent developments suggest that expanding adoption could make such a shift possible.

Key Risks

Despite the optimistic outlook, Hougan said there are risks that could prevent the scenario from unfolding. He noted that the store-of-value market may not continue growing at the same pace seen over the past two decades, which included events such as the global financial crisis, the widespread adoption of quantitative easing, and a prolonged period of low interest rates.

A slowdown in those trends could also lead to declining gold prices. Another possibility is that Bitcoin fails to capture additional market share.

At the same time, Hougan said it is also possible that current projections underestimate the asset’s potential if concerns about rising government debt intensify and investors increasingly turn to alternative stores of value. Under his base-case scenario, he said the store-of-value market would continue expanding while Bitcoin gradually increases its share. He added that such a combination could result in prices far above current levels.

The post $1M Bitcoin ‘Sounds Crazy,’ but Bitwise CIO Says the Math Points Higher appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ripple’s native cryptocurrency has been trading in a relatively tight range over the past few days, but one indicator suggests that a major price move could be on the way.

Opinions vary among analysts: some project substantial upside in the short term, whereas others see a renewed correction as the more probable outcome.

Fasten Your Belts

After a period of heavy turbulence earlier this year, XRP’s price movement appears to have calmed down a bit lately. Over the last week, the asset has been hovering between $1.33 and $1.47, currently trading at around $1.40.

Ali Martinez noted the reduced volatility, claiming that a huge move could be on the horizon given the squeezed Bollinger Bands. The technical indicator, developed by John Bollinger in the 1980, helps traders spot oversold or overbought conditions.

It is made up of a moving average with upper and lower bands that widen or narrow as market conditions change. When the bands tighten, it signals a period of low volatility that sometimes precedes a strong rally or a sharp decline.

The analysts on X have been quite divided in XRP’s potential future performance. Some, like Trading Shot, think the valuation could plummet below $1, whereas WealthManager alerted that a “huge drop could be imminent.”

Others, including EGRAG CRYPTO, emphasized that XRP’s RSI has fallen on a weekly scale, entering its most oversold level in history. Such a trend is typically followed by a price pump, whereas overbought territory is seen as a warning for an incoming correction.

Crossing This Zone is Crucial for the Bulls

Another industry participant who touched upon XRP’s performance is X user CRYPTOWZRD. They argued that the asset needs to reclaim $1.4230 to enter bullish territory, whereas a rejection could offer a further decline and short opportunities.

The fading interest in spot XRP ETFs is another development that won’t sit well with the bulls. Data shows that outflows have surpassed inflows over the past four days, suggesting that major institutional players, such as pension funds, hedge funds, and asset managers, have been scaling back their positions.

The first company to launch a spot XRP ETF in the US, which has 100% exposure to the token, is Canary Capital. This happened in November 2025, and shortly after, Bitwise, Grayscale, Franklin Templeton, and 21Shares followed suit. According to data from SoSoValue, these financial vehicles have generated a cumulative net inflow of $1.21 billion to date.

The post Watch Out: Here’s Why Ripple (XRP) Could be on the Verge of a Huge Move appeared first on CryptoPotato.

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has said that he would not buy Bitcoin (BTC) today if he only had $1 to invest.

However, he still expects the cryptocurrency to eventually climb back above $100,000 once central banks return to printing money.

Waiting for the Fed to Print

In a March 10 interview with Natalie Brunell on CoinStories, Hayes argued that the ongoing conflict pitting the U.S. and Israel against Iran has created a real risk of a broad market sell-off that could pull BTC below $60,000.

“There’s a situation where the longer that this carries on, there could be a massive sell-off in equities, and Bitcoin might fall a bit lower, might break $60,000, and that could be sort of a big cascading of liquidations down,” Hayes said during the interview.

According to him, every major Middle East conflict in his lifetime eventually prompted the Fed to print, leading him to conclude that the signal to watch is not the war itself but what central banks actually do in response.

“If I had $1 to invest right now, would I be putting it into Bitcoin? No,” he said. “I would wait. I think that the longer that this conflict goes on, the higher the likelihood that the Fed has to print money to support the American war machine, and that’s when I’m going to buy Bitcoin.”

However, he cautioned against trying to time the moment, noting that most people are following the same mainstream coverage and could likely misread the situation.

Asked why he thought BTC had underperformed over the past 6 to 9 months, the former BitMEX CEO pointed to what he described as a liquidity deficit rather than weak demand for the king cryptocurrency itself.

“Bitcoin is a liquidity alarm,” he stated, arguing that AI-driven job displacement is quietly building deflationary pressure in the U.S. economy. In his view, there isn’t enough dollar liquidity to offset the other demands on capital, especially spending by large tech companies building out data center infrastructure.

No Grand Schemes to Suppress Bitcoin

Hayes also pushed back on the idea that institutions or large market makers like Jane Street have been suppressing the price of BTC.

“I don’t think there’s anything nefarious or like some evil conspiracy of Jane Street and other market makers to try to manipulate prices lower,” he said.

The crypto trader attributed most such claims to investors looking for someone to blame after bad entries and advised anyone without a professional trading setup to completely avoid leverage and short-term positions.

Personally, he described himself as “structurally very, very long Bitcoin and other coins,” adding that there’s currently a much stronger need for stateless money than when Bitcoin launched in 2009.

Hayes’s comments have come with Bitcoin trading just under the $70,000 mark following months of sideways price action. However, unlike the BitMEX co-founder’s suggestion that the asset could dip to $60,000, analyst Markus Thielen believes that the way BTC brushed off rising oil prices and geopolitical noise in the past week was a bullish sign, which made a move toward $80,000 more likely.

The post Here’s When Arthur Hayes Will Buy Bitcoin Again appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The popular crypto-friendly digital bank Revolut announced today that it will be launching its UK bank.

According to the firm’s official statement, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) has decided to lift the restrictions on Revolut’s banking license.

With that out of the way, the launch of the local bank comes with an already existing user base of more than 13 million UK customers. Moreover, it follows the firm’s recent commitment to invest as much as $4 billion and create at least 1,000 high-skilled jobs in the country.

Speaking on the matter was the co-founder and CEO of Revolut, who said:

“Launching our UK bank has been a long-term strategic priority for Revolut, and marks a significant moment in our journey. The UK is our home market and central to our growth. We look forward to introducing a full suite of banking services to our millions of UK customers, bringing the same innovative experience we already provide across the rest of Europe. This is a vital step in our mission to build the world’s first truly global bank.”

According to the announcement, the rollout will be gradual, starting in a few days with a small group of existing customers and expanding over the coming weeks.

The post Revolut Moves Forward With UK Bank Launch as License Limits Are Removed appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Payments giant Mastercard unveiled a new Crypto Partner Program aimed at connecting the rapidly developing world of blockchain tech with its vast global payments infrastructure.

According to the company’s statement, more than 85 blockchain and fintech-focused firms have joined the initiative, with some of the major names including Binance, Ripple, Gemini, PayPal, Paxos, and Circle.

Mastercard’s Program

The official press release indicated that this joint venture signals another step by traditional financial networks toward integrating cryptocurrency assets into mainstream commerce.

Given the substantial number of big crypto and fintech names joining the program, Mastercard noted that they plan to explore how on-chain tech, including programmable payments and tokenized assets, can integrate with TradFi payment systems used by merchants, banks, and consumers worldwide.

The program itself will focus on developing practical applications where blockchain can complement existing financial rails rather than replace them.

Mastercard execs Raj Dhamodharan and Sherri Haymond claimed that crypto assets have entered a new phase, which could boost them further into the traditional financial system.

“As digital asset technologies mature, Mastercard will continue focusing on what we do best: enabling trust, setting standards, and connecting systems at scale. By bridging on-chain innovation with the framework that powers everyday payments, we’re helping ensure that what’s next works with what already does,” they added.

Broader Push

Bloomberg added that the new program builds on several earlier initiatives aimed at integrating the digital asset class into its ecosystem. It previously supported crypto-linked payment cards, invested in blockchain startups via its Start Path accelerator, and introduced services designed to help banks manage industry-related compliance and risk.

Although cryptocurrencies have risen in popularity in the past half a decade, their integration into everyday payments remains a complex challenge. Mastercard aims to address that by positioning itself as a bridge between the emerging blockchain economy and the traditional financial system.

The post Mastercard Enlists Ripple, Binance, and PayPal in New Crypto Partnership appeared first on CryptoPotato.