Rising odds of US military action in Iran could destabilize regional geopolitics and impact global markets significantly.

The post Odds for US forces entering Iran by April 30 rise to 86% amid market shifts appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Rising odds of US military action in Iran could destabilize regional geopolitics, impacting global markets and diplomatic relations.

The post Odds of US forces entering Iran by April 30 surge to 86% as traders react appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The diplomatic impasse heightens geopolitical tensions, reducing near-term ceasefire prospects and impacting global market stability.

The post Ceasefire odds for US-Iran talks plummet as intermediaries step back appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Iran's ceasefire push suggests a strategic pivot towards enduring conflict, impacting market expectations and diplomatic dynamics.

The post Iran’s 45-day ceasefire push makes April 7 unlikely, traders see prolonged conflict appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The proposed ceasefire could shift focus towards diplomacy, but skepticism and market trends suggest a prolonged resolution timeline.

The post Iran mediators propose 45-day ceasefire amid low US-Iran resolution odds: FT appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Charles Schwab Teases Direct Bitcoin Trading With New ‘Schwab Crypto’ Account

Financial services giant Charles Schwab is preparing to expand deeper into digital assets, announcing plans for a forthcoming product that will allow clients to buy and sell cryptocurrencies directly through its platform.

The firm revealed that “Schwab Crypto” is in development and will be offered through Charles Schwab Premier Bank, positioning the product as a gateway for retail investors seeking direct exposure to leading cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. The company has opened a waitlist for clients interested in early access, though availability will be subject to regulatory approval and eligibility requirements.

The move marks a notable shift for Schwab, which until now has limited crypto exposure to indirect investment vehicles. Currently, clients can access digital asset markets through exchange-traded products (ETPs), crypto-related equities, and thematic funds. Examples include publicly traded firms like Coinbase, MicroStrategy, and Riot Platforms, as well as funds tied to blockchain and crypto industry performance.

All aboard the Charles Schwab Bitcoin train

Schwab’s entry into spot trading places it in more direct competition with established crypto platforms such as Coinbase, Robinhood, and Webull. 

CEO Rick Wurster first signaled the firm’s intent to enter spot crypto markets in late 2024, citing expectations for a shifting regulatory environment under the administration of Donald Trump. The company has since positioned itself to move once conditions allowed for broader participation by traditional financial institutions.

Schwab is also preparing additional crypto-related products, including a potential stablecoin offering following the passage of the GENIUS stablecoin bill.

A recent report from Charles Schwab found that Bitcoin volatility has declined significantly, with historical volatility falling to 42% in 2025 — about half its 2021 level — making it comparable to or lower than major tech stocks like Tesla and Nvidia. 

Despite fewer extreme swings, bitcoin still experiences sharp drawdowns, including a 32% drop in 2025 and a 50% peak-to-trough decline over three years. 

Long term, volatility remains elevated versus traditional assets. The report suggests bitcoin is maturing as it integrates into mainstream finance, with growing institutional adoption and ETF developments signaling increased acceptance.

Editorial Disclaimer: We leverage AI as part of our editorial workflow, including to support research, image generation, and quality assurance processes. All content is directed, reviewed, and approved by our editorial team, who are accountable for accuracy and integrity. AI-generated images use only tools trained on properly license material. In Bitcoin, as in media: Don’t trust. Verify.

This post Charles Schwab Teases Direct Bitcoin Trading With New ‘Schwab Crypto’ Account first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Jack Dorsey Reveals Bitcoin Faucet Revival with “Bitcoin Day” Announcement

Tech entrepreneur and longtime Bitcoin advocate Jack Dorsey sparked excitement in the BTC community on Friday when he posted a link to a new page titled “Bitcoin Day | Earn Free Bitcoin.”

The post quotes an announcement from the “Bitcoin at Block” account stating that “The bitcoin faucet is back” on April 6, 2026, with a link to btc.day. Dorsey’s shared URL (hosted on AWS CloudFront) currently displays only the bold headline promoting free BTC on “Bitcoin Day,” with a countdown timer. 

No further details were given. 

In 2010, a site known as the Bitcoin Faucet gave visitors 5 BTC after they completed a simple captcha challenge. This was done to help spread awareness and use of BTC, which at the time was a new digital currency with almost no market value.

The site was created by Gavin Andresen, a software developer who later became one of BTC’s lead developers. Andresen loaded the faucet with his own BTC to distribute to visitors who solved the CAPTCHA.

Over the months the faucet operated, it handed out about 19,700 BTC in total. At today’s prices, that amount would be worth in the billions of dollars.

Bitcoin’s rough price performance

Over the past six months, BTC has experienced one of its weakest performance periods in years, with the price declining sharply from late 2025 highs. According to price history data, BTC’s value is down roughly 50% over the last half-year, reflecting a significant drawdown from levels above $120,000 in November 2025 to around the mid-$60,000s today.

BTC’s retreat has erased gains made earlier in the cycle and marked its worst six-month streak since 2018, driven by a mix of macroeconomic headwinds and reduced risk appetite among investors.

In March, it seems like the price stabilized near the high $60,000s, with market participants watching key technical levels and macro signals for clues on the next move. 

Block has held 8,883 BTC since October 6, 2020, currently worth about $593.74 million at an average cost of $32,939 per BTC, for a gain of roughly +102.92% at today’s prices.

The company, trading under ticker XYZ, has a market cap of about $36–$37 billion. At the time of writing, BTC is trading near $67,000.

Editorial Disclaimer: We leverage AI as part of our editorial workflow, including to support research, image generation, and quality assurance processes. All content is directed, reviewed, and approved by our editorial team, who are accountable for accuracy and integrity. AI-generated images use only tools trained on properly license material. In Bitcoin, as in media: Don’t trust. Verify.

This post Jack Dorsey Reveals Bitcoin Faucet Revival with “Bitcoin Day” Announcement first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Cathie Wood Calls Bitcoin’s 50% Crash a “Victory” as Market Tests New Floor

Nearly six months after the Oct. 10 flash crypto crash erased millions of dollars in a single day, Bitcoin remains under pressure, trading well below its recent peak. The asset reached an all-time high of $126,080 on Oct. 6, but has since fallen about 47% to roughly $67,000.

Despite the drawdown, Cathie Wood, a long-time BTC advocate and chief executive of ARK Investment Management, is urging investors to maintain a long-term perspective.

Wood, whose firm was among the first publicly listed asset managers to gain exposure to Bitcoin in 2015, has maintained an active presence in crypto-related equities. ARK Invest continues to trade shares of companies tied to the digital asset sector, including Coinbase, Robinhood Markets, Block, Circle Internet Group, Bitmine Immersion Technologies, and Bullish, adjusting positions in response to market conditions.

In an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Wood addressed the current downturn, framing the magnitude of BTC’s decline as a sign of maturation rather than weakness. 

She argued that a roughly 50% drop from peak levels represents a shift from the extreme volatility seen in earlier cycles, when Bitcoin routinely experienced drawdowns of 85% to 95%.

According to Wood, such severe collapses are unlikely to recur. She described Bitcoin as a “proven technology” and a “new asset class,” suggesting that its market behavior has evolved alongside broader adoption and institutional participation. 

In her view, the current correction would be considered a “real victory” within the Bitcoin community if losses remain limited to around half of its peak value.

Bitcoin’s vicious cycles

Historical data supports the comparison to prior cycles, though the current downturn has yet to match earlier bear markets in severity. During the 2021–2022 cycle, Bitcoin fell nearly 80% from its then-record high of about $69,000, eventually bottoming near $15,600. 

Onchain data from Glassnode indicates that the present decline, measured against the October 2025 high, has reached roughly 52% at its lowest point.

All this is happening as bitcoin’s price decline forces a growing number of public companies and sovereign entities to unwind their BTC treasuries, marking a sharp reversal from the accumulation trend of the past two years. Firms that once championed long-term holding are now selling to manage liquidity, repay debt, and fund strategic pivots.

Companies like Riot Platforms, Genius Group, Empery Digital, Nakamoto Holdings, and Marathon Digital have all reduced holdings, in some cases significantly. Marathon alone sold over 15,000 BTC for $1.1 billion to cut debt, while Genius Group fully exited its position. Riot has also been offloading bitcoin as it shifts focus toward AI and high-performance computing infrastructure.

Even firms still committed to bitcoin are trimming reserves. Empery Digital sold part of its holdings to repay loans, while Nakamoto Holdings liquidated a smaller portion to support operations. Meanwhile, Bhutan has been reducing its state-backed bitcoin reserves after previously accumulating through mining.

Despite the sell-off, public companies still collectively hold about 1.16 million BTC, over 5% of the total supply. 

This post Cathie Wood Calls Bitcoin’s 50% Crash a “Victory” as Market Tests New Floor first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Riot Platforms Sells 3,778 Bitcoin in Q1 as Miner Strategy Shifts Toward AI Infrastructure

Riot Platforms sold 3,778 bitcoin in the first quarter of 2026, generating $289.5 million and marking a shift in strategy as the miner redirects capital toward infrastructure and high-performance computing.

The volume sold exceeded the company’s quarterly production of 1,473 BTC by roughly 2.6 times, signaling a drawdown of treasury holdings rather than routine profit-taking. Riot ended the quarter with 15,680 BTC, down 18% from 18,005 BTC at the close of 2025.

The selling appears to have extended beyond the reporting period. Blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence flagged a 500 BTC outflow from a wallet linked to Riot following the end of the quarter, suggesting continued liquidation activity.

The imbalance between production and sales comes as Riot accelerates its expansion into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing colocation. The company has begun repositioning its business model away from sole reliance on bitcoin mining, seeking to monetize its energy assets and data center footprint through long-term infrastructure contracts.

In January, Riot sold 1,080 BTC to fund the purchase of 200 acres at its Rockdale, Texas site. It also entered a ten-year agreement with Advanced Micro Devices to provide 25 megawatts of capacity, with an option to scale to 200 MW. The deal is expected to generate about $311 million in contract revenue over its initial term.

Operational metrics complicate a distress narrative. Riot reduced its all-in power cost to 3.0 cents per kilowatt hour, a 21% decline from the prior year, while increasing deployed hash rate by 26% to 42.5 exahashes per second. Average operating hash rate rose 23% to 36.4 EH/s, reflecting continued investment in mining capacity.

The company also generated $21 million in power credits during the quarter, more than double the year-ago period, through participation in grid services and energy programs.

Bitcoin HODLers like RIOT are selling

Industry conditions remain a factor. Rising energy costs tied to geopolitical tensions have pressured margins across the mining sector, prompting several operators to liquidate holdings. MARA Holdings, Genius Group, and Nakamoto Holdings collectively sold more than 15,000 BTC in recent days, reflecting a broader shift in capital allocation.

Riot’s Q1 activity underscores a turning point for the sector, where bitcoin reserves are deployed as funding sources for diversification rather than held as long-term balance sheet assets.

The trend extends beyond corporate treasuries. Bhutan has continued to reduce its BTC holdings, selling a total of 3,103 BTC. A single transaction on March 30 accounted for 375 BTC, according to Glassnode data. 

The country had built its position through state-backed mining operations, reaching more than 13,000 BTC at its peak in October 2024.

Despite the recent selling, public companies still hold about 1.16 million BTC, or more than 5% of bitcoin’s fixed supply of 21 million, according to BitcoinTreasuries.net.

This post Riot Platforms Sells 3,778 Bitcoin in Q1 as Miner Strategy Shifts Toward AI Infrastructure first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

The Bitcoin Treasury Model With a Built-In Valuation Floor

There is a version of the Bitcoin treasury conversation that has become almost routine at this point. Bitcoin is hard money. Fiat debases. Companies that hold Bitcoin on their balance sheet are making a rational long-term decision. All of this is true, and none of it is the interesting question anymore.

The interesting question is structural. Not should a company hold Bitcoin, but what kind of company should hold it, and what that choice implies for how the company performs across a full market cycle, not just a favorable one.

Three models have emerged. Each reflects a different level of conviction, a different capital structure, and a different set of tradeoffs.

• The pure-play. A company whose primary purpose is accumulating Bitcoin through capital raises, financial engineering, etc, with no core operating business. Lean structure, singular mission.

• The digital credit issuer. The most sophisticated expression of the pure-play thesis. These companies issue Bitcoin-backed financial instruments, preferred stock, convertible notes, and similar products, to fund continued accumulation. At scale, this creates a compounding accumulation engine that simpler models cannot match.
• The operating company with a Bitcoin treasury. A business with real revenue, real clients, and operational activity, which holds Bitcoin as a long-term reserve asset in deliberate strategic relationship with the business itself.

All three are legitimate expressions of the Bitcoin treasury thesis. They are not optimized for the same objectives, and the differences matter more than most treasury conversations acknowledge.

What pure-play gets right

The pure-play case deserves genuine treatment because its strongest version has real force.

Financial engineering pure-plays are capital-efficient in a specific and important sense: every dollar raised goes directly to Bitcoin accumulation with no operational drag. The mission is singular and the structure reflects it. For investors, this creates clarity. Allocators know exactly what they are underwriting, direct Bitcoin exposure at the corporate level, and the investment thesis is legible and short.

The digital credit model extends this further. Companies that have successfully issued preferred instruments and Bitcoin-backed products have built accumulation engines that operating businesses cannot match on a per-dollar-raised basis. The compounding effect of a sophisticated capital structure, at scale, is genuinely powerful. It represents the fullest expression of the Bitcoin treasury thesis, and the destination it points toward is one every operator in this space should understand.

The prerequisite problem and what it means in practice

The digital credit model has a prerequisite that is rarely stated plainly: it requires scale, institutional credibility, and market infrastructure that most companies building a Bitcoin treasury today do not yet have. It is a destination, not a starting point.

The path there runs through an intermediate period where the financial engineering structure carries more exposure than is often acknowledged. During that period:

• There is no operating revenue to fall back on
• The ability to raise capital tracks closely with Bitcoin market sentiment
• Strategic options narrow when conditions are not favorable
• The company’s cost structure depends entirely on capital markets remaining open

This is not a criticism of the model. It is a description of the journey. The question for executives is what structure best serves the company while that journey is underway.

What the operating company model actually provides

The operating company with a Bitcoin treasury does not accumulate Bitcoin faster than a well-run pure-play. At meaningful treasury scale, operating cash flow is not moving the needle on accumulation. The advantage is different, and worth stating precisely.

An operating business generates revenue independently of where Bitcoin is trading. That revenue covers fixed costs, which means the company is not dependent on capital markets remaining open to fund its basic operations. It can continue hiring, serving clients, and accumulating at a measured pace without being forced into capital decisions driven by timing rather than conviction.

The compounding effect works like this:

• Operating revenue covers costs and preserves the Bitcoin position through the cycle rather than drawing it down under pressure
• A preserved balance sheet improves the terms on future capital raises, lower dilution, better access to facilities, stronger negotiating position with partners
• Operational credibility widens the available capital base by providing an investment thesis that reaches allocators who cannot underwrite pure Bitcoin exposure within their current mandates

None of these mechanisms make Bitcoin accumulate faster in favorable conditions. Together, they make the company more durable across the full range of conditions it will face.

The built-in valuation floor

Most Bitcoin treasury company valuations are driven by a single number: mNAV, the premium the market assigns to Bitcoin held at the corporate level. When sentiment is strong and capital is flowing into the space, that premium expands. When the narrative cools, it compresses. The valuation moves with the market’s appetite for Bitcoin exposure, not with anything the company is doing operationally.

The operating company model introduces a second component that behaves differently. A profitable operating business carries an earnings multiple underwritten by revenue, client relationships, and operational track record. It does not expand dramatically when Bitcoin is performing. But it does not compress when sentiment turns either. It is stable in a way that mNAV alone is not.

These two components, Bitcoin NAV and an earnings multiple on the operating business, do not move together. That is the point. When mNAV compresses, the earnings multiple holds. The company retains a defensible valuation floor that a pure-play structure, with a single-component valuation entirely dependent on sentiment, does not have.

In practice this matters in three specific ways:

• Capital raises. A company with a defensible valuation floor can raise capital on reasonable terms even when Bitcoin sentiment is cold. A pure-play with a compressed mNAV and no earnings component has less room to maneuver.
• Talent. Equity compensation tied to a two-component valuation is a more legible and stable proposition for prospective hires than equity tied entirely to Bitcoin’s market sentiment.
• Allocator access. Many institutional allocators cannot underwrite a valuation built entirely on mNAV within their current mandates. The earnings component creates a bridge, opening the door to capital that would otherwise be unable to participate regardless of conviction.

The floor is not just a comfort during difficult conditions. It is a structural advantage that compounds over time, widening the capital base, strengthening the talent proposition, and maintaining strategic momentum across the full cycle.

How to think about the decision

These three models serve different objectives. The right framework starts with honest answers to a few questions:

• What does the existing business look like? A company with established revenue and clients already has the foundation for the operating company model. A company without it is choosing between building that foundation and committing to a pure-play path.
• What is the realistic path to scale? The digital credit model is the most powerful expression of the thesis but requires scale and credibility that takes time to build. The operating company model does not depend on reaching that threshold to function well.
• What does the investor base look like? Pure-play structures appeal most clearly to allocators who want direct Bitcoin exposure. Operating companies reach a broader set of capital partners, including those whose mandates require an operating business to participate.
• What kind of company do you want to be running across a full cycle? This is the question underneath all the others. The answer should drive the structure, not the other way around.

Conclusion

The companies that define the next era of corporate Bitcoin adoption will not all look the same. Digital credit issuers will operate at the frontier of Bitcoin-native capital markets. Financial engineering pure-plays will build toward that destination with focused conviction. Operating companies will build businesses where the treasury and core operations strengthen each other across the cycle.

Each model is a genuine expression of the thesis. The goal of this framework is to make the differences legible, so executives can choose the structure that fits what they are actually building, with clear eyes about what each model asks of them in return.

The question was never which model holds the most Bitcoin. It was always which model fits what you are trying to build.

Disclaimer: This content was prepared on behalf of Bitcoin For Corporations for informational purposes only. It reflects the author’s own analysis and opinion and should not be relied upon as investment advice. Nothing in this article constitutes an offer, invitation, or solicitation to purchase, sell, or subscribe for any security or financial product.

This post The Bitcoin Treasury Model With a Built-In Valuation Floor first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Nick Ward.

Wall Street spent the first quarter of 2026 systematically narrowing DeFi's claim to the future of finance.

In January, ICE announced NYSE was building a tokenized securities platform with 24/7 operations, instant settlement, dollar-based order sizing, and stablecoin funding, with BNY and Citi providing tokenized deposits for clearinghouse funding outside normal banking hours.

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In February, WisdomTree launched 24/7 trading and instant settlement for tokenized money-market fund shares under SEC relief.

In March, the Fed, FDIC, and OCC jointly said that eligible tokenized securities should receive the same capital treatment as their non-tokenized counterparts, calling the framework technology-neutral.

The SEC then approved Nasdaq's proposal to trade certain securities in tokenized form, with settlement through DTC.

NYSE and Securitize followed with a partnership to build digital transfer-agent infrastructure around institutional operating standards.

That sequence did something concrete to DeFi's competitive position. Regulated exchanges, broker-dealers, and bank-backed clearinghouses can now package 24/7 trading and on-chain settlement inside a supervised market structure, with the capital treatment to match.

The base pool of on-chain capital these moves target already exceeds $330 billion, including stablecoins at roughly $317 billion, tokenized US Treasuries at nearly $13 billion, and tokenized stocks at $1 billion.

That pool will attract institutional capital regardless of which rails it flows through.

Why this matters: the contest is no longer over whether finance will move on-chain. It is over who captures the capital once it does. If regulated venues can offer blockchain-based trading and settlement without DeFi’s governance and control-layer risks, open protocols have to prove why institutions should accept the added exposure.

Composability is DeFi's distinct advantage: the ability to build interconnected financial products on shared, permissionless infrastructure, where any protocol can connect directly to any other on open terms.

It is a genuinely DeFi-native feature. Nasdaq-approved tokenized securities still settle through DTC, are subject to exchange surveillance, and operate under existing order types and reporting frameworks.

WisdomTree's tokenized fund sits inside a broker-dealer model. NYSE designed its tokenized platform around transfer agents and institutional operating standards. All of those architectures require a central gatekeeper to approve downstream connections.

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Drift and the control-layer problem

Composability's value as a moat depends entirely on whether capital allocators believe the surrounding controls are mature enough to contain localized failures.

Drift's exploit exposed that dependency in the most direct way possible. Drift confirmed the attack exploited durable nonces and a takeover of Security Council administrative powers through a compromise of the access-control layer.

DefiLlama classified the incident as a $285 million hack driven by compromised admin access and price manipulation. Drift's total value locked fell from roughly $550 million to below $250 million.

The contagion framing from post-incident analysis is where the competitive argument becomes sharpest.

Because Drift's infrastructure is connected to downstream vaults, yield strategies, wrappers, and collateral positions across Solana DeFi, the administrative compromise radiated outward before the exposure map was clear.

Chaos Labs publicly said hidden dependencies kept surfacing in real time, leaving the final exposure tally open. Composability, functioning as a transmission channel for losses, precisely drives institutional capital allocators toward permissioned tokenization infrastructure over open protocol stacks.

The Drift incident fits a pattern that extends well beyond Solana.

Chainalysis found that private key compromises accounted for 43.8% of stolen crypto in 2024, the single-largest attack category it tracked.

TRM Labs said attackers stole $2.87 billion across nearly 150 hacks in 2025, with infrastructure attacks targeting keys, wallets, and access control planes driving the majority of losses and outpacing smart contract exploits.

TRM also noted the top 10 incidents accounted for 81% of 2025 hack losses.

The empirical record says the control layer, the governance layer, and the access management layer now carry more systemic risk than contract code alone. DeFi's security culture is still catching up to that empirical record.

What DeFi has to do

Open composability must adopt the corrective to compete for the institutional capital now pooling on-chain.

Drift's post-incident analysis and the broader Chaos Labs framing converge on the same operational list: stricter signer standards, timelocks on privileged transitions, segmented permission structures so that one compromised key cannot reach the entire control surface, explicit dependency mapping so downstream integrations are visible before a failure occurs, and faster public disclosure that lets the broader network act before contagion spreads.

Post-mortems show Drift's administrative transition used a 2-of-5 multisig with no timelock. This configuration compressed the approval window for a catastrophic change to the point where detection and intervention had no time to operate.

Those fixes are unglamorous. They build the operational credibility that makes a CFO or risk committee comfortable routing institutional capital through open infrastructure.

ICE, Nasdaq, and NYSE are competing for the same pool. The protocols that earn a share of it will be the ones that can demonstrate composability with contained, visible risk, where an interconnection means expanded utility.

Two paths forward

The on-chain capital base currently sits above $330 billion and will grow as tokenized securities and stablecoin adoption expand.

The contest is over what fraction of that pool flows through open, composable DeFi versus permissioned or semi-permissioned tokenization infrastructure.

In the bull case, DeFi protocols produce a visible, sustained upgrade in governance discipline: timelocks become standard for privileged transitions, signer hygiene improves across major protocols, teams publish dependency maps that let external allocators assess integration risk before committing capital, and disclosure lags shorten from days to hours.

Institutional allocators begin using open composability selectively for structured collateral, cross-protocol hedging, and yield strategies where the control layer is demonstrably stronger than before.

Open DeFi captures 5% to 10% of the on-chain capital pool, or roughly $16 billion to $33 billion. Composability becomes the premium layer atop the tokenization rails that traditional finance is building, running alongside a supervised market structure.

In the bear case, each successive control-layer incident raises the perceived risk premium on open composability faster than the industry can close the governance gap.

Tokenized securities, tokenized funds, and stablecoin settlement volumes have expanded, while capital stays within exchanges, broker-dealers, and permissioned custody structures.

Open DeFi captures less than 1% of the pool, with total assets of less than $3 billion. Traditional finance captures the blockchain upside through tokenization, faster settlement, and extended hours, while open composability captures retail flows and reflexive capital seeking yield on open infrastructure.

Wall Street spent 2025 and the early part of 2026 proving that blockchain rails can carry institutional assets within supervised frameworks.

DeFi's path to winning requires proving that open interconnection is worth the additional governance, disclosure, and control overhead imposed by regulatory mandates on supervised venues.

The post As Wall Street moves on-chain, DeFi faces a $330 billion trust test it can’t dodge appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Algorand has emerged as an early standout in the crypto market’s latest quantum security debate after a recent Google Quantum AI paper highlighted the blockchain as a live example of post-quantum cryptography being deployed on a network.

The attention came as the paper sharpened concerns around Bitcoin and Ethereum, two networks whose size, age, and design choices could make any future migration to quantum-resistant infrastructure slower and more complicated.

Against that backdrop, Algorand’s quieter work on Falcon digital signatures, state proofs, and key rotation suddenly looked less like a niche technical experiment and more like a practical head start.

The shift in attention helped lift Algorand’s token sharply over the past week, with traders treating the Google paper as validation of work already underway on the network.

According to CryptoSlate's data, ALGO, the blockchain network's native token, is one of the top performers over the past week, gaining around 50% to rise to $0.12 as of press time. Notably, the price performance came less than a week after the token fell to an all-time low of $0.08.

Algorand's quiet quantum computing lead over Bitcoin and Ethereum

Algorand’s advantage over Bitcoin and Ethereum is narrower than the recent enthusiasm suggests, but it is also more concrete than what many larger chains can currently show.

In its paper, Google described Algorand as an example of real-world deployment of post-quantum cryptography on an otherwise quantum-vulnerable blockchain.

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The distinction was important. It did not say Algorand had solved the problem end-to-end, but it did point to a network that had moved from theory into live implementation.

Algorand’s core consensus and built-in transactions still rely on Ed25519, which remains vulnerable in a sufficiently advanced quantum scenario.

However, the network has already deployed Falcon digital signatures for smart transactions and state proofs, the cryptographic attestations used to verify blockchain state across chains. It has also made Falcon verification available as a primitive for developers building on the Algorand Virtual Machine, giving the ecosystem a working set of tools rather than just a roadmap.

The network executed its first post-quantum-secured transaction in 2025, a milestone that set it apart from many larger rivals that are still debating design paths, governance trade-offs, and implementation timelines.

Algorand also allows users to rotate the private keys associated with their accounts, a feature that does not eliminate the underlying threat but could make future migrations more manageable.

That combination, live transaction capability, developer tooling, state-proof support, and native key rotation, is what turned Algorand into a focal point as the paper circulated through the market.

In a sector where many conversations around quantum risk remain theoretical, Algorand could point to infrastructure already in production.

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Aug 1, 2025 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo

Bitcoin and Ethereum face quantum computing risk

For Bitcoin, the concern is not only whether quantum computers will eventually be able to derive private keys from public information, but also how much of the network’s legacy footprint would be difficult to migrate in time.

The paper said a quantum computer with fewer than 500,000 physical qubits could crack the elliptic-curve cryptography protecting Bitcoin wallets, a far lower threshold than earlier estimates that ran into the millions.

Google’s own most advanced chip, Willow, remains far below that level, but the revised estimate has intensified scrutiny of how much Bitcoin could be exposed if the technology advances faster than expected.

The burden is particularly acute because some of Bitcoin’s oldest addresses keep public keys visible on-chain.

The paper cited an estimated 6.7 million BTC in older Pay-to-Public-Key addresses, including coins long associated with Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

Even outside those legacy wallets, the migration challenge is politically and technically heavy for a network that prioritizes backward compatibility and moves cautiously on base-layer changes.

Quantum risk, in Bitcoin’s case, is as much a governance and coordination problem as it is a cryptographic one.

Meanwhile, Ethereum’s exposure to the same quantum computing risk is somewhat broader.

Once an Ethereum user sends a transaction, the public key tied to that account becomes permanently visible on-chain. The paper said that this leaves the top 1,000 Ethereum wallets, holding roughly 20.5 million ETH, exposed under a sufficiently advanced quantum attack.

It also identified at least 70 major contracts with administrator keys visible on-chain, which ultimately control far more than the ETH they directly hold, including stablecoin minting authority and other system-critical permissions.

Moreover, the attack surface extends beyond wallets and contract administrators.

Ethereum’s proof-of-stake validator set, major Layer 2 networks, and parts of its data-availability architecture all rely on cryptographic components the paper described as vulnerable.

According to the paper, roughly 37 million ETH is staked, and much of Ethereum’s transaction load now flows through rollups and bridges that inherit assumptions from the base layer.

That means any serious post-quantum migration would have to reach not only users and validators, but also the network of applications and scaling systems built around them.

The post Algorand just jumped 50% after Google flags quantum risk for Bitcoin and Ethereum appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The US economy added 178,000 jobs in March, nearly three times the consensus estimate of 60,000, and unemployment dipped to 4.3%. That is the kind of print that resets macro narratives and hits risk assets before traders finish their first read.

Bitcoin traded around $67,000, unfazed by the data. The 10-year Treasury yield climbed four basis points to 4.35%, and the dollar index ticked up to 100.08.

The market's first-order read was straightforward: a labor market that looks this strong gives the Federal Reserve less reason to cut, which in turn yields tighter financial conditions and weighs on a macro-sensitive asset like Bitcoin.

Why this matters: Bitcoin reacted to more than a jobs beat. The signal was a stronger labor market that reduces the Fed’s urgency to cut rates. If that view holds, yields and the dollar can stay firm, maintaining pressure on liquidity-sensitive assets like BTC.

Zoom in on where those 178,000 jobs came from, and the picture gets less clean. Health care alone added 76,000 positions, and 35,000 of those were workers returning from a strike in physicians' offices. The numbers represented a catch-up hiring.

Construction added 26,000, partly weather-aided, and transportation and warehousing contributed another 21,000. Federal government employment fell by 18,000, and financial activities shed 15,000.

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161,000 US jobs just disappeared after a revision as Bitcoin navigates increasingly messy macro data

Nearly 1 million US jobs never existed, according to a massive government revision

Mar 8, 2026 · Andjela Radmilac

BLS noted that total payroll employment had moved little on net over the prior 12 months.

That backdrop makes March read as a rebound from a noisy February, with sector-specific catch-up doing most of the lifting.

The household survey runs the other way

The household survey, which tracks employed and unemployed individuals across the population, moved in the opposite direction from the payroll numbers.

The civilian labor force contracted by 396,000 in March, with participation falling to 61.9%. Household employment declined by 64,000, and the number of people not in the labor force rose by 488,000.

Marginally attached workers jumped 325,000 to 1.9 million, and discouraged workers climbed 144,000 to 510,000. The average workweek is shortened to 34.2 hours.

Average hourly earnings rose just 0.2% month over month and 3.5% year over year, with no wage acceleration to complement the payroll beat.

February's revision adds another layer. BLS marked February down to -133,000 from -92,000 and revised January up to 160,000 from 126,000. The net two-month revision was only -7,000, making the pattern noisy and lacking a consistent directional pull.

Payroll growth in the first quarter averaged roughly 68,000 per month, a soft pace by any expansion standard.

BLS revises monthly estimates twice as additional employer reports arrive and seasonal factors reset.

Since 2003, the average absolute revision from the first to the third estimate has been 51,000 jobs. A revision of that size would take March from 178,000 to around 127,000, which is noticeably less dramatic.

To erase the entire beat, March would need a job-creation figure exceeding 118,000, roughly 2.3 times the historical average, and ordinary revision noise does not get there.

BLS's annual benchmark revision stripped 898,000 jobs from the March 2025 payroll level, four times the average absolute benchmark revision of the prior decade.

The revision established that first-print payrolls have recently carried more uncertainty than markets typically price in during the first trading hour following a strong print.

The rates channel behind Bitcoin's drop

The Federal Reserve held its target range at 3.50% to 3.75% in March.

The median participant's projection put 2026 unemployment at 4.4%, PCE inflation at 2.7%, and the year-end fed funds rate at 3.4%. March unemployment at 4.3% and a payroll print of 178,000 gave policymakers no urgency to move.

NYDIG's research frames the Bitcoin-to-macro link in the same terms: BTC trades in line with real rates, liquidity, and risk appetite. A Fed that holds its position on a firm labor market removes the near-term catalyst that Bitcoin most needs.

The February JOLTS report reinforces this without turning alarming. Openings held near 6.9 million, but hires fell to 4.8 million, and the hiring rate dropped to 3.1%, the lowest reading since April 2020.

Initial jobless claims for the week ended March 28 came in at 202,000, near cycle lows.

Together, these data points describe a labor market in stasis, with layoffs contained, new hiring tepid, and firms holding headcount steady.

That environment does not trigger a Fed pivot, and a Fed that does not pivot keeps financial conditions tighter for longer.

Potential outcomes for Bitcoin

Bitcoin's price action on April 3 ran through the rates channel. Labor strength reduced cut expectations, firmer yields, and a stronger dollar tightened conditions for liquidity-sensitive assets. This channel can reverse.

If BLS revises March payrolls materially lower toward sub-100,000, and April payrolls also land soft while participation rebounds, the “headline-only strength” thesis gains traction.

Cut expectations would reopen, yields would ease, and Bitcoin would have room to rally on liquidity repricing. The weakness in the household survey, the strike-return distortion in health care, and the low-hiring JOLTS backdrop each make that path plausible, but April data on May 8 would need to confirm it.

If March holds near current levels or BLS revises it higher, and April payrolls land above roughly 125,000 while unemployment stays near 4.3% or below, February becomes the clear outlier.

The Fed extends its pause with more confidence, cuts get pushed further out, and Bitcoin keeps trading as a macro risk asset with no near-term liquidity catalyst.

The cross-asset move on April 3, with yields up, the dollar up, and BTC down, showed the market had already begun pricing that path.

The next Employment Situation release is scheduled for May 8 at 8:30 a.m. ET, bringing both April payrolls and the first revision to March.

That makes it the real checkpoint for every argument built on the April 3 print. March CPI is released on April 10, and the next FOMC meeting runs April 28-29, two data points the Fed absorbs before setting policy again.

CPI, in particular, will test if labor market firmness pairs with sticky inflation or with the wage deceleration that the March print already hinted at.

The post US jobs crush forecasts, yet hidden labor weakness could keep Bitcoin under pressure appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Circle's biggest selling point may be becoming its biggest liability. On-chain investigator ZachXBT's “Circle Files” allege that the USDC issuer has inconsistently applied its freeze powers.

Circle was too slow in 15 cases involving more than $420 million in allegedly illicit funds since 2022, yet broad enough to sweep 16 operational business wallets in a sealed US civil matter. The wallets were tied to exchanges, casinos, and forex services that ZachXBT said did not appear connected.

Why this matters: USDC is a core settlement asset in crypto, widely used by exchanges, traders, payment flows, and DeFi protocols. Circle’s freeze decisions extend beyond individual legal disputes or hack responses and set the boundary for how much operational risk businesses accept when holding or moving dollars on-chain.

The firm later unfroze at least one of those wallets, belonging to Goated.com, adding weight to the question of how precisely Circle reviews the addresses it blocklists.

That sequence of “slow on theft, sweeping on civil process” lands at a difficult moment.

USDC held roughly $77.2 billion in circulation as of April 3, in a total stablecoin market of nearly $316.8 billion, accounting for about 24.5% of that pool. One of the cases ZachXBT cites, the Drift exploit, saw more than $280 million in USDC move across 100-plus transactions in roughly six hours.

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At that scale and speed, the gap between “can freeze” and “froze in time” is the entire practical question.

The legal stack Circle built

Circle's control surface has real on-chain teeth. Its EVM stablecoin contract includes a blocklist feature under a blocklister role, and blocklisted addresses cannot transfer or receive tokens.

Circle designed the contract to be both pausable and upgradeable.

That architecture existed long before this controversy arose, and Circle's Access Denial Policy codifies when that power is triggered.

Circle can block individual addresses on every blockchain where its stablecoins are issued. Once denied, the associated balance cannot move on-chain.

The policy limits freezes to two narrow triggers: when Circle decides, in its sole discretion, that failing to act would threaten network security or integrity, or when a valid legal order from a recognized US or French authority requires it.

Reversals require formal confirmation that the legal obligation or security basis no longer applies.

The USDC Terms add a second layer. Nothing in those terms obligates Circle to track, verify, or determine the provenance of users' USDC balances.

Yet, Circle also reserves the right to block addresses and freeze associated USDC that it determines, in its sole discretion, may be tied to illegal activity.

The Circle Mint User Agreement goes further: Circle may suspend accounts in its sole and absolute discretion, including under a court order, and may restrict redemptions or transfers when the law or a court order prohibits them.

The access-denial policy reads narrower and more formally rules-based, blocking sounds exceptional, tied to security events or legal compulsion. The broader USDC terms and user agreement grant the issuer considerably greater discretion.

Circle's legal terms afford the issuer considerably more latitude than the access-denial policy's narrow framing implies. When legal process and user continuity collide, Circle's own hierarchy prioritizes compliance and issuer control.

Where the criticism bites

The 16-wallet incident illustrates why that hierarchy now troubles operators. Circle's freeze power executed quickly and broadly when a sealed civil matter arrived at its desk.

ZachXBT's “Circle Files” allege the same power moved too slowly across 15 theft cases since 2022, and the Drift window, $280 million-plus across more than 100 transactions in six hours, is the sharpest example because the scale and transaction count appeared on-chain in real time.

The GENIUS Act, passed in July 2025, created a US regulatory framework for payment stablecoins, treating USDC-type products as regulated financial infrastructure.

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The OCC's implementing proposal has a comment deadline of May 1. FATF's March 2026 report stressed that supervisors should assess whether blockchain analytics and controls deliver tangible enforcement outcomes, and that timely public-private coordination is crucial for asset recovery.

That is the precise standard ZachXBT and affected operators are now applying to Circle.

Circle markets USDC as fully backed, transparently managed, and the world's largest regulated stablecoin. Circle's own 2026 Internet Financial System report cited $50 trillion-plus in cumulative USDC settlement, 40% of stablecoin transaction volume, and 29% of stablecoin circulation as of September 2025.

At that scale, freeze governance operates at systemic weight, and the examination it now faces reflects the infrastructure role Circle has claimed for itself.

Two paths for Circle

The bull path runs through transparency and speed.

If Circle publishes a clearer review standard for freezes tied to civil process, detailing what internal review fires before Circle blocklists operational business wallets, and demonstrates materially faster coordination in future hack response situations, the controversy becomes a governance maturation story.

In that scenario, regulation under the GENIUS framework and MiCA rewards the most institutionalized issuer, and USDC circulation could recover to the $82 billion to $90 billion range, with 25% to 27% market share.

The 16-wallet incident, with Circle having already restored one wallet, would read as the moment Circle clarified its process.

The bear path runs through accumulation. More examples of slow hack responses or overbroad civil-process freezes, and operators who hold USDC in hot wallets, such as exchanges, payment companies, and DeFi protocols, are starting to diversify settlement routes.

A stablecoin can maintain its $1 peg while losing strategic relevance, and operators diversifying away from Circle would not trigger any depeg alert.

Tether, PYUSD, and a widening field of issuer-specific tokens each give operators a route away from Circle's control stack.

In that outcome, USDC circulation drifts toward a $68 billion to $75 billion range and a 20% to 23% market share, as businesses reprice the operational risk of sitting within Circle's discretion.

The next checkpoint arrives through operational performance, depending on how quickly Circle responds to the next hack, how quickly it restores blocklisted wallets, and if freezes land on operators with a clearer rationale than the last batch.

The OCC comment window closes on May 1, and the regulatory regime for payment stablecoins is taking shape while this dispute is live.

The market now wants to know if the compliance used by Circle model protects users or concentrates power in an issuer whose review standards operators cannot see.

The post Circle’s USDC freeze power faces fresh scrutiny after wallets were blocked while stolen funds moved appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Charles Schwab operates 38.9 million active brokerage accounts and holds $12.22 trillion in client assets. For years, investors in those accounts could reach Bitcoin and Ethereum through ETFs, crypto-related equities, and futures.

A phased launch beginning in the second quarter closes the gap with direct investments. Schwab Crypto, offered through Charles Schwab Premier Bank, SSB, will let qualifying clients buy and sell Bitcoin and Ethereum directly.

The offer is available in all US states except New York and Louisiana, on a timeline that starts with employees and a small initial cohort before broadening.

Why this matters: Schwab is not introducing crypto to a crypto-native audience. It is testing whether direct Bitcoin and Ethereum ownership can sit inside the workflow of a mainstream brokerage customer. If that model gains traction, the implications reach beyond Schwab to product design, broker competition, and the next layer of retail crypto adoption.

The product architecture includes a structural boundary that clients and operators will immediately feel. Schwab Crypto operates through a dedicated account with an affiliated bank subsidiary.

This means that the structure is in a separate account from the brokerage accounts where investors already hold stocks, bonds, and ETFs. The crypto assets carry no SIPC or FDIC protection.

Schwab currently accepts no crypto deposits and does not settle securities or futures transactions in crypto. Mainstream access is real, and it arrives on carefully controlled broker-defined terms.

What drove the timing into 2026 is a policy calendar that dissolved three major institutional frictions within four months.

In January 2025, SAB 122 rescinded the earlier SAB 121 crypto safeguarding guidance that had made custody economics unattractive for traditional banks.

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In March 2025, the OCC reaffirmed that crypto custody, certain stablecoin activities, and participation in distributed ledgers are permissible for national banks and removed the supervisory nonobjection requirement.

In April 2025, the Federal Reserve withdrew its earlier crypto guidance and moved to supervise those activities through the standard process.

Schwab CEO Rick Wurster described those regulatory moves as “pretty green” for large firms to expand into crypto, and the launch's timing confirms how directly the policy calendar shaped the product calendar.

The asset Schwab is normalizing

In March 2026, Schwab published research describing Bitcoin as having matured into a mainstream asset and noting that by some measures it had become less volatile than certain Magnificent 7 stocks.

The research reflects the internal positioning that led to direct trading as the natural next step.

Reuters reported Wurster's view that the target user is an investor who already owns stocks and bonds and wants to hold a small slice of Bitcoin or Ethereum alongside those positions.

That is a narrower and more defensible market than the speculative base that drove 2021 volumes. Schwab is building a product for the mainstream investor who already trusts the brokerage brand and wants direct exposure within the brokerage environment they use.

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Schwab enters a market that Fidelity already occupies. Fidelity's crypto account lets customers buy, sell, and transfer crypto through its platform and the Fidelity app alongside their existing brokerage positions.

E*TRADE has published a coming-soon page for direct trading in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, and reports point to Morgan Stanley plans to run that service through Zerohash in the first half of 2026.

Schwab enters this race as the scale normalizer, being the firm whose distribution footprint turns a multi-broker pattern into an industry default.

When Fidelity launched direct crypto, the market could read it as one firm's idiosyncratic call.

When Schwab, Fidelity, and E*TRADE each offer some version of direct BTC and ETH access, the mental category moves. When Schwab, Fidelity, and E*TRADE each offer some form of direct BTC and ETH access, direct crypto ownership sits on the same mental shelf as any other optional asset sleeve in a diversified brokerage account.

Schwab's own site already markets crypto exposure “from a brand you know,” and the launch extends that branding promise from wrappers to the asset itself.

A distribution thought experiment frames the scale without overclaiming a price surge.

If 0.5% of Schwab's 38.9 million accounts eventually hold direct crypto, that equals roughly 194,500 accounts. At 1%, it becomes approximately 389,000, and at 2% adoption, that funnel reaches roughly 778,000 accounts.

Two paths from here

The bull path opens if Schwab broadens eligibility faster than the phased language implies, and if the product experience proves clean enough for existing clients to consolidate crypto holdings into the new account.

In that scenario, Fidelity, E*TRADE, and Schwab together create a demand flywheel within the mainstream brokerage channel, the kind of end-investor adoption that Citi cited in its bull case of $165,000 for Bitcoin and $4,488 for Ethereum.

Schwab's distribution footprint alone would push every broker that still routes crypto clients exclusively to ETFs or education pages to accelerate its own platform-parity timeline.

The bear path runs through friction. The Schwab Crypto account's state restrictions, bank-subsidiary architecture, absence of crypto deposits, and current transfer limitations each create gaps relative to crypto-native venues that more engaged users will notice.

If those frictions keep adoption narrow and investors who want direct crypto exposure continue to prefer Coinbase, Kraken, or Fidelity's more integrated setup, the launch reads as operationally thin.

An investor who wants crypto to sit alongside equities within a single operational view may find the bank-subsidiary rail an exposure vehicle with tighter product boundaries than the brand's integrated-portfolio framing implies.

The next readable data point arrives when Schwab discloses how quickly the initial second-quarter cohort converts and if the broader rollout accelerates on schedule.

How quickly Schwab moves this cohort to general availability will tell the market whether this launch is a genuine scale ambition or a carefully managed compliance exercise.

The post Charles Schwab’s Bitcoin and Ethereum rollout shows crypto is moving deeper into mainstream brokerage accounts appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The first week of April 2026 has been a study in contrasts. While the broader financial markets grapple with macroeconomic shifts, the digital asset sector is doubling down on technical evolution. We are seeing a move away from the "meme-coin" cycles of the past toward institutional-grade infrastructure and significant protocol overhauls.

Crypto News Today: Market Highlights

The crypto market today is defined by Bitcoin’s price stability near the $67,000 mark and massive anticipation for Ethereum’s Glamsterdam upgrade. Simultaneously, a significant exploit on the Solana-based Drift Protocol has served as a stark reminder of the security risks still inherent in decentralized finance (DeFi).

Market Snapshot: Bitcoin’s Quiet Resilience

Despite a slight 0.42% dip in the last 24 hours, Bitcoin ($BTC) continues to act as a stabilizing force for the entire ecosystem. Trading at approximately $67,000, the asset has shrugged off recent geopolitical volatility.

• Institutional Inflow: Recent reports from Goldman Sachs suggest that institutional "dip-buying" is keeping the floor high.
• Price Tracking: You can monitor live movements on our Bitcoin Ticker.

Ethereum Roadmap: The Glamsterdam Era

The biggest story in the developer community is the finalized scope for Ethereum’s Glamsterdam upgrade. Scheduled for the first half of 2026, this hard fork is expected to be a "game-changer" for scalability.

What is the Glamsterdam Upgrade?

Glamsterdam is the next major evolution of the Ethereum mainnet following the Fusaka update of late 2025. Its primary goals are:

• Gas Fee Reduction: A projected 78.6% reduction in fees for smart contract calls.
• Parallel Processing: Introducing the ability to process multiple transactions simultaneously.
• Throughput: Increasing the gas limit per block from 60 million to 200 million.

This upgrade is essential for $Ethereum to remain competitive against high-speed chains like Solana.

The Solana Hack: Drift Protocol Exploit

While Ethereum builds, $Solana has hit a major speed bump. On April 1, 2026, the Drift Protocol—the network's largest perpetual futures exchange—was drained of $286 million.

"The breach was not a simple code bug, but a sophisticated six-month social engineering operation by highly resourced actors." — Drift Protocol Preliminary Report.

The attackers reportedly posed as a quantitative trading firm to gain the trust of the protocol's security council. This event has reignited discussions on the necessity of hardware wallets for all DeFi participants.

Regulatory Milestone: Coinbase Nabs OCC Approval

In a massive win for US-based crypto, Coinbase has received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national trust charter.

This does not make Coinbase a traditional commercial bank, but it provides federal regulatory uniformity for its custody business. This moves Coinbase into the same regulatory conversation as legacy giants like JPMorgan, further bridging the gap between "crypto" and "finance."

In a market often dominated by volatile meme coins and complex DeFi protocols, UNUS SED LEO ($LEO) has quietly climbed the ranks to become a heavyweight in the digital asset space. Originally launched as a utility token for the iFinex ecosystem, LEO has transitioned from its initial $1 exchange offering to a valuation exceeding $10 per token.

As of April 2026, LEO has officially broken into the top 10 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, boasting a valuation of approximately $9.3 billion. This article explores the unique fundamentals, the aggressive deflationary model, and the institutional backing that have fueled this 1,000% journey.

What is UNUS SED LEO?

UNUS SED LEO is the native utility token of the iFinex ecosystem, which includes the prominent Bitfinex exchange. Launched in May 2019, the token was designed to provide holders with significant fee discounts and a variety of benefits across the platform's services. Unlike many other assets, LEO is a multi-chain token, existing on both the Ethereum and EOS blockchains to maximize accessibility.

Why is it named like this?

The token's name, "Unus Sed Leo," is Latin for "One, but a lion," a motto emphasizing quality and strength over quantity. It was born out of a crisis: iFinex launched the LEO token to raise $1 billion in capital after a payment processor's funds were seized by government authorities.

While it started as a recovery mechanism, it evolved into a pillar of exchange-based utility. Its primary function is to offer:

• Trading fee reductions: Up to 25% discount for holders.
• Lending fee discounts: Significant reductions for peer-to-peer lenders.
• Withdrawal/Deposit perks: Faster and cheaper transactions on Bitfinex.

The Path from $1 to $10: Why is the Price Rising?

The rise of LEO from its $1 launch to the current $10.05 level is not merely speculative; it is driven by one of the most transparent and aggressive buyback and burn mechanisms in the industry.

1. The 27% Revenue Burn

iFinex is contractually committed to using at least 27% of its consolidated monthly revenue to buy back LEO tokens from the open market and permanently destroy them. This creates a perpetual buy-side pressure. As Bitfinex remains a top-tier exchange for professional traders, this revenue stream provides a "floor" for the token price.

2. The Bitcoin Recovery Catalyst

A major factor in the 2024–2026 rally has been the legal resolution regarding the 2016 Bitfinex hack. Following court orders, nearly 94,643 BTC were earmarked for recovery. According to the token's whitepaper, 80% of recovered funds must be used to repurchase and burn LEO tokens. With $Bitcoin prices reaching new heights, the sheer dollar value of this buyback program has caused massive supply shocks.

3. Low Volatility and Institutional Trust

Unlike highly liquid assets that fluctuate wildly, LEO often shows "resilience" during market crashes. Because so much of the supply is held by long-term investors or is being systematically burned, the circulating supply (currently around 920 million LEO) continues to shrink, making each remaining token more valuable.

How LEO Price Reached the Top 10 Cryptos

Reaching the #10 spot by market cap is a feat of endurance. LEO's ascent was accelerated by the downfall of other exchange tokens (such as FTT) and the growing demand for "safe haven" utility assets.

By maintaining a steady growth trajectory while the broader altcoin market experienced massive drawdowns, LEO became a "non-correlated" asset. This attracted portfolio managers looking for stability.

From Digital Gold to Digital Dust

In early 2022, the world of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) was at its absolute zenith. Celebrities were flocking to the space, led by pop icon Justin Bieber, who made headlines by purchasing a Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT for a staggering sum. At the time, it was seen as a bold entry into the future of digital art and web3.

Fast forward to April 2026, and the landscape has shifted dramatically. The speculative bubble that once valued "cartoon apes" at millions of dollars has largely evaporated, leaving high-profile investors like Bieber with massive "paper" losses.

The $1.3 Million Entry: Bored Ape #3001

In January 2022, Justin Bieber acquired Bored Ape #3001 for 500 ETH. At the exchange rates of that time, the transaction was valued at approximately $1.3 million.

The purchase was immediately controversial among NFT collectors. Analysts pointed out that Bieber paid nearly five times the "floor price" for an ape that possessed relatively common traits. While $Bitcoin and $Ethereum were experiencing high volatility, the NFT market was still fueled by extreme hype and celebrity endorsements.

Why Did He Pay Such a Premium?

• Aura of Exclusivity: Ownership of a BAYC acted as a digital "black card" for elite social circles.
• Market Sentiment: In 2022, the belief was that "blue-chip" NFTs would act as a store of value similar to fine art.
• FOMO: Fear of missing out on the next evolution of social media avatars.

The 2026 Reality: A 99% Valuation Wipeout

Today, the secondary market for the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection tells a much different story. As of April 2026, the floor price for the collection has retreated to approximately 5.25 ETH to 6 ETH. With the current Ethereum price stabilizing around $2,000, Bieber’s Bored Ape is now valued at roughly $12,000.

This represents a staggering 99% decline from his initial investment. Even when compared to the broader crypto market news, the drawdown in the NFT sector has been significantly more severe than that of major cryptocurrencies like BTC or ETH.

Celebrity NFT Portfolios in 2026

Bieber isn't the only celebrity facing a "re-valuation" of his digital assets. The following table illustrates the peak vs. current estimates for major celebrity BAYC holders:

Note: Differences in loss percentages are often due to the rarity of the specific traits or the timing of the purchase.

Lessons from the NFT Bubble

The collapse of Bored Ape prices serves as a cautionary tale regarding liquidity and speculative assets. Unlike trading on major exchanges, where you can sell a token instantly, NFTs are illiquid. You need a specific buyer willing to pay your asking price for your specific token.

Furthermore, as reported by major financial outlets like Bloomberg, the shift toward "utility-based NFTs"—assets with actual function in gaming or identity—has left purely "profile picture" (PFP) projects struggling to regain their former glory.

Is there a Future for BAYC?

While the dollar value has dropped, Yuga Labs continues to develop the "Otherside" metaverse. However, for investors who entered during the 2022 frenzy, the road to "breaking even" appears nearly impossible. Most experts now categorize early NFT purchases as high-risk speculative plays rather than foundational investments.

Michael Saylor has sparked a fresh wave of debate with his latest X post, claiming it is a "Good Friday to buy Bitcoin." This comes as the $BTC price lingers near $67,400, a staggering 46% drop from its 2025 peak of $125,000.

The "Saylor Signal" vs. Market Reality

MicroStrategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor is back to his usual bullish antics. On April 3, 2026, he took to X (formerly Twitter) to declare, "It’s a Good Friday to buy Bitcoin." For the "HODL" community, this is a standard rallying cry. However, for investors who watched Bitcoin plummet from a euphoric $125,000 in October 2025 to its current level of approximately $67,400, the message feels different this time.

The market is currently grappling with a "correlation crisis." While Saylor remains the ultimate $Bitcoin maximalist, his firm has shifted focus toward its new "STRC" preferred stock dividends. With significant unrealized losses on recent tranches, many are wondering: Is this a genuine "buy the dip" opportunity, or is the "Saylor Signal" losing its luster?

Should You Buy Bitcoin Now?

Whether "now" is a good time to buy depends on your time horizon. Technically, Bitcoin is in a clear downtrend on the daily charts. However, historically, buying during 40-50% drawdowns from all-time highs (ATH) has been a profitable long-term strategy. The current price of $67,400 represents a significant discount for those who missed the $100k+ rally, but macro headwinds suggest the bottom may not be in yet.

 The 2026 Bitcoin Crash Explained

To understand why Saylor is calling for buys now, we must look at why the price crashed. The decline from $125,000 was not a single event but a "perfect storm" of factors:

• Monetary Policy Shifts: Recent hawkish signals from the Federal Reserve have drained liquidity from "risk-on" assets.
• Institutional De-risking: After the euphoria of 2025, major players have been trimming Bitcoin ETF holdings to lock in profits or cover losses in equities.
• The $67k Magnet: Since breaking below the $90,000 support, Bitcoin has been searching for a stable floor, finally resting in the mid-60s.

Historical Performance on Good Friday

While Saylor's post uses the holiday as a backdrop, does Bitcoin actually perform well on Good Friday? Historically, the Friday of Easter weekend sees lower trading volumes as traditional markets are closed. This "thin" liquidity can lead to sharp, erratic moves, but there is no statistically significant "holiday pump" trend. In fact, Bitcoin price action today remains largely sideways, reflecting what analysts call "aggressive caution."

Bitcoin Price Analysis: Analyzing the $67,400 Support

From a technical standpoint, Bitcoin is currently testing a critical psychological floor.

• Support Level: The $65,000 - $67,000 zone is vital. If BTC fails to hold this, the next major support sits at $58,000.
• Resistance: To turn bullish, BTC must reclaim the $72,000 level to break the current series of "lower highs."

Hedge funds have reportedly unwound nearly a third of their Bitcoin exposure according to recent Bloomberg market data. This institutional exit is the primary reason the price hasn't bounced as aggressively as retail traders hoped.

Bitcoin Strategy: How to Position Your Portfolio

If you are following Saylor’s advice, risk management is paramount:

• DCA (Dollar Cost Averaging): Instead of going "all-in," spread purchases over several weeks.
• Self-Custody: Given the volatility, moving assets to hardware wallets is recommended to avoid exchange risks.
• Monitor the DXY: A stronger U.S. Dollar usually correlates with further drops in the crypto market.

• XRP enters a pivotal 2026 phase despite weak price action
• Ripple is expanding utility via XRP Ledger and RLUSD
• Strong fundamental growth continues, especially in Asia and institutional adoption

XRP Price Today: Bulls Struggle at Key Support

As of April 4, 2026, the XRP price (referenced against major pairs) is trading near the $1.31 mark. Following a rejection at the $1.60 resistance level in late March, the token has entered a period of consolidation. Technical indicators like the Money Flow Index (MFI) are currently hovering around 35, suggesting that XRP is approaching oversold territory.

Traders are closely watching the $1.25 support level. A breakdown below this could see a retest of the 52-week low near $1.21. Conversely, a daily close above the 7-day Moving Average ($1.33) is required to signal a short-term trend reversal.

Ripple News Today with RLUSD

A major highlight in today's news is the continued expansion of Ripple’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, RLUSD.

• South Korean Expansion: Ripple recently secured a listing for RLUSD on Coinone, one of South Korea's premier regulated exchanges. This allows for direct KRW/RLUSD trading, tapping into one of the world's most active XRP trading communities.
• Institutional Minting: On-chain data reveals significant activity, including a massive 69 million RLUSD mint earlier this month linked to Gemini.
• SWIFT Partnership: Ripple Treasury has officially joined the SWIFT partner program, a move designed to bridge traditional banking infrastructure with digital asset settlement.

The CLARITY Act: A Double-Edged Sword?

The legislative landscape is shifting with the introduction of the CLARITY Act in the U.S. Senate. This bill aims to provide a definitive framework for stablecoins and digital assets.

The latest draft of the CLARITY Act proposes a ban on yield for passive stablecoin holdings. While this could hurt competitors like USDC, analysts suggest that RLUSD is uniquely positioned. Because RLUSD’s growth is driven by cross-border payments and institutional collateral rather than retail yield incentives, it may emerge as a primary beneficiary of these new rules.

XRP Price Prediction for 2026

Despite the current price stagnation, institutional sentiment remains cautiously optimistic. Many analysts, including those from Standard Chartered, maintain year-end targets for XRP above $2.50, citing the eventual "re-risking" of the market as regulatory clarity settles.

Claude developer Anthropic registered an employee-funded PAC amid a legal battle with the White House and rising election-year scrutiny of AI.

Researchers say internal emotion-like signals shape how large language models make decisions.

Financial giant Charles Schwab is set to launch spot buying of Bitcoin and Ethereum by the end of the quarter, the firm said Friday.

The FIFA World Cup will feature a prediction market platform built on ADI Chain, with the network’s token hitting a new high Friday.

Publicly traded Bitcoin miner MARA cut 15% of its staff this week after selling $1.1 billion in Bitcoin to fuel an AI push.

The lack of traction on the market could be the result of modest risk appetite among investors, at least for now.

According to recent market data, XRP's open interest is climbing sharply while funding rates remain persistently negative.

Saylor has countered Peter Schiff's MSTR sell warning with data showing 36% returns since the "Bitcoin Era" started.

Bitcoin and XRP face fresh pressure as Brent crude surges to $113 amid Middle East choke point risks. All eyes turn to the April 9 U.S. inflation report for signs of a Fed rate pivot.

XRP metrics stay muted in holiday trading, but past precedents suggest bulls might have other plans for its price.

The Ethereum Foundation just staked $93 million worth of ETH in a single day, pushing its total past 69,500 ETH and nearly hitting its 70,000 ETH target. The move shifts the Foundation from selling ETH to earning yield, cutting one of the biggest sources of sell pressure the market has faced for years.

The ethereum price prediction points to solid targets ahead, but Pepeto is the layer that helps regular traders find what big money finds before the crowd gets there. With $8.68 million raised and analysts projecting 100x, the presale shuts once the Binance listing arrives.

The Ethereum Foundation staked 45,034 ETH on April 3 in batches of 2,047 ETH each, bringing its total staked position to roughly $143 million and completing the target it set in February, per CoinDesk. The program is projected to generate $3.9 to $5.4 million in annual yield, replacing the need to sell ETH for operating costs.

The Foundation still holds over 100,000 ETH beyond the staked amount, per Arkham Intelligence. This treasury pivot removes a persistent overhang that weighed on price for years.

Reduced selling pressure lifts the outlook, but the exchange still at presale pricing and set to catch volume when capital flows on chain is where the return math shifts completely before listing.

Where the ETH Targets Meet Presale Returns Before the Final Window Closes

Pepeto

As dormant institutional capital starts moving on chain, the number of new tokens, scams, and opportunities grows faster than any single trader can track. Pepeto was built for exactly this kind of market, and every tool went live before the flood arrived.

With $8.68 million raised at $0.0000001862 and 100x projected by analysts, the case for this exchange being the top presale gets harder to argue against every day. The Binance listing will open full access to the contract scanner that flags dangers before your money moves, PepetoSwap with zero trading costs, and the cross-chain bridge at zero cost.

While institutional moves like the Foundation’s staking unlock dormant capital, Pepeto builds the layer that gives regular traders access to what that capital finds next. Staking at 188% APY grows early positions while stages fill. SolidProof cleared the full codebase, a former Binance executive shaped the tools, and the founder who took the original Pepe token to $11 billion on a 420 trillion supply built the exchange.

The returns that defined past bull runs all started with one choice made during fear, and Pepeto at $0.0000001862 is that choice sitting in front of you while the Binance listing window still holds. Once trading opens, this presale price disappears and daily utility drives consistent value rather than a spike that fades after listing week.

Ethereum Price Prediction: Can ETH Break $2,250 and Reach $3,000?

Ethereum trades near $2,034 as of April 5, sitting 58% below its $4,953 all-time high from August 2025 while the Foundation’s staking move cuts sell pressure, per CoinMarketCap.

The ETH forecast depends on clearing $2,200 to $2,250, which opens $2,500. From there, $3,000 becomes a real target based on historical zones that preceded major runs in past cycles. Standard Chartered holds a $7,500 year-end call, meaning $3,000 sits at the halfway mark and could arrive much sooner if macro conditions improve and the Iran conflict cools.

Support holds at $2,000 with the structure at risk if that level breaks. The ethereum price prediction is strong for patient holders, but the path from $2,034 to $3,000 is a 46% move over months, not the 100x the presale compresses into one listing event.

Conclusion

The Foundation just locked $93 million into staking instead of selling. The ETH outlook firms up as sell pressure drops and infrastructure matures. When that kind of money stays on chain instead of hitting the market, the ceiling lifts for the entire ecosystem.

But the gains that reshape portfolios come from being early in what the market finds after the listing, not from recovery. The founder behind Pepe plus working exchange tools plus a Binance listing is the rarest mix crypto produces. The Pepeto official website is where that entry stays open, and the wallets that caught ETH below $100 in 2019 already know which path they would take again.

Click To Visit Pepeto Website To Enter The Presale

FAQs

Can ETH reach $3,000 based on the ethereum price prediction?

Yes. $3,000 is a 46% gain from current levels and sits halfway to Standard Chartered’s $7,500 target. Realistic if macro eases.

What does the ethereum price prediction reveal about the current market?

ETH holds above $2,000 as the Foundation stops selling and starts staking at Pepeto targets 100x before listing.

What drives Pepeto’s returns beyond the ethereum price prediction?

Five live exchange tools scale with on-chain growth. The Binance listing compresses what months of ETH recovery delivers into one event.

The post Ethereum Price Prediction Gets Fuel as Foundation Locks $93 Million Into Staking appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Coinbase filed a formal SEC submission opposing mandatory issuer approval for third-party stock tokenization on April 1, 2026.

• The filing argues issuer consent mandates contradict Section 4(a)(1) of the Securities Act and decades of SEC legal precedent.

• Coinbase warns that requiring issuer approval could create anticompetitive barriers and push blockchain innovation offshore.

• A flexible dual framework supporting both issuer-led and third-party tokenization would unlock T+0 settlement and 24/7 trading.

Coinbase filed a formal submission with the SEC’s Crypto Task Force on April 1, 2026, addressing third-party tokenization of publicly traded securities.

The document argues against requiring issuer approval for blockchain-based representations of existing stocks. The filing responds to the SEC’s ongoing effort to modernize securities markets through blockchain technology.

Coinbase’s position centers on protecting secondary market activity from unnecessary regulatory barriers.

Coinbase Challenges Issuer Veto Power Over Secondary Markets

The full title of the submission is “Re: Why Third-Party Tokenization of Publicly Traded Securities Should Not Require Issuer Approval.”

Coinbase argues that mandating issuer consent contradicts established U.S. federal securities law. Specifically, the filing references Section 4(a)(1) of the Securities Act, which permits resale without issuer involvement in many secondary-market scenarios.

The company also cited Rule 17Ad-20, which governs transfer agents and secondary market restrictions. Decades of SEC precedent support free transferability of securities in secondary markets. Issuers traditionally hold no veto power over how investors transfer or custody shares after entering public markets.

According to the tweet by @martypartymusic, Coinbase warned that requiring issuer approval would grant companies unprecedented control over lawful secondary-market activity.

This could create anticompetitive barriers and favor incumbent-controlled closed systems. Such a mandate would directly stifle innovation in the tokenization space.

Coinbase further clarified that third-party tokenization does not create a new security. Instead, it represents existing shares on a blockchain while fully preserving shareholder rights, including voting, dividends, and corporate actions.

Flexible Framework Would Support Both Issuer and Third-Party Tokenization

Coinbase advocates for a dual approach that accommodates issuer-led and third-party tokenization simultaneously.

Under this framework, companies could issue their own blockchain versions of shares if they choose. Independent platforms, however, would also be free to create tokenized representations of existing stocks.

The filing points to recent SEC-friendly developments as evidence that issuer consent is unnecessary. Nasdaq’s tokenized trading pilots and the DTCC’s Tokenization Services have both advanced without imposing such requirements. Adding a consent mandate now would represent a reversal of regulatory progress already underway.

A flexible framework, Coinbase argues, would unlock key market efficiencies. These include T+0 instant settlement, 24/7 trading, reduced intermediary costs, greater transparency, and peer-to-peer transfers.

Tokenized stocks could also integrate with decentralized finance protocols while maintaining regulatory compliance.

Coinbase also warned that overly restrictive rules could push blockchain innovation offshore. This would limit the SEC’s ability to oversee markets and gather data for future rulemaking.

The filing ties directly to the SEC’s planned “innovation exemption,” urging that access to it not be unnecessarily restricted.

The post Coinbase Urges SEC to Allow Third-Party Tokenization Without Issuer Consent appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Stellar’s open network design attracts broader adoption than XRP’s institution-focused approach.
• XLM demand ties directly to real network activity, giving it stronger organic economic foundations.
• XRP’s legal battles with the SEC have slowed adoption and weakened institutional confidence over time.
• Stellar’s diverse ecosystem, spanning payments, stablecoins, and NGOs, reduces reliance on single partners.

Stellar (XLM) and XRP remain two of the most discussed blockchain payment networks in crypto. Both target cross-border transactions, yet their approaches differ sharply.

Those differences may determine which asset captures greater long-term value. Stellar’s open design, usage-driven tokenomics, and lower regulatory exposure give it structural advantages.

Meanwhile, XRP leans heavily on institutional partnerships and faces ongoing legal scrutiny in key markets.

Open Network Design and Real Usage Demand

Stellar was built to support financial inclusion from the ground up. Anyone — individuals, startups, or institutions — can issue assets and interact freely on its network.

This open access model drives broader adoption compared to XRP’s bank-focused design. The wider a network grows, the more value it tends to attract over time.

XRP, by contrast, targets large financial institutions as its primary users. That focus concentrates value among a limited group of participants.

Open network effects, which Stellar benefits from, tend to compound as more users join. This structural difference matters significantly when measuring long-term growth potential.

Stellar’s tokenomics also tie XLM demand directly to real network activity. Every transaction, account creation, and asset exchange requires XLM, creating consistent organic demand.

XRP often functions as a temporary bridge asset in liquidity operations. Tokens are held only briefly, which weakens sustained structural demand for the asset.

This usage-driven demand model gives Stellar a more reliable economic foundation. As transaction volumes grow on the network, so does the need for XLM.

That relationship between usage and demand is a strong indicator of long-term value retention. Developers and institutions building on Stellar contribute directly to that demand cycle.

Regulatory Environment and Ecosystem Diversity

XRP has faced considerable legal challenges, particularly in the United States. The Ripple lawsuit created uncertainty around market perception, adoption, and liquidity.

Even as some regulatory clarity has emerged, the damage to institutional confidence lingers. Lower legal risk makes an asset more attractive to developers and financial partners.

Stellar has largely avoided such regulatory friction and operates in a more stable environment. The Stellar Development Foundation maintains a relatively neutral governance image.

That neutrality appeals to developers who prioritize decentralization and compliance. It also reduces the kind of institutional hesitation that has slowed XRP’s growth in certain markets.

Beyond regulation, Stellar supports a diverse real-world ecosystem. Its network powers low-cost cross-border payments, stablecoins, and humanitarian finance projects.

NGOs and financial inclusion initiatives in emerging markets actively use the network. This breadth of application reduces dependence on any single sector or partner group.

XRP, while technically efficient, relies more heavily on specific institutional agreements. A concentrated ecosystem carries greater risk if key partnerships shift or dissolve.

Stellar’s multi-sector presence provides a more resilient foundation for sustained network growth. That diversity, combined with lower regulatory pressure, positions XLM as a strong long-term contender.

The post Stellar (XLM) vs. XRP: Which Blockchain Payment Network Holds More Long-Term Value? appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Walmart recorded a 66% conversion drop when embedding agentic checkout directly inside ChatGPT’s interface. 
• OpenAI phased out Instant Checkout after merchants reported poor results with chatbot-based purchase experiences. 
• The Machine Payments Protocol lets AI agents pay via HTTP requests, using cards, wallets, or stablecoins natively. 
• Know Your Agent frameworks are now being developed to secure invisible payments before autonomous spending scales further.

Invisible commerce is emerging as the next frontier in AI-driven payments, replacing the checkout model. Walmart recently recorded a 66% drop in conversion rates when embedding agentic checkout inside ChatGPT.

OpenAI subsequently phased out its Instant Checkout feature. These developments signal a major shift. The payments industry built agentic commerce on the wrong foundation.

Agents do not need better checkouts — they need payments that happen automatically, without human intervention.

Walmart’s Checkout Experiment Exposed a Fundamental Flaw

Walmart’s conversion rate collapse was a clear indicator that something was broken. Embedding a human-optimized checkout inside a chatbot created friction rather than reducing it. The process was designed for human eyes, not machine logic.

OpenAI responded by pulling Instant Checkout entirely. Merchants now handle purchases through their own app-based systems instead.

This retreat confirmed what many in the payments space suspected — agentic commerce built on traditional checkout rails does not work.

Fintech analyst Simon Taylor captured this tension clearly. He noted that agentic commerce protocols now outnumber actual agentic transactions.

The infrastructure is ahead of the real-world use case, and the use case itself may have been wrong from the start.

Stripe previously outlined five levels of agentic commerce, borrowing from autonomous driving. Each level still assumed a visible purchase event. Even at the highest level, an agent reacts to human intent. That model is now being questioned.

The Parking Agent Demonstrates a New Payment Paradigm

A hackathon project changed how some in the industry are thinking about this problem. A developer built a parking AI agent that detects a user’s location and pays the local parking authority automatically. No checkout appeared. No purchase intent was required.

The payment happened because an event occurred in the physical world. The agent inferred what was needed and completed the transaction. This is the model that Taylor refers to as invisible commerce.

This approach mirrors how Uber handles payments. A rider exits a vehicle and money moves — no cart, no confirmation screen, no “pay now” button. Uber achieved this by owning both sides of the marketplace. The challenge now is replicating that experience across open agent ecosystems.

Developer Steve Krouse shared a related observation on X, noting that giving agents a USDC wallet produced a genuinely magical product experience. That sentiment reflects growing interest in agent-native payment infrastructure.

Machine Payments Protocol Points Toward Agent-Native Commerce

The Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) launched recently as one attempt to solve this infrastructure gap. It allows agents to initiate payments through a simple HTTP request. The protocol supports credit cards, digital wallets, and stablecoins.

Early use cases include agents purchasing API access, compute resources, stock footage, and real-time data feeds. However, the first viral use case was far simpler. Users had their agents buy them sandwiches, as shared by developer Josh on X, citing MPP and related tools.

Google is also releasing new agentic protocols regularly. X402 is another protocol operating in this space. The competition signals that the market sees real demand for machine-native payment rails.

Security remains an open question. When agents spend autonomously, audit trails become harder to track. Liability for compromised agents is still unresolved. Researchers are now working on Know Your Agent (KYA) frameworks to close that gap before the technology scales further.

The post Invisible Commerce: Why AI Agents Are Killing the Traditional Checkout for Good appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Crypto markets shed over $1.5 trillion across Q4 2025 and Q1 2026, with Bitcoin driving nearly 60% of total losses.

• Gold outperformed Bitcoin by nearly 40% in recent months, a strong signal that large capital favors safety over risk assets.

• Bitcoin has traded flat between $65K and $69K for weeks despite rising oil prices and growing geopolitical tensions globally.

• BTC dominance and the gold-to-Bitcoin ratio remain the two most critical metrics to watch for early signs of market recovery.

The crypto market sits at a crossroads as Bitcoin consolidates within a narrow range. Over the past two quarters, digital assets lost over $1.5 trillion in total market value.

Institutional capital has pulled back, and macro forces are weighing on risk appetite. Traders are watching carefully as the market weighs potential recovery against further downside, with conditions outside crypto likely determining the next major move.

Bitcoin’s Recent Losses Point to Broader Institutional Retreat

Bitcoin led the market lower across Q4 2025 and Q1 2026. Combined, those two quarters wiped out roughly 45% in value from the broader market. BTC accounted for nearly 60% of total losses recorded during that period.

That detail changes how analysts read the sell-off. When Bitcoin drives the drawdown, it is not retail traders dumping speculative tokens. It reflects real capital reducing exposure across the entire asset class.

As MR Black noted on X, “When BTC is leading the drawdown, it isn’t a sector rotation. It isn’t retail panic selling memecoins.” That observation carries weight, especially for investors trying to time a re-entry into the market.

Gold’s Outperformance Sends a Clear Risk-Off Signal

The XAU/BTC ratio has shifted nearly 40% in gold’s favor over recent months. Gold offers no yield and carries no technological narrative. Its strength signals that large capital holders are choosing preservation over growth.

That ratio matters because it reflects institutional psychology, not retail sentiment. When the biggest players move into gold, it means confidence in risk assets remains low. Crypto has not yet shown the kind of recovery that would pull that capital back.

However, analysts note that this ratio could become one of the first signs of a turnaround. When it begins reversing, it may indicate that risk appetite is returning and that institutional money is ready to rotate back into Bitcoin.

Sideways Price Action Raises Questions About What Comes Next

Bitcoin has traded between roughly $65,000 and $69,000 for several weeks. That range has held despite rising geopolitical tension, higher oil prices, and growing inflation concerns. Normally, any of those factors would trigger sharp movement in crypto markets.

The muted reaction suggests one of two things. Either the market has already absorbed much of the uncertainty, or it remains so undecided that it needs a strong external trigger to break either way. That ambiguity makes directional calls difficult right now.

BTC dominance remains a key metric to track through this period. When dominance rises, capital clusters in Bitcoin and altcoins suffer.

When it falls, capital rotates into higher-risk assets, and historically that rotation has preceded some of the strongest alt-season runs in a given cycle.

The path forward for crypto depends heavily on macro developments in the coming weeks. If oil cools and geopolitical risks ease, the current consolidation could prove to be a base for recovery.

If conditions worsen, further downside remains possible, with altcoins likely absorbing the most pressure. Traders watching signals beyond the price chart may be better positioned for whatever move comes next.

The post Crypto Market Loses $1.5 Trillion in Two Quarters: Is the Worst Still Ahead for Bitcoin? appeared first on Blockonomi.

Cryptocurrency exchange activity continues to be heavily concentrated and largely driven by derivatives trading, according to the latest report by CoinMarketCap. In fact, data showed that a small group of major platforms dominates overall market volume.

Binance alone accounts for 29.42% of total monthly volume as it surpassed $1.8 trillion.

Derivatives Surge

Alongside Binance, other prominent players such as OKX, BitMart, Gate.io, and Bybit collectively contributed to nearly 68% of total trading activity. This demonstrates that liquidity and trading activity are heavily centralized among a handful of platforms, CoinMarketCap revealed.

A crucial finding from the report is the overwhelming dominance of derivatives trading across these platforms. On Binance, derivatives volume reached approximately $1.54 trillion, which is nearly six times higher than its spot trading volume of $264 billion. Similarly, derivatives accounted for about 93% of total monthly activity on OKX. Such a trend suggests that most traders are currently engaging with futures, margin, and other leveraged products rather than directly buying or selling crypto assets on spot markets.

The report also found that this pattern has become more pronounced following a period of sideways price movement, where traders appear to rely more on leveraged strategies to generate returns. Binance continues to lead both spot and derivatives segments, as it holds over 27% and nearly 30% market share in each, respectively.

Other exchanges are also increasingly dependent on derivatives to remain competitive. For example, BitMart maintains a strong position in spot trading, while platforms like Bitget have relatively smaller spot presence but improve their overall ranking through higher derivatives activity.

Institutional Influence

Institutional activity is increasingly shaping the crypto derivatives market, particularly through Bitcoin options. According to a recent Delphi Digital report, trading volumes in crypto derivatives have accelerated sharply, as activity on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is about 46% higher than the previous record year.

Open interest in Bitcoin options reached $65 billion in mid-2025 and exceeded Bitcoin futures for the first time. This was indicative of a growing preference for defined-risk instruments that allow investors to hedge large positions while limiting potential losses.

Centralized platforms such as Deribit, now backed by Coinbase, remain dominant, while products linked to BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) have introduced new institutional participation. Decentralized derivatives markets are also expanding, as seen with platforms like Hyperliquid and Derive reporting increasing activity, even as adoption remains lower than on centralized exchanges.

The post Binance Controls $1.8T: Derivatives Now Driving 90% of Crypto Exchange Volume appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The spot exchange-traded funds tracking the performance of Ripple’s cross-border token continue to dig new lows, as they just ended their first month in the red in March.

The landscape is even more worrying when we examine the details, while XRP is currently losing the battle for the fourth spot against BNB.

XRP ETFs Fall Short

After years of building anticipation, the first spot XRP ETF (Canary Capital’s XRPC) had a highly successful debut day, breaking the launch-day trading volume for 2025. Four more such products followed suit, and they attracted over $1 billion in about a month. Moreover, they didn’t have a single red day in terms of net flows for almost two months before that streak broke on January 7 – something that even the BTC and ETH ETFs couldn’t do.

In November and December, they gained $666.61 million and $500 million, respectively. The before-launch hype seemed justified. However, the following two months were more modest, perhaps driven by quickly escalating global tension. January recorded just $15.59 million in net inflows, while February saw $58.09 million.

The landscape worsened in March as the war-induced tension skyrocketed, oil prices soared, and uncertainty and doubt crept into all financial markets. Investors pulled out $31.16 million from the spot XRP ETFs, making it the first red month since their launch in November last year.

What’s even more concerning is the fact that there were multiple days with no reportable inflows at all. 8 out of the 22 trading days have $0.00 against them on SoSoValue, clearly showing disappearing demand.

XRP in Danger

Amid this ongoing investor exodus from the ETFs, the underlying asset has expectedly underperformed, slipping by over 3% weekly. Moreover, XRP now stands inches below the coveted $1.30 support, which, if lost decisively, could lead to more profound corrections.

Popular analyst CW recently warned that a potential drop to $1.26 could trigger mass high-leverage long liquidations.

If $XRP falls to around $1.26, most high-leverage long positions will be liquidated. pic.twitter.com/wnyErpC1Bu

— CW (@CW8900) April 5, 2026

Fellow analyst CRYPTOWZRD noted that XRP had closed the previous daily candle indecisively and is “teasing the $1.32 intraday resistance.” If it remains below it, the analyst predicted more “weakness and short opportunities.”

The post Ripple (XRP) ETFs Went From Bad to Worse: First Red Month and No Inflow Days appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The controversial and contrasting actions and comments from US President Donald Trump regarding the war in Iran continue, with the latest examples going live in the past 24 hours.

The question now is when and how bitcoin will finally react, as it has remained unusually calm over the weekend. Will history repeat and drop later today?

The Latest on the War

Although it has been a boring weekend in terms of price actions, it’s actually been highly eventful on the US/Israel-Iran war front. It started with more threats from Trump that Iran has 48 hours to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, otherwise it would “rain hell” on the country.

Then, he declared Tuesday as “Power Plant and Bridge Day,” suggesting that these key infrastructures will be attacked next. Meanwhile, a US Navy SEAL team extracted the ejected US F-15E pilot from Iran in what was described as a “massive operation” involving hundreds of special operations troops and military personnel.

US intelligence claims Iran is unlikely to open the Strait soon because it’s the country’s biggest bargaining chip left. However, the POTUS reportedly said a few hours ago that the US and Iran have opened negotiations regarding the Strait and believes they can get a deal done by Monday. If they don’t, Trump is considering ‘blowing everything up,’ the report added.

*FOX: TRUMP SAYS MULLING TAKING OVER OIL IF NO IRAN DEAL

*TRUMP SAYS HE COULD GET DEAL W/ IRAN BY TOMORROW: FOX NEWS

*TRUMP SAYS NEGOTIATORS FOR IRAN GRANTED AMNESTY FOR NOW: FOX

*TRUMP MULLS ‘BLOWING EVERYTHING UP’ IF NO IRAN DEAL ‘FAST’: FOX

— *Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) April 5, 2026

Previously, one of his posts on Truth Social, which used unprecedented language from a sitting president, fooled even Grok, as the AI platform called it a “meme-style image of a fabricated Trump post.” The caveat, though, is that the post is real and it’s still active on Trump’s social media page.

President Trump’s Truth Social post about Iran this morning is so unprecedented, that even Grok is calling it a “meme-style image of a fabricated Trump post.”

This post is entirely real, buckle up for an eventful week ahead. https://t.co/kosStlB5Ok pic.twitter.com/i1qjQywvlS

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) April 5, 2026

When Will Bitcoin React?

Despite all of these escalations and contradicting messages, BTC’s price has remained unusually stable at around $67,000 for the entire weekend. The question now is, when will the reaction come?

Bitcoin has shown a similar lack of volatility on several occasions in previous eventful weekends after the war started. However, once the legacy financial markets started to open on Sunday evening and Monday morning, its volatility returned, usually heading south.

The post Calm Before the BTC Storm as Trump Says a Deal or Obliteration Is Next for Iran? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ethereum’s price action continues to reflect a market in equilibrium, where neither buyers nor sellers have established decisive control. Following the sharp corrective phase earlier in the year, ETH has transitioned into a broad consolidation structure, with volatility compressing as the market searches for direction.

Ethereum Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

On the daily timeframe, Ethereum is clearly bounded within a well-defined range between the $1.8K support and the $2.4K resistance zone. The asset has repeatedly reacted to both boundaries, confirming them as key areas of supply and demand. The recent price action further reinforces this narrative, as Ethereum continues to oscillate within this range without any sustained breakout attempt.

This indicates a balance between accumulation and distribution, where market participants are positioning rather than committing to a directional move. As long as the price remains within this range, the broader outlook stays neutral, with range-trading conditions dominating the market structure.

A decisive breakout from either side of this range will likely define the next major trend. A confirmed move above $2.4K would signal strength and open the path toward higher resistance levels, while a breakdown below $1.8K would invalidate the current consolidation and expose the market to deeper downside continuation.

ETH/USDT 4-Hour Chart

Zooming into the 4-hour timeframe, the structure reveals a rising wedge formation developing within the broader range. This pattern typically reflects weakening bullish momentum, as the price continues to make higher highs and higher lows, but with diminishing strength. The wedge suggests that the recent upward movements are corrective rather than impulsive, aligning with the broader consolidation observed on the daily chart.

As the price approaches the apex of this formation, a breakout becomes increasingly likely. A downside break of the wedge would confirm the corrective nature of the structure and could trigger another leg lower, potentially driving price back toward the $1.8K support zone. Until such a breakdown occurs, short-term fluctuations may persist within the wedge boundaries, but the risk of a deeper correction remains elevated.

Sentiment Analysis

From a liquidity standpoint, the liquidation heatmap highlights a significant concentration of liquidity at and below the $1.8K level. This cluster represents a pool of resting liquidity that could act as a magnet for the price, particularly if bearish momentum begins to build. Markets tend to gravitate toward such zones, as they provide fuel for volatility through forced liquidations.

In this context, a breakdown of the rising wedge on the lower timeframe could act as the trigger that drives Ethereum toward this liquidity pocket. If that scenario unfolds, the $1.8K region becomes not only a technical support level but also a key liquidity target where a reaction or potential reversal could emerge.

Overall, Ethereum remains trapped in a broader consolidation phase, but the lower timeframe structure suggests increasing vulnerability to the downside. The interaction between the rising wedge and the $1.8K liquidity cluster will likely play a critical role in shaping the next directional move.

The post Ethereum Price Analysis: Will ETH Break Out or Plunge to $1.8K Next? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Under the current crypto market conditions, Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and some institutions are still in accumulation mode. However, spot demand remains weak. Market research platform CryptoQuant explained why this contraction has persisted in its latest weekly report.

According to the firm’s findings, spot demand has remained in deep contraction because broader market selling pressure outweighs institutional buying. Selling from retail and other market participants is more than offsetting incremental institutional buying; this trend is sustaining the current wave of distribution.

Spot Demand Remains Contracted

In March, ETF 30-day purchases increased sharply to roughly 50,000 bitcoin (BTC). This was the highest the investment products had recorded since October 2025. On the other hand, the business intelligence entity, Strategy, recorded a 30-day accumulation of approximately 44,000 BTC.

Contrarily, the 30-day apparent demand growth hovered at -63,000 BTC by the end of March. This figure reflected persistent selling pressure in the broader market. Spot demand has witnessed sustained contraction since late November 2025, confirming a distribution phase.

Among other market participants, Bitcoin whales have become net distributors, with the one-year change in their holdings reading -188,000 BTC. This cohort of investors accumulated over 200,000 BTC in 2024, but began distributing aggressively from mid-2025, with an increased pace in the last quarter of the year and early 2026.

“The 365-day SMA remains in a declining trend, confirming that this distribution is structural rather than temporary. Historically, sustained negative whale accumulation has coincided with periods of prolonged price weakness, and the current reading suggests selling remains a significant structural headwind,” CryptoQuant explained.

BTC Faces Possible Relief Rally

Unlike whales, mid-tier holders, also known as dolphins, have remained net accumulators, but at a reduced pace. The one-year change in the holdings of these investors has declined by more than 60% from almost 1 million BTC in October 2025 to 429,000 BTC today.

Furthermore, demand from U.S. investors has also weakened in recent weeks, as seen in the Coinbase Premium turning negative again. The metric turned negative after BTC hit its all-time high of $126,000 in early October and has since been unable to sustain a meaningful positive trajectory.

Given the market’s state, CryptoQuant analysts believe BTC may rebound toward $71,500-$81,200 in the short term if macro conditions, especially the US-Iran conflict, improve. In essence, de-escalating geopolitical tensions may serve as a positive catalyst, triggering a relief rally.

The post Bitcoin ETFs and Institutions Are Buying, So Why Is Spot Demand Still Weak? (CryptoQuant) appeared first on CryptoPotato.