1- save with headline "test duplicate draft"

2- update headline and save it to "test duplicate draft regenerate"

2- update headline and save it to "test duplicate draft regenerate"

test duplicate draft

test duplicate draft

test duplicate draft

test duplicate draft

In an address to the Federalist Society in Washington on Tuesday, Michael S. Barr invoked the ghost of 1800s bank runs to illustrate the dangers he sees in the new digital monies.

“Caution is warranted because we have a long and painful history of private money created with insufficient safeguards,” Barr warned.

Commenting on the Genius Act, he drew a straight line from the core psychology behind 19th-century banking panics to today’s digital dollars.

“These same run dynamics occurred in modern times” he said, referring to the 2008 crisis and Covid-19 panic that shocked the financial system.

Barr’s warning lands at a pivotal moment for the booming industry. Stablecoins have grown over 50% since January 2025 to become a market worth $316 billion, according to DefiLlama data.

Earlier this week, British bank Standard Chartered forecasted the sector could quintuple to $2 trillion by 2028. Back in November, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent projected that stablecoins are on track to reach $3 trillion by 2030.

The crypto industry has celebrated the growth as evidence of how decentralised finance and blockchain solutions are becoming mainstream, but Barr warns that stablecoins jeopardises the stability of the US economy.

After all, it’s happened before.

“The particularly severe Panic of 1907, which featured a run on trust companies that offered deposit products backed by less liquid assets, led eventually to the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913,” he stressed.

Not so stable?

Stablecoins are stable only if they can be redeemed at par to the dollar, promptly and reliably, even in periods of market stress.

“At the same time, stablecoin issuers have an incentive to maximise the return on their reserve assets by extending the risk spectrum as far out as possible,” Barr said. “That incentive can increase profits in good times but risks undermining confidence during market stress.”

Stablecoins themselves have been subject to valuation pressures in recent years, Barr warned, citing history as showing that private money tends to flourish in good times and fracture under panics.

From the 1800s Free Banking Era to the Panic of 1907, and even the modern strains on money market funds during the Global Financial Crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic, redemption promises have cracked when people’s confidence faltered, he said.

“The quality and liquidity of stablecoin reserve assets are critical to their long-run viability,” he said.

Illicit financing concerns 

Barr also flagged money laundering and terrorist financing risks since stablecoins can circulate in secondary markets without robust customer identification typically required by traditional banking institutions.

“Both regulatory and technological solutions will need to be deployed to limit these risks,” he said.

Highlighting these concerns, Russian and Iranian groups are using stablecoins to purchase military drones, according to a Monday report by the blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.

The trend towards using stablecoins rather than Bitcoin “reflects a broader shift in illicit crypto finance toward dollar-denominated cryptocurrencies, which offer the price stability suited to commercial procurement,” Chainalysis said.

“At $2,200–$3,500 per unit, a single successful fundraising campaign translates directly into battlefield capability for groups that cannot access conventional finance.”

Crypto market movers

• Bitcoin is up 2.5% over the past 24 hours, trading at $68,902.
• Ethereum is up 4.4% over the past 24 hours at $2,139.

What we’re reading 

• XRP has a lot going for it. So why is it still trading 60% below its all-time high? — DL News
• Coinbase: Fannie Mae mortgage initiative links cryptocurrency with real economy — DL News
• Cross-Border FX Startup OpenFX Raises $94 Million, Hits $45 Billion in Annual Volume — Unchained
• Bye TACO, hello NACHO — Milk Road
• Crypto networks ‘must wake up’ after Google exposes nightmare nine-minute Bitcoin break-in scenario — DL News

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at lance@dlnews.com.

On paper, the cryptocurrency created by Ripple has a lot going for it. The company behind the digital asset ended its long-running legal dustup with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2025, and is increasingly expanding its business.

At the same time, investors are pouring millions into US XRP exchange-traded funds, and the crypto industry has a key ally in the White House.

And yet, XRP is trading 64% below the record price set in July.

“I’m just not convinced that in this marketplace, XRP is going to succeed at regaining the stature that it once had, which is sad and unfortunate,” Ric Edelman, founder of Edelman Financial Engines, told DL News.

He argued that the asset’s reputation was hurt badly after the SEC targeted Ripple in its lawsuit in 2020.

However, not everyone agrees with that bearish sentiment.

So, what’s likely to drive the price of XRP?

ETF inflows

Despite the market downturn, the seven XRP exchange-traded funds manage around $1.1 billion in assets, according to CoinShares data. Bitwise’s product is the most successful, taking in the lion’s share of trading volume.

Bitwise Asset Management’s chief investment officer, Matt Hougan, told DL News that despite market conditions, the fund didn’t experience outflows until March.

“The fact that it has all those flows despite XRP’s price being down is a good sign,” Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas told DL News. 

He noted that, while these numbers are “pretty small compared to Bitcoin” funds which pulled in $107 billion in fresh cash in their first year, they are very good compared to most other ETFs.

“You just can’t compare them to Bitcoin [ETFs],” he added. “Which is a freak of nature.”

Edelman rejects that sentiment. He argues that the reason why people are investing into the XRP ETFs are the same people who believe that it will somehow return to its former glory.

He says that’s unlikely.

“Let’s be honest, the flows are positive but they’re really low — will it in the end matter?” Edelman said.

Donald Trump effect

Still, things are in place to work in XRP’s favour. US President Donald Trump is one of them.

As part of his mission to make the country the “crypto capital of the world”, Trump included XRP in the government’s strategic digital asset reserve announcement in March 2025.

Ripple donated to the Trump campaign and the financial services company’s chiefs have attended events at the White House — including ones aimed at shaping crypto policy.

In February, Ripple’s Chief Legal Officer, Stuart Alderoty, joined other crypto bigwigs in the White House to negotiate with banking chiefs on how to get the crypto market structure bill through.

Trump sided with the crypto industry this month when he demanded the bill get passed.

Market woes

But like many other cryptocurrencies, XRP will likely only reach new highs when Bitcoin makes a comeback.

The leading cryptocurrency is now nearly 50% below the all-time high it notched in October. Investor fears around the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates high, the ongoing war in Iran aren’t helping risk-on assets like digital assets.

Like Solana this is really impressive given these launched into a brutal 45% drawdown. Traditionally, inflows are near imposs for ETF having a reverse shiny object moment, and esp if they are brand new. My guess is this is largely XRP super fans vs casual retail. https://t.co/yjGiwAkC7l

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) March 10, 2026

“What XRP probably needs is for Bitcoin to come back,” Balchunas told DL News. 

“And then probably need some more good news, some more adoption. But it’s a thing that exists in the ecosystem; it’s one of the top tokens, and the ETFs have been pretty successful,” he continued, adding that the coin is “one to watch” among the altcoins — it could experience a big run if Bitcoin breaks new highs.

Polymarket punters aren’t currently feeling confident, though: the crypto-powered betting site puts odds that the coin will drop below $1 at 76%.

Ripple wins

Yet, in the midst of all those woes, Ripple keeps growing.

While the fintech company and the coin are separate entities, good things for Ripple tend to mean good things for the price of XRP.

And the firm, hoping to go public this year, hit a valuation of $50 billion, according to reports. That’s more than double that of stablecoin giant, Circle.

The company, while distancing itself from the coin, has debuted a stablecoin, has its flagship blockchain and ledger, and has made a number of top acquisitions.

All of which could end up pumping the price of the fifth biggest cryptocurrency. Eventually.

Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at mdisalvo@dlnews.com.

The new report also notes that stablecoins have found more use cases, which has drummed up velocity, the rate the digital tokens are turned over.

“Overall stablecoin velocity has doubled over the past two years, with stablecoins now turning over six times a month on average,” the report authored by Geoff Kendrick, the global head of digital assets research at the bank, read.

Stablecoins changing hands more often means that the tokens — typically pegged to the value of the dollar — are being used more widely.

Since US President Trump signed the Genius Act last year, major companies and banks are debuting or researching their own stablecoins with the hope the biggest crypto application will speed up payments. This has sped up the merger of traditional finance and blockchain-based businesses.

Stablecoins proving useful 

Stablecoins were originally used by traders to buy and sell crypto without having to use traditional financial rails, in decentralised finance applications, or by those in the developing world to hedge against a collapsing currency.

But that’s changing, Standard Chartered’s report said. Now, burgeoning artificial intelligence  payments and stablecoins replacing traditional finance uses are leading to surging transactions.

“The good news is that these new use cases are, so far, additive to overall stablecoin transactions,” the report continued.

The report noted that the bank’s prediction for the market value of stablecoins to hit $2 trillion by the end of 2028 still stands, but increased velocity could hinder this growth if those more use cases hadn’t been added to the mix.

Stablecoins are currently a $315.5 billion market, according to DefiLlama data.

Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at mdisalvo@dlnews.com.

Over the past few weeks, South Korean police have unearthed a criminal network that carries out vengeance on customers’ behalf, with bills settled in crypto.

Think of it as an underground version of Craigslist. But instead of getting a gig worker to clean out gutters, customers can hire people to smear human waste on their enemies' front door for $1,300 worth.

For $325, the criminals will leave leaflets scattered around the victim’s neighbourhood, alleging that the person is a child sex offender if they’re male, or a prostitute if they’re female. Other payable tasks include supergluing doors and keyholes, covering houses with slanderous graffiti, and delivering threatening messages.

“We will take revenge on your behalf and settle your grudges,” read a Korean-language X post seen by DL News today. The post featured a Telegram handle, and invited “customers” to get in touch for more details.

The revenge network and their price list were reported by South Korean newspapers Dong-A Ilbo, Joongang Ilbo, and Kiho Ilbo.

The wave of attacks adds to the long list of how lawbreakers have used cryptocurrencies to get paid for their crimes.

In 2015, Ross Ulbricht, the developer behind Silk Road, was sentenced to life in prison for developing a dark web marketplace that enabled people to buy drugs and other criminal services with Bitcoin. US President Donald Trump pardoned Ulbricht in January 2025.

Cybercriminals also often demand payment in cryptocurrencies to avoid being tracked by law enforcement. The North Korean-linked Lazarus Group has laundered billions in stolen funds using crypto rails, security firms say.

Experts also say sanctioned countries like Russia and Iran use blockchain-based money to move funds across the world.

At a time when the crypto industry is striving for legitimacy, stories like these highlight the fact digital assets can be used by law-abiding citizens and criminals alike.

‘A professional organisation’

It is against that backdrop that more details of the South Korean revenge network are emerging.

Police in Gyeonggi Province said in early March that they were investigating three suspected crypto-powered “revenge attack” cases. That number has since gone up to six, with police warning that criminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their methods.

In one of those cases, a victim had had a leaflet shoved into their letterbox. The words “I will not leave you alone” was the ominous message. A suspect later told the police that he was paid between $300 to $600 to deliver the threat.

In another case, police arrested a man suspected of graffitiing the front door of a victim’s house with red paint, scattering food waste on the entrance and smearing human faeces on a nearby stairwell.

Police say that a self-styled “private revenge organisation” is likely behind the wave of attacks.

“We believe a professional organisation is behind these crimes,” a police spokesperson told Kiho Ilbo. “We are conducting a multi-faceted investigation into the matter.”

À la carte services

In addition to the price list above, potential customers can ask “brokers,” who police say function as intermediaries between the masterminds and the people who carry out the attacks, for à la carte services.

Joongang Ilbo journalists, who contacted an alleged broker posing as a client, said brokers also offered to frame potential victims for crimes like assault, cause them financial damage, or even inflict bodily harm.

Police say the criminals who carry out the attacks are paid around $300 per month, in addition to bonuses.

Brokers, masterminds, and attackers all reportedly use Telegram to communicate with one another, and crypto as a payment tool.

This means none of the parties ever have to meet in person, or have any information about one another’s identities.

Officers say criminals plan their attacks meticulously, taking care to avoid closed-circuit TV cameras when possible, or wearing masks, hoods, and baseball caps when they need to pass by cameras.

Police hunt continues

The six cases share close geographic links. One allegedly took place in Uiwang, two in Hwaseong, one in Gunpo, one in Pyeongtaek, and one in Paju. That means they all fall within a roughly 120-kilometre radius of the capital.

So far, however, no revenge attacks have been reported in Seoul.

Police say they have made multiple arrests, remanding all of the people they suspect of carrying out the attacks in custody.

The hunt for the masterminds and brokers who facilitated and ordered the crimes, however, remains ongoing, police said.

Officers said that the revenge attackers’ client list includes suspected fraudsters who have commissioned attacks on people who reported them to the police.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.

David Brickell and Chris Mills, analysts at the London Crypto Club, said that, while there's doom and gloom in markets, Bitcoin still has a lot going for it.

“Bitcoin has outperformed virtually every macro asset, aside from oil, since the outbreak of the war,” the pair said in a Monday newsletter.

Here are four factors market watchers say drive the price right now.

Iran war

The US is ramping up its war footing against Iran. The country is assembling roughly 50,000 troops in the region as it eyes reopening the Strait of Hormuz and potentially seizing Kharg Island, a critical hub for Iranian oil exports.

The uncertainty of the conflict weighs on markets. The S&P 500, a key benchmark for the global market, is down 7% year-to-date to levels not seen since August. On Monday, over $1 trillion in value was wiped out from the US stock market in a single trading session.

Even gold is down. The asset is globally seen as the premier safe-haven during troubled times. The metal is heading towards its worst month since 2008. The precious metal is down 15% this month.

Yet Bitcoin is still outperforming gold. It is down just 0.2% over the past month.

A slew of analysts told DL News last week that this fact is incentivising institutional investors to bet even more on the top crypto — especially as they expect things to get better soon.

Brickell and Mills noted that, while some say the cryptocurrency’s latest downturn proves that it has failed as a hedge against fiat debasement, it is still up 10 times over since 2020.

“Bitcoin, as a non-sovereign, borderless asset, remains the ultimate hedge against the failure of existing economic and political structures,” they wrote.

Fed worries 

The war has worried central banks around the world. Traders are now pricing in that the Federal Reserve and others will raise interest rates to fight inflation stemming from skyrocketing energy prices.

Higher interest rates incentivise investors to buy and hold bonds for risk free yield, rather than gamble with riskier assets like Bitcoin.

Investors are “worried over the increasingly drawn-out nature of the Iran conflict and the prospects of higher inflation, with the June FOMC interest rate expectations now having flipped from rate cuts to rate hikes,” wrote James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares.

Yet, Brickell and Mills argue that this approach is foolish.

Attempting to curb short-term inflation by suppressing demand through monetary policy is “akin to burning down the house to cook the turkey,” they said. “Hiking rates doesn’t help re-open the Strait of Hormuz.”

Institutional interest 

Despite the market worries, institutional investors seem to be betting on Bitcoin and other crypto assets.

In March, investors poured  $1.2 billion into Bitcoin exchange-money funds this month, making March the best month since October, DefiLlama data shows.

On March 27, Paul Howard, a senior director at high-frequency crypto market maker Wincent, told DL News that private over-the-counter deals, usually conducted between institutions like hedge funds, have spiked.

Now, even highly conservative institutions like pension funds and university endowments are pouring capital into Bitcoin ETFs and digital asset treasuries to get exposure to crypto.

They’re expected to pile up to $13 trillion into Bitcoin investments alone by 2030, according to Ark Invest.

Four-year cycle over?

The four-year cycle that has ruled the industry refers to Bitcoin’s halving event. Every four years, the Bitcoin blockchain cuts the amount of rewards it issues to the network’s miners.

If previous cycles are anything to go by, sell-offs usually ebb after six months, which would be around April or May this time around.

Yet Bitcoin has entered a “controlled de-risking” phase, Brickell and Mills said in their newsletter.

“Realised profit-taking has collapsed by 96% since last year — a textbook signal that the ‘seller exhaustion’ we’ve been looking for is finally here.”

Today, the reward for confirming blocks of transactions is 3.125 Bitcoin. By the middle of 2028, at the next forecast halving, those rewards will drop to approximately 1.56 Bitcoin.

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at lance@dlnews.com.

The play is less about immediate changes and more about setting a structural precedent, said David Duong, Coinbase’s global head of investment research.

“Allowing borrowers to use Bitcoin or USDC as pledged collateral — rather than selling it — incrementally reinforces the narrative of crypto as productive collateral and deepens the link between onchain wealth and the real economy, particularly US housing,” he said.

Duong’s comments come as the industry has suffered from a $2 trillion drawdown, with Bitcoin down 47% from its October peak of $126,000. Other cryptoassets have fared even worse, with Solana down 72%.

Yet the partnership represents a new development in crypto markets, linking digital assets directly to the performance of the US housing and interest rates cycle.

“This is another data point in a broader shift from price speculation toward balance-sheet utility,” he said.

Programme details

Under a new product launched by Better Home & Finance in partnership with Coinbase, borrowers can pledge Bitcoin or USDC as collateral for a second loan that funds the down payment on a conforming mortgage eligible for purchase by Fannie Mae.

The digital assets remain in custody through Coinbase Prime, the crypto exchange’s custodian division, for the life of the loan, allowing borrowers to retain exposure to potential appreciation while securing conventional home financing.

The primary mortgage remains within the traditional underwriting framework. But the innovation lies in how borrower equity is structured.

“This vehicle shifts a portion of the borrower’s equity into segregated digital asset collateral,” Duong said.

The product also addresses a longstanding friction point for US crypto holders: the need to liquidate digital assets to fund major purchases. By allowing borrowers to pledge crypto instead of selling it, the model preserves exposure to potential upside while avoiding immediate tax liabilities.

Yet crypto-backed lending is not new. Platforms like Nexo let customers borrow stablecoins while using cryptos like Bitcoin as collateral.

What is new is formal recognition within the US government-run housing ecosystem.

Following last year’s directive from the Federal Housing Finance Agency urging Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to evaluate how crypto holdings could factor into risk models, this marks one of the first concrete implementations, Duong said.

Macro amplified

Speculative assets like crypto are greatly impacted by Interest rates set by the Federal Reserve.

And as crypto becomes embedded in mortgage structures, it grows even more directly linked to the US rates and housing cycle. That means both opportunity and exposure.

Over time, Duong argues, developments like this support structural demand for high-quality assets such as Bitcoin and USDC. They deepen the case for digital assets as durable stores of value and collateral.

But the flip side is increased cyclicality for an industry already considered to be highly volatile. If the initiative takes off, crypto becomes more sensitive to mortgage rates, housing demand and broader macro conditions.

Crypto market movers

• Bitcoin is down 1.6% over the past 24 hours, trading at $66,395.
• Ethereum is down 1.4% over the past 24 hours at $2,025.

What we’re reading 

• Aerodrome creator boasts 80% efficiency gain by becoming more like a prediction market — DL News
• JPMorgan expands digital assets push with Mitsubishi deal as it targets $10bn in daily transactions — DL News
• Senate Bill Would Create Federal Certification for U.S. Bitcoin Miners and Codify Trump’s Reserve — Unchained
• Why Ethereum Might Be the Most Mispriced Asset in Crypto Right Now w/ David Duong — Milk Road
• Aave launches v4 on Ethereum as founder eyes ‘opportunities in the real world’ — DL News

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at lance@dlnews.com.

Since its 2020 launch, Kinexys, JPMorgan’s digital asset service, has processed over $3 trillion worth of transactions. But Zack Chestnut tells DL News that this number is only set to grow.

“Our goal is to meaningfully grow these figures as quickly as we can,” the global head of business development for Kinexys said. “We would be pleased but not satisfied to see daily transaction value get above $10 billion per day in the foreseeable future.”

Mitsubishi is only the latest firm to sign up to JPMorgan’s blockchain network. Kinexys serves “hundreds” of clients across five continents, including central and commercial banks to the tune of $5 billion in transactions per day, Chestnut said.

The expansion of Kinexys also highlights Wall Street’s growing adoption of crypto and blockchain technology.

Traditional financial services are launching crypto-trading services, signing partnerships with industry-native firms, tokenising assets, acquiring crypto startups, and increasingly using digital ledger technology to boost efficiencies.

And JPMorgan, led by CEO and ardent crypto-sceptic Jamie Dimon, has found itself at the centre of this wave.

What is Kinexys?

Originally known as Onyx, JPMorgan’s bespoke blockchain first saw the light in 2020. The JPMD deposit token is at the centre of the firm’s payments strategy.

Like a stablecoin, these deposit tokens enable near-instantaneous payments and settlements at a fraction of the price. But instead of being backed by assets like US treasuries, deposit tokens represent funds held in a bank account.

And unlike stablecoins, they can be moved between bank accounts, on- and offchain, without needing to use intermediaries.

“In our experience, many of the efficiencies on offer from using blockchain rails are most valuable in complex, cross-border money movement flows for sophisticated global institutions,” Chestnut said. “As such, the appeal of Kinexys is global”

Mitsubishi is the first Japanese corporation to adopt Kinexys.

“As we are developing and operating businesses globally across a wide array of industries, it is essential that funds raised in the market and cash generated across our operations can be allocated efficiently throughout our consolidated group,” Kazuyoshi Kawakami, Mitsubishi’s treasurer, said in a statement.

Wall Street’s crypto push

JPMorgan is not the only traditional financial behemoth to tap into blockchain technology.

Many such projects have been in the works for years. For instance, payments giant PayPal launched a stablecoin in 2023, and companies like Mastercard have been developing solutions for the better part of the last decade.

Yet Donald Trump’s second term as president has turbo-charged those ambitions. His election win in 2024 and his pro-crypto policies have emboldened old-school banks and payments firms to turbo-charge their digital asset ambitions.

Stripe, the $159 billion payments giant, has launched its own blockchain, Mastercard has created a crypto partnership programme with over 100 companies across fintech and crypto, and crypto-native firms are being acquired like never before.

JPMorgan declined to directly comment on specific governments or other companies’ strategies.

Even so, Chestnut seemed confident that JPMorgan will be able to add new clients to its blockchain-based payments network.

“The pipeline is very robust, and we expect the market will continue to hear more about our continued client growth throughout the next 12 months,” Chestnut said.

Eric Johansson is DL News’ managing editor. Got a tip? Email him at eric@dlnews.com.

That’s the main question that Alexandre Schmidt, research analyst at CoinShares has been grappling with.

“After several weeks of outflows, crypto ETFs saw some healthy inflows month-to-date,” Schmidt told DL News. “All these factors point to ETFs being well and alive — whether we will see elevated levels of activity remains to be seen, but in my view the outlook does look promising.”

Despite showing signs of “absurd strength” at times, Bitcoin ETF demand has proven fragile. Heavy selling hit the sector in November of 2025, and flows turned choppy toward year-end.

The trend then flipped decisively negative in early 2026 with billions sold as a new conflict in the Middle East unravelled, even though the past four weeks have recorded inflows, according to data from DefiLlama.

For Schmidt, in fact, the wildcard is the Middle East conflict.

If fighting between Iran, Israel, and the US becomes protracted, the macro repercussions could last far longer than the immediate geopolitical shock.

And that could have a broad effect over assets like Bitcoin.

“The immediate impact I can think of is higher inflation triggered by higher oil prices, which in turn could reduce the chances of rate cuts during 2026,” Schmidt said. “As a result, market liquidity could be reduced and fewer flows going towards assets such as Bitcoin.”

Indeed, while traders previously deemed interest rate cuts as a foregone conclusion this year, they’re now increasingly buying into the idea that central banks may hike interest rates in 2026.

High interest rates are usually seen as a bad omen for risk-on assets as it discourages investors to bet on them.

That said, Schmidt acknowledged that the conflict in the Middle East could increase Bitcoin’s utility as people in affected regions use it to move currency out of Iran and other impacted areas.

Watch Japan

Even so, don’t expect any major records in Q2, said Schmidt.

“Activity in Bitcoin and crypto is somewhat muted in relation to last year,” Schmidt told DL News. “Breaking any significant milestones is unlikely in the near future.”

But he cautioned that “in a volatile world we always need to keep our minds open to sudden shifts in money flows and investor behaviour.”

As for sovereign Bitcoin ETF buyers, Schmidt can’t immediately think of any countries investing in Bitcoin ETFs.

But he’s watching Japan closely.

While newly elected Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi doesn’t appear to have strong crypto views, Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama has a positive stance on crypto assets.

Schmidt explained that he recently returned from meetings with Japanese investors, where he observed a strong push to regulate crypto in the country and eventually launch ETFs there.

That would be a significant market development, he said, “as appetite for crypto is strong among Japanese investors, especially retail.”

Pedro Solimano is a markets correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email him atpsolimano@dlnews.com.

The burst of trading activity on the crypto-native decentralised exchange “is getting noticed beyond the crypto community,” Kam Benbrik, head of research at Bitwise’s onchain division, told DL News.

“Perpetual contracts are structurally superior for commodity trading, and this is why we're seeing such a high volume on Hyperliquid,” Benbrik said.

The DEX’s record numbers come as crypto investors have also pushed Hyperliquid’s native HYPE token up 44% in March to just over $38 at time of reporting, making it one of the best performing large-cap cryptoassets.

To be sure, HYPE is still down some 35% from its September peak of nearly $60. However, it is significantly outperforming the likes of industry leaders like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana.

Weekend fix

With no end in sight to the US-Israeli war on Iran, traders have come to depend on Hyperliquid for their weekend markets fix.

“The main signal of real TradFi interest is the 24/7 angle: when the crisis in the Middle East hit on a weekend and oil surged, the liquid venue to trade the underlying was Hyperliquid,” Benbrik said.

Gold, silver, and oil perpetuals have already become a major part of the DEX’s trading volume, alongside cryptoassets like Bitcoin. And Hyperliquid could potentially add other popular globally relevant commodities such as uranium and aluminium, Benbrik said.

“Perpetual futures eliminate expiry, rolling, and delivery risk, and that this is a structural improvement compared to dated futures for commodity exposure,” he said. “Those are real frictions in traditional commodity futures markets..”

With Brent crude now sitting at around $115 a barrel amid continuing disruption around the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint, Hyperliquid saw well over $500 million in oil trading volume on Sunday.

What’s next?

Benbrik said that HIP-4, first announced in February 2026, will be an exciting upgrade to Hyperliquid, that “opens the door to prediction markets.”

“Users will be able to trade on the outcome of different events directly on Hyperliquid,” he said.

“Hyperliquid wants to be the everything exchange: one venue where any asset, any financial outcome, trades 24/7 on-chain.”

Crypto market movers

• Bitcoin is up 1.8% over the past 24 hours, trading at $67,773.
• Ethereum is up 2.9% over the past 24 hours at $2,060.

What we’re reading 

• Gangster jailed for squandering friend’s $332,000 Bitcoin stash in casino — DL News
• Why crypto startups struggle to get VC cash this cycle — DL News
• Gnosis, Zisk and Ethereum Foundation Launch Rollup Framework to Fix L2 Fragmentation — Unchained
• Why Ethereum Might Be the Most Mispriced Asset in Crypto Right Now w/ David Duong — Milk Road
• Brazil passes anti-gang law allowing seized crypto to fund security forces — DL News

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at lance@dlnews.com.

Hi. Eric here.

Bitcoin has had a raw few months.

After achieving a $126,000 record high in October, a $19 billion wave of liquidations triggered a massive sell-off that saw the cryptocurrency lose roughly half of its total value.

And since February 28 when the US and Israel attacked Iran, the price of Bitcoin has trembled around $70,000.

But despite the downturn and the tsunami of gallows humour flooding social media feeds, investment firms are surprisingly positive about the market conditions.

“We are reluctant to call it a ‘crypto winter’ given how busy we are with prospective investors,” Zach Pandl, head of research at Grayscale, told me. “The current feeling at Grayscale could not be more different than the tone on Crypto Twitter — probably because we can see the institutional capital coming.”

Pandl represents one of the investment firms I spoke to this week that say that institutional investors are revving up to inject money into crypto assets. Indeed, VanEck estimates that institutional investors will pile up to $13 trillion into Bitcoin by 2030.

That wave of investment comes as James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, told me that he expects that the price will creep towards $80,000 over the next month or so.

His argument is simple. Whales, which he defines as individuals or entities that own over 10,000 in Bitcoin, started to take profit in October. If previous cycles are anything to go by, sell-offs usually ebb after six months, which would be around April or May this time around.

Once that sell-off ends, the price will go up, Butterfill said.

That’s an optimistic outlook. Punters on Polymarket bet that Bitcoin’s price has a 69% chance of reaching $80,000 in 2026. Conversely, they put the chances of it dropping to $55,000 at 74%.

To be sure, there are plenty of factors threatening to drag down the price.

The conflict in the Middle East still weighs on markets, and has eroded the probability that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates this side of July. Higher interest rates are usually bad for risk-on assets like cryptocurrencies.

Elsewhere, there’s the upcoming midterms in the US. Republicans seem to be in for an absolute beating, despite the crypto lobby heavily favouring their candidates. If Democrats retake the House, that will likely grind crypto legislation to a halt.

Unless banks, crypto companies, and politicians on Capitol Hill find a way to move forward with the Clarity Act before that, the landmark crypto markets bill is unlikely to get passed before 2028.

Polymarket bettors give the bill a 61% chance of getting passed this year, down from 82% in February.

Still, after almost a month of war, it’s good to see some glimmers of hope.

Crypto hackers armed with AI stand to make millions of dollars attacking old code

Bad actors are now using the large language models that power AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude to search thousands of lines of code a second. Their goal? Identify vulnerabilities that have slipped by developers and auditors. Check out Tim Craig’s report.

SBF stumbles in error-ridden trial push as judge tells his mother to step aside

Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced co-founder of the defunct FTX crypto exchange, wants to get out of prison. However, he keeps getting in his own way, Aleks Gilbert reports.

Crypto owners should be allowed to carry guns, says Ledger co-founder

After seeing his Ledger co-founder get kidnapped and tortured, Éric Larchevêque is on a mission to arm crypto workers and influencers in France.Tim Alper reports.

Post of the Week

The Clarity Act has been stuck in a legislative limbo for months. The core problem? Whether the law should allow passive yield on stablecoins. The banks say no, crypto says yes and so far no one is budging.

Guys with $73 in crypto, waiting for the CLARITY Act to pass: https://t.co/mj6TZ4OoGU pic.twitter.com/QYRnkryhd5

— Shibo (@GodsBurnt) March 20, 2026

As CoinShares’ head of research, one of his jobs is to meet prospective institutional investors and try to convince them to trust the asset management firm to invest their money into cryptocurrencies.

Five years ago, that was a tall order.

“We would generally meet them in the corner of some coffee shop because they were worried about the image it would portray of them meeting some crypto guys,” Butterfill told DL News.

But things have changed.

“Now we’re being invited into the boardrooms,” he said.

The shift marks a dramatic change in institutional investors’ attitude towards digital assets. In the past, they often viewed Bitcoin and altcoins with scepticism, as speculative assets that only hedge funds and family offices with huge risk appetites dared to touch.

Now, pension funds and university superannuation funds are pouring capital into Bitcoin exchange-traded funds and digital asset treasuries to get exposure to cryptoassets.

They’re expected to pile up to $13 trillion into Bitcoin investments alone by 2030, according to Ark Invest, an ETF provider.

Their bullishness comes at a peculiar time for the crypto industry.

On the one hand, the industry has never had more governmental support. On the other, it has lost almost half of its market value since October, and uncertainties surrounding the war in the Middle East threaten to exacerbate market jitters.

Even so, most of the firms DL News spoke to that provide crypto investment services to institutional investors remain optimistic — the market, they say, will bounce back soon.

“Believe it or not, most institutional investors have still not allocated to crypto,” Zach Pandl, head of research at Grayscale, told DL News. “They therefore tend to see drawdowns as an opportunity to build positions at compelling prices.”

The turn

US President Donald Trump is a key driver behind the changing attitude among institutional investors.

“Regardless what you think about Trump, he’s done a lot of things to the asset class,” Butterfill said.

Since taking office, Trump has appointed crypto supporters to key government roles, signed executive orders to create a national Bitcoin reserve and banned the creation of a central bank-issued digital dollar.

He has also pardoned industry leaders, signed a landmark stablecoin bill into law, and backed the Clarity Act, a bill designed to clarify the rules the industry must adhere to.

More importantly, his policies, and the appointment of Paul Atkins to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, have effectively halted the tougher policing of the Joe Biden years.

In its place, Atkins, and his counterpart at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Michael Selig, have introduced regulatory guidelines that the industry could only dream of a few years ago.

“All of that has just improved the legitimacy of the asset class,” Butterfill said.

To be sure, these firms have reason to talk up the shifting attitudes towards the industry — their business models depend on the idea that more people will invest in cryptocurrencies.

That being said, Wall Street is positioning itself to capitalise on what they see as a wave of interest in blockchain-backed investments.

This week, banking giant Morgan Stanley launched a Bitcoin ETF to compete with the ones of investment giants BlackRock and Fidelity, and US mortgage-finance giant Fannie Mae is said to soon accept crypto-backed mortgages.

Elsewhere, JPMorgan, led by it’s perennial Bitcoin sceptic CEO Jamie Dimon, has started to allow institutional clients to pledge their crypto holdings to secure loans.

The October crash

Two major factors still demand vigilance among investors: the $19 billion market implosion in October, and uncertainties caused by the war in Iran.

That’s triggered renewed concerns from investors about digital assets’ ties to crime, volatility, computing risks and crypto’s impact on the environment.

Despite the downturn following the joint US and Israeli attack on Iran, Bitcoin has performed better than equities and gold.

Investment managers tell DL News that this fact has incentivised institutional investors to bet on the asset class — especially as they expect things to get better soon.

Whales are to blame for the downturn, Butterfill argues. Many individuals who own over 10,000 Bitcoin believe that the cryptocurrency’s price adheres to a four-year cycle.

This cycle starts at every halving, an event where the reward for mining Bitcoin drops by half. This usually sets the stage for a massive rally that culminates about 18 months later. Then the price starts to drop, and won’t rise again until the next rally.

“I would argue that that’s nonsense because the supply is perfectly known for the next 100 years,” Butterfill said.

Even so, whales that adhere to the idea of the four-year cycle started to take profit in October, he said.

The good news?

“That’s slowing right down, which is quite encouraging,” Butterfill said, predicting that the selling will end in April and pave the way for Bitcoin’s price to start its climb back above $80,000.

Bitcoin ETFs’ $2.3 billion haul

Since February 23, investors have injected over $2.3 billion into Bitcoin ETFs, marking four solid weeks of inflows into those funds, according to DefiLlama data.

“That’s quite encouraging,” Butterfill said.

While that doesn’t offset the $1.6 billion pulled out of these funds since October, Bitcoin ETFs still hold over $83 billion worth of Bitcoin.

“Crypto ETF demand has been remarkably sticky,” Pandl said.

Eric Johansson is DL News’ managing editor. Got a tip? Email at eric@dlnews.com.

The head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors and chair of Bitmine Immersion Technologies, a digital asset treasury that invests heavily in Ethereum, offered that advice in a clip posted on the former company’s YouTube channel on Thursday, just as Ether’s price took a 3% nosedive over the past 24 hours.

“For the next year, I think that’s a money trade,” Lee said.

“As a wartime store of value, crypto looks a lot stronger. Crypto has been outperforming since the war started while gold has actually underperformed,” he said.

The call comes amid a $2 trillion downturn in the crypto market since October that has left most tokens heavily bruised, while other asset classes, like gold and stocks, soared to new highs in early 2026. Bitcoin is down 45% from its October peak while Ethereum has fallen nearly 60%. Many popular memecoins have plunged over 90%.

Ethereum bull case

But the tables have turned since the US-Israeli war on Iran began in late February — at least for Ethereum.

Since then, Ethereum is up 17% on a relative basis compared to the S&P 500, and has outperformed all major global market benchmarks including Bitcoin, Gold, Real Estate, MSCI World Energy and Mag-7 tech stocks, Fundstrat’s March research report shows.

To be sure, Lee warns of lingering risk stemming from the war in the Middle East.

“The US is at war with Iran. There’s misinformation. Investors are risk-averse. They want to sit on the sidelines. It’s very difficult to navigate markets like this,” he said.

Lee has long been a big supporter of Ethereum and forecasts the network’s Ether token will eventually hit $250,000.

Bitmine purchased another $133 million of Ether earlier this week, and now holds over $9 billion worth, the firm said.

Lee’s optimism is shared by institutions including BlackRock, the world’s largest investment manager overseeing $14 trillion, which launched a new Ethereum exchange-traded fund on March 12.

They see Ethereum as a key technology for tokenisation — the representation of traditional financial assets using blockchain-based tokens — as a means of lowering barriers to investment.

Despite the number two crypto stalling near $2,000, “key progress at the Ethereum protocol level continues to advance,” Tim Sun, senior researcher at HashKey, told DL News.

Sun said that Ethereum’s key thesis as an institutional-grade settlement layer remains intact, despite the market action.

“In this context, the market’s current discounting of Ether and related assets reflects a shift in sentiment and risk preference more than a fundamental rejection of the core thesis,” he said.

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at lance@dlnews.com.

The Financial Times reported on Friday that the crypto industry’s largest stablecoin issuer had signed on KPMG to conduct an audit of the firm.

The outlet added that PwC would assist with preparing internal systems, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Tether and PwC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. KPMG declined to comment.

The 12-year-old stablecoin company, which boasted $10 billion in profits in 2025, announced the news on Tuesday but did not share the name of the auditing firm.

“At a scale rarely seen outside the world’s largest sovereign institutions and encompassing a uniquely complex mix of digital assets, traditional reserves, and tokenised liabilities, this audit marks a defining moment not only for Tether, but for the evolution of modern finance itself,” the company said.

The move comes just as larger financial institutions are taking a closer look at digital assets and landmark stablecoin legislation passed in the US last summer.

Now, Tether is looking to tap into this momentum — and clear its chequered past.

Big Four question answered

In 2024, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino told DL News that Big Four accounting firms — Deloitte, PwC, EY, and KPMG — were afraid to work with Tether because they feared it would damage their reputations.

“So you are a Big Four auditing firm, and you have the entire banking industry that is your customer,” Ardoino said.

“Why would you risk 100,000 customers for a couple of stablecoins?”

Much has changed since then.

For starters, Tether’s USDT stablecoin is now worth $184 billion, more than 70% larger than in April 2024.

Second, stablecoins are now subject to federal supervision following the passage of the Genius Act last summer.

The bill also paved the way for the launch of Tether’s USAT stablecoin in the US. Bo Hones, who previously served an advisory role for the White House on crypto, is the CEO of the company’s US-based firm.

This appears to have been enough to derisk taking on Tether’s business.

Run-in with regulators

Tether has long been scrutinised for failing to execute a formal audit from a large accounting firm.

It’s also had run-ins with regulators over its reserves reporting.

In 2021, the company settled with the New York Attorney General’s office over misrepresentations regarding the backing of its USDT stablecoin. Tether and Bitfinex, its sister company also founded by Ardoino, paid $18.5 million.

That same year, Tether paid a $41 million fine to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission after the CFTC accused the stablecoin firm of making “untrue or misleading statements” regarding its US dollar reserves.

Update, March 27: KPMG declined to comment.

Liam Kelly is DL News’ Berlin correspondent. Contact him at liam@dlnews.com.

MARA Holdings sold off 15,133 Bitcoin for $1.1 billion over the past three weeks.

Now, it holds 38,689 Bitcoin worth around $2.3 billion.

„Our decision to sell a portion of our Bitcoin holdings reflects a strategic capital allocation move designed to strengthen our balance sheet and position the company for long-term growth,“ CEO Fred Thiel said in a statement.

He added the move “enhances financial flexibility“ as MARA expands “beyond pure-play Bitcoin mining into digital energy and AI/HPC infrastructure.“

Translation: Mining Bitcoin doesn’t pay anymore. Powering AI does.

Another domino

MARA trades at $8.50, up around 3.5% today, according to Yahoo Finance.

The company fell to third place in the Bitcoin treasury trade, now relinquishing the second spot to Jack Mallers’ Twenty One Capital.

Indeed, MARA is the latest — and biggest — domino to fall in Bitcoin mining’s wholesale pivot towards artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Every other major US miner had already begun their transition as mining became significantly unprofitable following the latest halving event, according to Bernstein analysts.

In 2024, the halving — an event that occurs every 4 years and halves block rewards — cut mining rewards to 3.125 Bitcoin per block.

On its own, that’s already a problem. But transaction fees have also collapsed as Bitcoin gets locked up in exchange-traded funds rather than traded on-chain.

The result is that companies that could profitably mine Bitcoin at $50,000 per coin now struggle to break even at $100,000 per coin.

But Bitcoin now trades around $69,000.

Meanwhile, AI companies are desperate for power capacity and willing to pay premium rates for it.

The great mining unwind

MARA’s sale is just the biggest example of a broader trend.

Core Scientific contracted 590 megawatts to AI cloud provider CoreWeave for 12 years in a deal that’s expected to generate $10 billion in revenue.

IREN is targeting over half a billion in annualised revenue from AI cloud services in 2026.

Even CleanSpark — previously committed to pure Bitcoin mining — appointed a senior vice president for AI data centres in October.

Some miners aren’t moving fast enough for their own shareholders.

To be sure, pivoting to AI doesn’t guarantee success.

The AI play that looked bulletproof barely six months ago is now facing some serious investor scrutiny. Market watchers are wondering whether OpenAI and other hyperscalers can actually execute and monetise their aggressive buildout plans.

That scepticism has fed directly into Bitcoin miners, said Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets research at VanEck.

“The once-dominant AI trade has weakened,” he said in February.

“This has had second-order effects on Bitcoin miners as financing conditions tightened alongside Bitcoin weakness,” forcing many to sell off more of their coins to fund the pivot.

Pedro Solimano is a markets correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email him at psolimano@dlnews.com.

Now the digital asset treasury, which is already staking nearly $7 billion of Ethereum, is planning even more avant-garde moves to bridge crypto with traditional finance, according to Bitmine Chair Tom Lee.

“MAVAN represents a critical step in our vision to build one of the leading staking and onchain infrastructure platforms globally,” Lee said on Wednesday.

“We plan to expand across additional proof-of-stake networks and critical blockchain infrastructure over time, and through 2026, we’ll grow our efforts in areas such as onchain vaults, post-quantum client development, and more,” he added.

The initiative highlights how traditional finance is merging with crypto and comes on the back of a similar move made by investment giant BlackRock earlier this year.

Over 30% of Ethereum’s total circulating supply is now staked, according to ValidatorQueue data. In other words, nearly one-third of all Ethereum is now illiquid, earning just under 2.8% yield — modest by crypto industry standards.

MAVAN plans to broaden its offering to cater to institutional investors, custodians and ecosystem partners seeking high-quality staking infrastructure, Lee said.

Still, the grand ambitions haven’t helped out Bitmine’s share price, which has dropped 66% since October. While its share price jumped some 2% on the back of the news, pre-market trading suggests shares have dropped over 3% of their value since.

Bitmine is the biggest digital asset treasury holder of Ethereum. The firm and other of its kin have struggled in the market after $19 billion worth of leverage crypto trading positions were liquidated in October, which triggered a cascade of sell-offs that dragged down the price of cryptocurrencies.

The total cryptocurrency market has lost almost half of its value since. For DATs like Bitmine, the crash has triggered falling share prices, investor rebellions and mass sales.

Even so, Lee remains one of the most prominent Ethereum bulls and predicts $250,000 per token, but hasn’t provided a timeline for that call.

Institutions back Ethereum

MAVAN’s debut comes amid continuous institutional support for staked Ethereum, despite the network’s token price still down 57% from its August peak of $4,950.

BlackRock, the world’s largest investment manager, launched its newest Ethereum exchange-traded fund on March 12. The iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF saw close to $16 million in trading volume after debuting with $100 million in assets under management.

Thomas Brunner, head of custody and staking at Sygnum Bank in Zürich, told DL News that these new staked Ethereum products from BlackRock and Bitmine appeal to traditional finance investors.

These clients typically want Ethereum exposure and yield “through a familiar brokerage account, without having to self-custody or navigate the mechanics of staking directly,” Brunner said.

BlackRock said in its 2026 outlook that Ethereum will lead the tokenisation of real-world assets.

In his 2026 annual letter to shareholders, CEO Larry Fink highlighted tokenisation — the conversion of traditional financial assets into blockchain-based tokens — as a means of lowering barriers to investment.

“Half the world’s population carries a digital wallet on their phone,” Fink said on Tuesday.

“Imagine if that same digital wallet could also let you invest in a broad mix of companies for the long term — as easily as sending a payment.”

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at lance@dlnews.com.

On Wednesday, Google announced that it’s setting an “ambitious timeline” to migrate most of its authentication and digital signature models to post-quantum cryptography by 2029.

The company cited faster-than-expected progress in quantum hardware development, error correction, and factoring resource estimates.

A day earlier, the Ethereum Foundation published a four-pronged roadmap to protect the $260 billion network.

The organisation also set a 2029 target for completion, although researchers inside the Ethereum Foundation don’t think quantum computing will be “cryptographically relevant” for another eight to 12 years.

Even so, researchers are erring on the side of caution.

Chaincode Labs has estimated that up to 50% of all Bitcoin — roughly $700 billion — is vulnerable to a quantum computing threat.

At the upper echelons of finance, there are also concerns about the threat posed by quantum computing.

In January, Sergio Ermotti, CEO of $5 trillion Swiss bank UBS, sounded the alarm.

Moves from Google, the Ethereum Foundation, and members of the Bitcoin Core development group form a growing chorus of voices that reckon that quantum computing could break the security models that undergird the majority of crypto networks.

Two main threats

Google’s timeline shows two main quantum risks, both with distinct levels of urgency.

The first threat is already happening, according to Google.

It is called “store-now-decrypt-later attacks, where adversaries capture encrypted data today and wait for future quantum computers to decrypt it.

This makes encryption vulnerable right now, even though current quantum computers can’t break it yet.

The second threat directly targets cryptocurrencies. That’s because the attack targets digital signatures, the cryptographic proof that transactions are authentic.

For protocols like Bitcoin and Ethereum, compromising digital signatures is existential.

They prove you own your coins and authorise any transactions, meaning if quantum computers can forge signatures, they can drain users’ wallets.

Developers prepare

Even though the Ethereum Foundation doesn’t expect quantum computing to pose a threat to users for another 8 to 12 years, researchers acknowledge that “the work must begin well before the threat arrives.”

Bitcoin developers aren’t waiting around either. A proposal, dubbed BIP360, already exists to address quantum risks before they materialise.

“Our whole motto is: prepared, not scared,” Hunter Beast, one of the proposal’s authors, previously told DL News.

Pedro Solimano is a markets correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email him at psolimano@dlnews.com.

After all, its former top executive, James Gorman, said in 2024 that he never understood the value of Bitcoin.

Things have changed now, and with the “imminent” launch of a Morgan Stanley Bitcoin ETF, the $83 billion already sitting in Bitcoin ETFs is about to get a whole lot bigger.

On social media, Eric Balchunas, a senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, shared a screenshot of a pending listing for the bank’s ETF under the ticker MSBT.

Morgan Stanley did not immediately respond for comment.

Morgan Stanley operates the largest network of financial advisors in the United States, with roughly 16,000 advisors managing over $6.2 trillion in client assets.

That’s double the combined assets of Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan’s wealth management units, he said.

“First bank to do a Bitcoin ETF (unthinkable couple years ago),” Balchunas wrote on X. “But not just any bank, a big boy bank with the largest network of financial advisors.”

When BlackRock and 11 others launched Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024, banks like Morgan Stanley took a more cautious approach.

They allowed some of their advisors to offer third-party Bitcoin ETFs only to select wealthy clients.

Fast forward two years, and Morgan Stanley is putting its own name on a Bitcoin fund.

The new ETF gives Morgan Stanley’s 16,000 advisors a proprietary Bitcoin product they can recommend without routing clients to a competitor’s fund.

16,000 advisors

The ETF move is part of a larger push from the bank to embrace crypto in the US.

Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick said in January that the bank was working with the US Treasury Department and other regulators to launch crypto products.

In February, Morgan Stanley also joined a growing list of companies filing for a banking charter to custody cryptocurrencies.

Morgan Stanley’s competitive edge is its advisor network.

While retail investors can buy BlackRock’s IBIT themselves, many wealthy investors rely on financial advisors to construct portfolios.

Those advisors have traditionally been gatekeepers, either recommending Bitcoin exposure or dismissing it.

Some market watchers forecast strong interest from Morgan Stanley clients.

Morgan Stanley would not be launching their own Bitcoin ETF “unless it believes that Bitcoin will be a persistent allocation across its wealth management client base,” said John Haar, head of private services at Bitcoin-focused financial services company Swan Bitcoin.

Crypto market movers

• Bitcoin is up 0.7% over the past 24 hours, trading at $71,223.
• Ethereum rose 0.3% in the last day to $2,164.

What we’re reading

• Bitcoin price holds steady as investors flee gold. Have safe-haven roles finally reversed? — DL News
• Bitcoin Is in Uncertain Territory. Could Strategy’s STRC Be the Last Straw? — Unchained
• Will the war cause a global recession? — Milk Road
• SBF stumbles in error-ridden trial push as judge tells his mother to step aside — DL News

Pedro Solimano is a markets correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email him at psolimano@dlnews.com.

A total of $17 billion in digital assets options — more than $14.5 billion in Bitcoin — are set to expire on crypto derivatives platform Deribit on Friday.

“This is a huge expiry, large enough to influence spot prices,” Daniel Reis-Faria, CEO of ZeroStack, told DL News.

A Bitcoin options contract gives the trader the right, but not the obligation, to purchase the underlying asset at a specific price on a future date.

This means traders don’t have to buy the Bitcoin when the contract expires, but they can if they want to.

The expiry date falls on the same day that US President Trump set as the deadline for Iran to make a deal to end the ongoing military conflict between the two countries.

The president postponed a threat to bomb Iran’s power grid on Tuesday after he said he’d had productive talks with Iranian officials.

Iran has denied that such talks took place.

When options are set to expire, crypto markets can become more volatile as would-be traders will either continue to hold or dump their potential buys.

In the past, when large amounts of options have expired, the market has crashed.

This isn’t a given, however, as market makers can sometimes suppress volatility by selling option premiums.

War in Iran a factor

Things are different this time around, as crypto markets have experienced greater volatility amid geopolitical strife.

Deribit’s Chief Commercial Officer, Jean-David Pequignot, said in a note shared with DL News that the Iran war was playing a part in Friday’s option expiry.

“Bitcoin’s recent surge back toward $71k was catalysed by President Trump’s decision to postpone strikes on Iranian power plants for five days,” he wrote.

Bitcoin is up 8% since the US and Israel hit Iran on February 28.

The coin has experienced significant volatility, along with stocks, since the attack took place, but has proven to be a safer haven than gold — at least in the short-term.

Now, Trump’s decision to postpone strikes on Iranian power plants for five days will reach its deadline the same day the crypto options expire, which could mean even more volatility, according to Pequingnot.

“This diplomatic window expires almost perfectly in tandem with Friday’s options expiry, exacerbating a localised volatility kink in the term structure,” he added.

Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at mdisalvo@dlnews.com.

The $65 billion Menlo Park-headquartered juggernaut announced the scheme after revealing record revenues of $4.5 billion in 2025, despite being dragged down by the crypto market downturn in the final quarter of the year.

“This authorisation reflects the confidence of our management team and board in our ability to continue delivering innovative products for customers and creating value for shareholders while returning capital over time,” Robinhood’s Chief Financial Officer, Shiv Verma, said in a statement.

The programme comes as Robinhood, along with other crypto company stocks, has taken a hit this year.

Since the beginning of 2026, Nasdaq-listed Robinhood is down over 36%. Even so, it is still up almost 53% over the past 12 months.

A share buyback programme allows a company to buy its own stock, with the hope of increasing its price by reducing its supply.

Crypto slump

Over the past few years, Robinhood has rolled out crypto trading for both retail and institutional investors, expanded digital asset-trading services to Europe, and launched its own stablecoin network together with Kraken, and Galaxy Digital.

Robinhood’s latest quarterly earnings showed that the company’s crypto-side of business took a hit along with the price of Bitcoin.

Crypto trading revenue for the company slid in the final quarter of 2025, but was saved as its new prediction markets feature gained traction.

“We’re not getting distracted by short term [price] fluctuations,” Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said in the company’s earnings call.

Crypto markets got battered in October when more than $19 billion in leveraged bets were wiped out. Bitcoin is now over 40% below its all-time high; Ethereum has slumped by more than 56%.

The selloff hurt crypto companies which have cut staff and introduced buyback schemes to increase stock prices.

Ripple, the issuer of the XRP cryptocurrency, is one of the companies buying back stocks, according to reports. The company is said to be buying back $750 million worth of stocks at a company valuation of $50 billion.

Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at mdisalvo@dlnews.com.

The top cryptocurrency’s outperformance compared to other assets like gold has emboldened analysts to forecast that the price will more than double to $150,000 by the end of the year.

Yet, that growth will need more than just sentiment, according to Max Kahn, CEO of Digital Wealth Partners.

“For Bitcoin to more than double in value by year’s end, we’ll need to see an acceleration in new capital entering the market,” he told DL News.

That means that Bitcoin’s price will follow a “choppier path higher where price appreciation follows actual capital formation, rather than a straight-line move driven by sentiment alone,” Kahn said.

The hesitant bullishness comes as Bitcoin has spent the past month locked between $66,000 and $76,000, a range that reflects a tug-of-war between capital inflows and macroeconomic crosswinds.

But there are signs of recovery. March is on track to be the strongest month for Bitcoin exchange-traded fund inflows since October. Investors have poured in over $1.5 billion so far, with four trading days still on the calendar, DefiLlama data shows.

In a Tuesday note to investors, analysts at Bernstein argued that Bitcoin will reach $150,000 by the end of the year thanks to strong institutional interest in the asset.

To be sure, Bernstein’s predictions have not always panned out. In 2024, the firm forecasted that Bitcoin would end 2025 trading at $200,000. It ended last year trading around $90,000.

Still, investors remain cautious. EToro analyst Simon Peters told DL News that Bitcoin investors are closely monitoring geopolitical tensions, particularly the conflict in the Middle East and its impact on global oil prices.

The conflict has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, the artery for roughly one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas.

The recent rise in crude prices has revived inflation concerns, raising the risk that central banks may tighten financial conditions — a dynamic that could weigh on cryptoasset prices in the near to medium term, he said.

Risky assets like Bitcoin are hurt by higher interest rates because they incentivise investors to hold bonds by paying more risk-free yield.

On Wednesday, the International Energy Agency signalled it will release more strategic reserves as Asian economies, heavily reliant on Gulf crude, scramble to contain fuel shortages.

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at lance@dlnews.com.

At the heart of the sell-off is new language widely reported to be included in the latest version of the Clarity Act, a long-awaited crypto market structure bill that would define how the industry will be regulated in the US.

But Bernstein says the market has misread the risk.

“The market is conflating who earns yield with who distributes yield,” analyst Gautam Chhugani and his three Bernstein colleagues said in an investor note shared with DL News.

“Circle earns. Coinbase distributes. The Clarity Act targets distribution.”

The analysts added that carve-outs for activity-based rewards could still allow platforms to offer incentives, meaning the sell-off “may not be calibrated enough.”

Clarity at last?

The proposal would ban companies from paying users simply for holding stablecoins in a way that resembles interest on bank deposits, Politico reported.

However, rewards linked to “bona fide activity” — such as payments, trading or loyalty programmes — may still be permitted.

Patrick Witt, the executive director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, confirmed the move on Friday.

“Credit to Senator Thom Tillis and Senator Angela Alsobrooks for bridging the partisan divide to tackle a difficult issue,” he said. “More work to be done to close out this and other outstanding issues, but this is a major milestone toward passing the Clarity Act.”

Neither Alsobrooks nor Tillis immediately replied to a request for comment from DL News.

President Donald Trump’s administration has also relentlessly pursued crypto-friendly policies despite partisan gridlock.

Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission delivered a pivotal interpretation of federal securities law, offering long-awaited clarity on which blockchain-based assets fall within its remit — and which do not.

“As lawmakers consider broader reform to guard against rogue regulation, the SEC is doing what it can and should be doing by providing clarity about the proper boundaries of our jurisdiction within existing law,” SEC chair Paul Atkins said at the Digital Assets Summit in New York on Tuesday.

Deeper struggle

To be sure, there are plenty of financial leaders opposed to the administration’s pro-crypto stance.

The clash over stablecoin rewards reflects a deeper struggle between banks and crypto firms.

Earlier in March, at the American Bankers Association summit in Washington, executives warned that stablecoins could drain deposits from the traditional banking system, threatening lending capacity across the $23 trillion US credit market.

“It would be extremely detrimental should our deposits be cut back,” said ABA chair-elect Cathy Owen.

Vikram Arun, co-founder and CEO of the wealth management platform Superform, told DL News that “with Trump supporting the crypto industry, the question is no longer ‘is this allowed’ but rather ‘how does the US win’, and that weight will be translated to lawmakers far more than any single policy win.”

More FUD?

The sell-off of Circle shares also coincided with a viral post from pseudonymous blockchain investigator ZachXBT alleging that Circle froze multiple USDC wallets, amplifying concerns around government control and censorship.

The post has reignited debate on X over centralisation risks in stablecoins, landing just as regulatory uncertainty intensifies.

“You fail to protect users during actual incidents yet respond to a request riddled with errors,” ZachXBT said.

Adding to Circle’s headaches is the fact that long-term rival Tether is making overtures to muscle into the US market.

Having long restricted US users from using its USDT stablecoin, Tether launched a US-regulated stablecoin called USAT in January.

On Tuesday, DL News reported that Tether has also signed up one of the Big Four auditing firms to audit the stablecoin issuer, which may help answer some questions about its record.

It is unclear whether PwC, EY, Deloitte, or KPMG has signed up to do Tether’s audit.

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at lance@dlnews.com.

One is concentration risk, said James Seyffart, a fund expert at Bloomberg Intelligence.

If an institutional investor who knows nothing about the Bitcoin space sees that a majority of the token’s supply is owned by a single company, “I’m going to be a little bit skeptical,” Seyffart said on the Bitcoin History podcast on March 24.

The other two include qualms about quantum computing and concerns about portfolio diversification.

“These are all things that are just going to be barriers,” he said.

Investors unwilling to buy up Strategy stock could have serious negative repercussions for Bitcoin, too.

If investment into Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor dries up, his firm’s ability to buy up more Bitcoin would also slow — effectively stopping one of the biggest Bitcoin buyers on the planet from more purchases.

Concentration risk

Right now, Strategy owns more than 720,000 Bitcoin worth around $53 billion.

That’s around 3.5% of Bitcoin’s total supply in the hands of Michael Saylor.

For Seyffart, the power that Saylor commands over his own company is a risk that’s simply too hard to ignore.

“Saylor doesn’t own full voting control, but he owns a lot of it and de facto control right now,” Seyffart said. “He has a lot of control over a significant portion of Bitcoin’s outstanding balance and future outstanding balance.”

Institutions don’t like that, noted Seyffart.

Quantum computing

Then there’s quantum computing.

“Obviously, I do hear people from the traditional fianncial world asking me what’s going on with quantum computing,” said Seyffart. “That’s another risk that people are asking about.”

Over the last year or so, the Bitcoin community has been embroiled in a heated debate over how to address the alleged threat of quantum computers, a still-theoretical yet rapidly progressing technology that could break the encryption that secures the Bitcoin network.

Researchers at Chaincode Labs have published estimates that up to 50% of all Bitcoin could be vulnerable to a quantum attack.

Diversification risk

The third barrier is diversification.

Endowments and sovereign wealth funds building crypto allocations may baulk at a market where a single entity controls an ever-growing share of supply, regardless of whether that control is direct or distributed across shareholders, Seyffart noted.

Even so, Seyffart doesn’t think any one of these concerns, on its own, is enough to bring down Strategy.

“I don’t have any blatant ‘this domino is going to fall and cause all these dominoes to fall,’ he said.

“It’s more just like, obviously this is something that people are going to point to.”

Pedro Solimano is a markets correspondent based in Buenos Aires. Got a tip? Email him at psolimano@dlnews.com.

Indeed, critics have spent years attacking Bitcoin for failing to serve as a store of value amid myriad geopolitical crises.

But during the latest military conflict in the Middle East, investment data paint a much different picture: Bitcoin exchange-traded funds are holding up while gold spot ETFs are bleeding out.

“Since the Iran strike, Bitcoin, surprisingly, has looked like a good safe haven. and gold hasn’t,” Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, told DL News.

In the last week, around $3.8 billion has exited the top two gold ETFs, GLD and IAU, while Bitcoin ETFs, on the other hand, have taken in around $2 billion, over the past few weeks.

Gold is worth around $4,500 today, while Bitcoin is worth $70,400 today.

Too soon to tell

Balchunas pushed back on the idea that Bitcoin and gold should move in opposite directions.

“They are more like zero correlated, not inversely,” he said on March 24. “They both perform similarly. Both are stores of value, just one is older and the other is younger.”

Balchunas’s framing challenges the common assumption that Bitcoin behaves like digital gold, tracking the yellow metal in lockstep with the $1.4 trillion cryptocurrency, or in its perfect opposite, like a levered tech stock.

Instead, the Bloomberg analyst argues that they’re both stores of value operating independently. Sometimes they rise together, sometimes they diverge, but they are not necessarily opposed.

To be sure, Balchunas noted that it’s too early to tell that the role between the cryptocurrency and the precious metal has actually reversed.

“You have to look long term about both of these and you will find that they’re both store values, but people like to make these judgments based on a couple of weeks,” he told DL News.

Meanwhile, the S&P 500 has lost around 2.5% over the last week, and crude oil has fallen around 8% after US President Donald Trump reported positive talks with Iranian leader over opening the Strait of Hormuz — a key trade channel that facilitates roughly 20% of the world’s oil demand.

Crypto market movers

• Bitcoin is up 0.2% over the past 24 hours, trading at $70,572.
• Ethereum rose 0.8% in the last day to $2,153.

What we’re reading

• Tether signs Big Four accounting firm after years of criticism over its reserves transparency — DL News
• Resolv’s $23m hack highlights DeFi risk management struggle — DL News
• BitGo and Susquehanna Launch Institutional OTC Access to Prediction Markets — Unchained
• Bittensor. So hot right now — Milk Road

Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent, and Pedro Solimano is a markets correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email them at mdisalvo@dlnews.com and psolimano@dlnews.com.

This time, the first family’s memecoin machine is back with another high-stakes pitch: buy in, and you might get a seat at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on April 25.

The team behind the TRUMP memecoin is inviting its biggest 297 holders to a gala lunch, with Donald Trump billed as the keynote speaker alongside “the world’s power players” including Ark Invest chief Cathie Wood, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, and Silicon Valley scion Tim Draper.

“This event will be a memory you will talk about forever!” the official website says. “There will be no private meetings with the President. No gifts will be accepted.”

Fight Fight Fight LLC, the entity behind the TRUMP memecoin’s official website, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DL News.

The event will happen just two months after the Trump family crypto startup World Liberty Financial gathered a star-studded lineup including the heads of Coinbase, Goldman Sachs, FIFA, and other prominent figures in a mix of capital, celebrity and crypto clout.

It comes as the memecoin trades over 95% below its January 2025 all-time high.

The president is highly supportive of the nascent industry. He has wielded the power of the Oval Office to support cryptocurrency firms over legacy financial institutions, a dynamic unseen in prior administrations.

He has used his influence to appoint industry supporters to key government positions, sign a landmark stablecoin bill into law, regulators adopt more light-touch policing of the sector, and to back a far-reaching markets bill.

‘Crypto corruption club’

The event is the second time the Trump family has staged a private gala for buyers of the president’s memecoin.

Last May, the top 220 holders of the token, which launched days before Trump’s January 2025 inauguration, were invited to a private dinner at the family’s Virginia golf club.

In the months leading up to the event, investors piled millions into buying the memecoin, hoping that it would be enough to snatch a ticket. Trump made a brief appearance.

Democrats derided the gathering as a “crypto corruption club,” casting it as a case study in a president monetising proximity to power.

Critics also pointed to the roster of international guests, which featured Chinese-born Tron founder Justin Sun and the pseudonymous co-founder of Singapore-based MemeCore, underscoring the global draw of the event and raised concerns over undue foreign influence.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said at the time that there was nothing wrong with the dinner.

“It’s absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency,” she said. “This president was incredibly successful before giving it all up to serve our country publicly.”

This year, the scale and stakes are bigger. The invite list has expanded to the top 297 holders, with the top 29 promised a “VIP reception” with their “favourite president” and celebrity guests.

One key detail remains unresolved: whether Trump will actually attend. The event website says yes, in all caps. But the president is already scheduled to appear at the prestigious White House Correspondents’ Dinner on the same day.

Democrats ramp up attacks

The Trump family’s crypto ties are emerging as a key attack point for the Democratic Party ahead of the crucial midterm elections later this year.

Leading the charge is Senator Elizabeth Warren, an outspoken critic of the crypto industry. She and others have called for a probe into one of the Trump family’s top crypto ventures and launched an investigation into Binance, which custodies nearly 90% of a Trump-linked stablecoin.

And experts expect more attacks like it.

“As the midterm elections approach, various political actors are naturally highlighting distinctions in policy and personal financial involvement to mobilise their respective bases,” G Clay Miller, partner at digital asset consultancy Penrose Partners and previous Brooklyn County Democratic Committee member, told DL News earlier in March.

The White House has consistently denied allegations of wrongdoing.

​​“The president has no involvement in business deals that would implicate his constitutional responsibilities,” White House counsel David Warrington told DL News in February.

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at lance@dlnews.com.

That’s the case Bernstein analysts made in a March 24 investor’s note shared with DL News. The research and brokerage firm said that the top cryptocurrency’s relative strength versus other assets, coupled with a strong base of long-term holders which includes Michael Saylor’s Strategy, is fuelling its conviction in a blow-out rally in the coming months.

“We believe Bitcoin has found its trough and is now heading higher,” the analysts said in the note. “We retain $150,000 as our 2026 year-end expected price for Bitcoin.”

Bernstein’s renewed conviction comes as the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and its impact on the global economy plagues financial markets.

The price of oil is roughly 30% higher than before the US and Israel first struck Iran on February 28, fuelling inflation concerns among financial analysts and central banks.

Gold, typically viewed as a store of value in times of uncertainty, has fallen over 17% from its pre-war price. US stocks have also taken a broad beating.

Yet amid the chaos, Bitcoin has fared better than most other assets. It’s up almost 8% since the conflict began.

Bullish signs

Bernstein has listed three reasons for its bullish outlook.

Firstly, Michael Saylor’s Strategy keeps buying. According to Bernstein’s forecasts, the treasury firm has plenty of room to continue scooping up Bitcoin, and shows no signs of slowing.

That’s despite widespread chaos among other Bitcoin treasury firms, and shorts piling into Strategy as they attempt to profit from Bitcoin’s falling price, and the firm’s exposure to it.

Secondly, investors are continuing to buy Bitcoin exchange-traded funds.

Bitcoin ETFs have added $2.2 billion over the last four weeks, and have seen more long-term allocations from wealth managers and institutional funds, including pension and sovereign funds, the Bernstein analysts said.

Finally, existing long-term Bitcoin holders haven’t sold, despite a near 50% drawdown from the asset’s October all-time high.

“Bitcoin holders inactive for more than one year stand at 60% of total supply,” the Bernstein analysts said.

“This ownership structure is unique to Bitcoin signifying long term ‘believers’ who remain insensitive to Bitcoin volatility holding Bitcoin as a ‘store of value.’”

‘Weakest Bitcoin bear case in history’

Bernstein has a history of making bullish Bitcoin price predictions, but has yet to see one of them come through.

In early 2024, the firm first predicted Bitcoin would hit $150,000 by the end of 2025. It then raised that target to $200,000 in June 2024, then reaffirmed the target throughout 2025 and called it “conservative.”

In December as Bitcoin traded around $90,000, Bernstein retracted the $200,000 target and shifted to a new framework that forecast the top cryptocurrency to hit $150,000 by the end of 2026, with a potential cycle high of $200,000 in 2027.

Last month, Bernstein called the Bitcoin selloff, which saw the top cryptocurrency trade below $63,000, the “weakest bear case in history.”

Punters on Polymarket give Bitcoin a 10% chance of hitting $150,000 before the end of the year and a 25% chance that the price will drop as low as $30,000.

Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at tim@dlnews.com.

The top cryptocurrency is trading around $71,000 as the Iran war enters its fourth week, some 43% below its $126,000 October all-time high.

Bitcoin is “demonstrating resilience in the face of a genuine macro shock,” Rachael Lucas, crypto analyst at BTC Markets, told DL News.

Lucas notes that Bitcoin has gained roughly 7% since hostilities began, “outperforming equities, gold, and silver.”

Her comments come as Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto market have lost almost half of their volume since the October wipeout. Yet, she warns that things could get worse.

If Bitcoin falls below $67,500, that suggests more short-term weakness, with $59,000 seen by traders as the key long-term support level, meaning it could act as a price floor if markets drop, Lucas warns.

Bloomberg Intelligence Strategist Mike McGlone warned in February, before the outbreak of the war, that Bitcoin could slump as low as $10,000 this year.

If Bitcoin stays above $73,000, it shows the price is breaking out higher from its March trading range, Lucas says.

Polymarket punters give Bitcoin’s price a 70% chance of slipping below $55,000 and a 77% chance of hitting $80,000 in 2026.

Here are three factors seen to drive the price.

Iran war

The escalating conflict in the Middle East is a key driver behind Bitcoin’s price.

Paul Howard, senior director at the high-frequency market maker Wincent, sees the cryptocurrency market absorbing shocks rather than succumbing to it.

“The short term volatility provides many trading opportunities for those in the market and supports both our short and long term theses,” Howard told DL News.

The situation is not just wreaking havoc in crypto markets. Oil rose to $103 a barrel after Iran rejected Trump’s assertion of “very good and productive” conversations, calling it an attempt to manipulate financial markets.

Tehran’s Revolutionary Guards described the remarks as “worn-out psychological operations.”

Investors should be highly cautious about any chatter on peace talks because “it’s not clear that anyone is actually in control of Iran since so many of its leaders have been assassinated,” wrote Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research.

The Federal Reserve

“The single biggest drag on Bitcoin’s recovery is the Federal Reserve,” Lucas told DL News.

While the US central bank has signalled that it still plans to cut interest rates this year, those cuts will likely be delayed as elevated oil prices keep inflation hot. Lower interest rates are usually seen as a boon to risk-on assets like cryptocurrencies.

Just a few weeks ago, traders priced in that the Fed would slash interest rates at its June meeting. Now they don’t just expect it to hold, but are giving it a 13% chance that the central bank will hike rates, according to the CME FedWatch tool.

Then there’s the question of Jerome Powell.

The Fed chair is set to end his term in May. However, an ongoing legal standoff between the Trump administration and the central bank has increased the risk that Powell’s successor, devoted Donald Trump nominee Kevin Warsh, won’t be confirmed until Powell is set to step down.

If that happens, Powell has hinted that he may stay in charge of the central bank, citing both legal and historical precedent for him to do so.

Institutional interest

Despite the market turmoil, institutional interest in Bitcoin and blockchain remains strong.

Investors have ploughed almost $1.6 billion into Bitcoin exchange-traded funds since the outbreak of the war, according to DefiLlama data — and they have more to give.

Grayscale estimates less than 0.5% of US advised wealth is currently in crypto, leaving a significant runway ahead,” Lucas said.

Moreover, traditional financial players are also tapping into digital ledger technology at scale across the world, which is seen to ultimately benefit Bitcoin too.

Over the past month alone, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has repeated his belief in the power of tokenisation to transform the world economy, Mastercard has acquired stablecoin infrastructure startup BVNK and launched a partnership programme for over 100 players in the crypto industry, and the S&P 500 debuted on Hyperliquid, the decentralised crypto exchange that has also become a hub for off-hours oil perpetuals trading.

Eric Johansson is DL News’ managing editor. Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email them at eric@dlnews.com and lance@dlnews.com.

In order to realise the potential of tokenised markets, the EU will need a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, Piero Cipollone, a member of the European Central Bank’s Executive Board, said on Monday.

It’s the latest reminder that officials’ halting embrace of blockchain technology doesn’t necessarily come with an embrace of the beliefs that inspired it, such as scepticism of government-issued money and the desire for a “permissionless” financial system.

Crypto entrepreneurs have, by and large, inveighed against CBDCs, arguing they would become a tool of surveillance and control.

While some lawmakers in the US have attempted to ban the development of a digital US dollar, politicians and bureaucrats in the EU are moving ahead with a digital Euro they say will “guarantee the highest level of privacy.”

“The potential of tokenisation for Europe is significant — more efficient and more innovative financial markets, and the prospect of genuine cross-border integration that has long eluded Europe’s fragmented capital markets,” Cipollone said on Monday at a speech at House of the Euro, a co-working space in Brussels for central bankers.

“But two main obstacles are preventing scale.”

The first is an issue familiar to any crypto developer or user: the sheer number of blockchains, most of which are incompatible with one another.

“This fragments liquidity and increases integration costs,” Cipollone said.

The second obstacle is the lack of “tokenised central bank money,” he continued, “the safest and most liquid settlement asset.”

Addressing those issues will unleash tokenisation in the EU, according to Cipollone. But it will require three initiatives.

Digital Euro

The first is the development of a digital Euro.

Without it, people might be paid “in an asset they are not comfortable holding – one exposed to price volatility or credit risk,” Cipollone said. That, he added, “limits the market’s ability to scale.”

While businesses and consumers might transact in Euro-pegged stablecoins, those tokens would make a poor substitute for government-issued money, Cipollone said, citing research that shows fiat-backed stablecoins “rarely trade exactly at par.”

“Private settlement assets – whether tokenised deposits or stablecoins – will play a role,” he said. “But they require a trusted public anchor to function effectively across the whole tokenised financial market.”

Still, the central banker believes it is possible that one stablecoin becomes large enough that network effects cement it as the digital currency of choice. But he called it a “sub-optimal” outcome that would have “serious consequences for Europe’s monetary sovereignty.”

EU officials have worried in public and in private that the rapid growth of US dollar-pegged stablecoins could undermine the EU. That alarm has fueled development of a CBDC and what EU officials call “Eurosystem distributed ledger technology” — bureaucrat-speak for a European blockchain.

An EU initiative dubbed “Pontes” is developing a Eurosystem blockchain that will connect “market DLTs” with the bloc’s existing system for settling transactions, known as TARGET. The EU is aiming to release a pilot version of the Eurosystem blockchain in the third quarter of the year.

Companies and laws

The second initiative the EU will need to realise its tokenisation goals is a productive partnership with businesses that operate within the bloc.

“The services, liquidity and business models that will make tokenised markets valuable must come from the market itself,” Cipollone said. “In other words, the underlying infrastructure needs to be designed with the market’s needs at its core.”

The third initiative is the harmonisation of member states’ corporate law.

“Distributed ledger technology cannot harmonise corporate law across 27 Member States, reconcile divergent securities regulations or override national insolvency regimes that treat the same asset differently depending on where it is held,” Cipollone said.

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.

Trump took to Truth Social just before noon, London time, to say that on the back of those talks, he had postponed “any and all military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for a five day period, subject to the success of the ongoing meetings and discussions.”

Tehran, however, has denied that those talks have taken place.

“We deny what US President Donald Trump said regarding negotiations taking place between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Iran’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

Even so, Trump has, in subsequent conversations with the press, doubled down on the statement, telling the AFP news agency that “things are going very well.”

This latest back and forth comes as markets have been rattled by the ongoing war in the Middle East since the US joined Israel in attacking Iran on February 28, triggering the conflict.

Since the outbreak of war, Iran has barricaded the Strait of Hormuz, a key artery for the flow of oil. As a result, oil prices have shot through the roof.

Brent crude is up some 44% since the beginning of March. Yet, it slumped some 9% to $101 after Trump issued his statement.

Bitcoin, by comparison, has remained far less affected and has traded around $70,000 for most of the last month.

The conflict could help the cryptocurrency “outperform” other assets as Bitcoin proves itself a key hedge against the dollar, David Brickell, head of international distribution at FRNT, an institutional capital markets and advisory platform, told DL News earlier on Monday morning.

Bitcoin “is the ultimate hedge against the failure of existing economic and political structures given its non-sovereign, immutable, borderless characteristics,” Brickell said.

To be sure, Bitcoin could also suffer from the war. A growing fear is that the conflict will trigger a recession. If that happens, most central banks are unlikely to cut interest rates and pump more liquidity into markets.

Low interest rates are usually seen as a boon for risk-on assets like Bitcoin.

The Federal Reserve has already signalled that it is more unwilling to cut interest rates and some traders are already betting on it to hike rates later this year.

“A prolonged conflict in the Middle East would generally be negative for Bitcoin,” Georgii Verbitskii, founder of the crypto trading platform TYMIO, told DL News on Sunday. “Any disruption to global trade routes increases uncertainty across financial markets.”

This uncertainty will put pressure on equities, Verbitskii said.

“Bitcoin is still highly correlated with risk assets, particularly US stock indices. When those markets come under pressure, Bitcoin usually follows.”

Eric Johansson is DL News’ managing editor. Got a tip? Email him at eric@dlnews.com.

The top cryptocurrency’s price plunged below $68,000 on Monday morning after President Donald Trump warned the US would “hit and obliterate” Iranian power plants unless Tehran fully opens the Strait of Hormuz by 23:44 London time on Monday.

Iran’s army responded by warning that any such attack would see it target energy and desalination infrastructure “belonging to the US and the regime in the region,” threatening to throw the world economy into further chaos.

But that escalation can help push Bitcoin to “outperform other assets and remain well supported, if not outright accelerating higher,” David Brickell, head of international distribution at FRNT, an institutional capital markets and advisory platform, told DL News.

Bitcoin “is the ultimate hedge against the failure of existing economic and political structures given its non-sovereign, immutable, borderless characteristics,” Brickell said.

The comments come as Bitcoin is up about 2% in March. The cryptocurrency has been far less affected by the Iran conflict than other assets like Brent crude and gold, which have respectively surged by 48% and dropped 18% this month.

Still pressure on Bitcoin

To be sure, Bitcoin could also suffer from the war in the Middle East, with the spectre of a global recession looming over markets.

The Federal Reserve is less likely to cut interest rates on the back of the conflict and traders are now starting to price in rate hikes later this year in order to curb inflation. That will likely affect risk-on assets like tech stocks and cryptocurrencies, experts say.

“A prolonged conflict in the Middle East would generally be negative for Bitcoin,” Georgii Verbitskii, founder of the crypto trading platform TYMIO, told DL News on Sunday. “Any disruption to global trade routes increases uncertainty across financial markets.”

This uncertainty will put pressure on equities, Verbitskii said.

“Bitcoin is still highly correlated with risk assets, particularly US stock indices. When those markets come under pressure, Bitcoin usually follows.”

Crypto market movers

• Bitcoin is down 1% over the past 24 hours to trade at $68,100.
• Ethereum is down 2.3% over the past 24 hours to trade at $2,036.

What we’re reading

• Resolv Labs stablecoin plummets 80% as exploiter mints millions in unbacked USR tokens — DL News
• Swiss Private Bank Dynasty Splits Over Clashing Views on Crypto — Bloomberg
• Uneasy Money: Should DeFi Frontends Block High Slippage Swaps? — Unchained
• New crypto regulations likely to be big favor to the Trump family, industry insiders say — The Guardian
• Stablecoin-sceptic BIS exec set to become new South Korean central bank boss — DL News

Eric Johansson is DL News’ managing editor. Got a tip? Email him at eric@dlnews.com.

And experts say the deepening conflict in the Middle East could take a heavy toll on Bitcoin prices, with the spectre of an incoming global recession looming over crypto markets.

“A prolonged conflict in the Middle East would generally be negative for Bitcoin,” Georgii Verbitskii, founder of the crypto trading platform TYMIO, told DL News. “Any disruption to global trade routes increases uncertainty across financial markets.”

This uncertainty will put pressure on equities, Verbitskii said. “Bitcoin is still highly correlated with risk assets, particularly US stock indices. When those markets come under pressure, Bitcoin usually follows.”

The warning comes as experts spoke of an incoming “double-whammy” for risk assets in the wake of the Federal Reserve’s decision not to cut interest rates at its March meeting.

David Lawant, Anchorage Digital’s head of research, told DL News earlier this week that crypto “isn’t immune to macro[economic] headwinds.”

‘No safe haven’

Trump’s warning came hours after suggestions he may “wind down” the conflict.

“Within 48 hours from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate [Iran’s] various power plants, starting with the biggest one first,” he wrote on Truth Social on Saturday.

Tehran has countered by saying the strait remains open to maritime transport, with the “exception of Iran’s enemies.”

Missiles continued to fall across the Middle East on Saturday night and Sunday morning, with Bitcoin prices tumbling by around 3% in the past 24 hours.

“The ongoing Middle East conflict remains the primary lens for traders, investors, and even policymakers worldwide,” Han Tan, chief market analyst at crypto exchange Bybit’s education arm Bybit Learn, told DL News.

Tan said major central banks and others have expressed concern about the “uncertainty surrounding the war’s duration and intensity.”

Rising oil prices could spark inflationary forces in global economies, Tan said.

And Bitcoin investors who expect the world’s most popular cryptocurrency to act as a gold-like hedge against inflation may see their hopes dashed during the conflict, the analyst warned.

“The prudent stance is to withhold from prematurely according the safe haven title to Bitcoin just yet,” Tan said. “Bitcoin is yet to prove its merits on that front.”

Verbitskii concurred.

“Bitcoin is not yet behaving as an independent geopolitical hedge,” Verbitskii said. “It is still largely reacting to global liquidity conditions and movements in traditional financial markets.”

At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $68,700.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.

HYPE, the 14th largest coin by market value, was up nearly 6% over a weekly period, and was priced at a little over $40, according to CoinGecko.

Its rise came after crypto asset manager Grayscale on Friday filed for a new product, a “Grayscale HYPE ETF”, that would trade on the Nasdaq if approved.

Bitcoin, meanwhile, hadn’t budged over a seven-day timeframe. The leading cryptocurrency was trading for $70,943 at 10am in New York.

What’s all the HYPE?

Grayscale’s filing comes as the decentralised crypto exchange sees a surge in trading as traders bet on the price of other assets like oil and gold.

Commodity trading on Hyperliquid has become popular since the US and Israel attacked Iran; when traditional markets are closed, Hyperliquid continues processing trades, allowing speculators to make bets on weekends.

Its native coin, HYPE, is up 56% year-to-date.

Hyperliquid is so popular that the S&P 500 this week gave crypto platform Trade[XYZ] the green light to debut a new derivative contract on the exchange giving non-US investors exposure to the equity index.

Two days after it debuted, it hit $100 million in 24-hour volume — making it one of the 10 largest markets on the booming blockchain.

Other market movements

Elsewhere, Ethereum rose 4% over a 24-hour period, hitting $2,163 per coin. Its modest rise came despite US investors cashing out of Ethereum ETFs this week.

XRP also rose by close to 4% over the same period, and was trading hands for $1.44 on Saturday.

Crypto market movers

• Bitcoin was trading for $70,943 per coin on Saturday, flat over the past day.
• Ethereum’s price touched $2,163, a 24-hour rise of 1%.

What we’re reading

• Crypto firms are slashing jobs — and they’re mostly citing the same reason — DL News
• Hyperliquid’s S&P 500 market quickly hits $100m in just one day. Here’s what to expect next — DL News
• Oil. That’s it. That’s what matters. — Milk Road
• The US Wants War Without Entanglement. It May Not Exist. — Bloomberg

Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at mdisalvo@dlnews.com.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell didn’t just hold interest rates steady this week, but also signalled that the cuts traders expected to see this year may be held back for longer due to the uncertainties caused by escalating war in the Middle East.

High interest rates are usually bad for investors’ appetite for riskier bets such as cryptocurrencies and untested tech startups. In short, the US central bank is saying to prepare for some lean times.

However, that’s just where innovation thrives, VCs tell DL News.

“History consistently shows that the best companies aren’t built during periods of loose monetary policy,” Adam Winnick, general managing partner at investment firm Finality Capital, told DL News.

“They’re built during periods of tightening,” he said. “This is precisely the time to back founders and teams with proven execution skills and a strong clarity of thought.”

Winnick said that the 2000s dot-com bust became a proving ground for firms such as Amazon, Google and Salesforce, which endured the shakeout and went on to dominate.

“We’re seeing the same dynamic play out today,” he said. “While sentiment-driven investors react to near-term rate signals, builders across the blockchain ecosystem are shipping at an accelerating pace.”

Indeed, venture investors poured $155 million into crypto startups in the third week of March, DefiLlama data shows. That brings this year’s fundraising to nearly $3 billion. That’s 51% of the $5.8 billion raised by the industry in the first quarter of 2025.

Here are the top three raises this week.

MetaComp, $35 million

Singapore-based MetaComp secured $35 million in pre-Series A funding. The round is notable less for its size than its backers, with Alibaba and Spark Venture supporting the firm’s StableX Network.

MetaComp combines fiat and stablecoin rails for institutional wealth flows, targeting Asia–Middle East corridors long plagued by friction.

For Alibaba, the investment reflects a strategic move into the underlying infrastructure of cross-border commerce, with stablecoins positioned as a regulated, real-time settlement layer.

It is yet another sign that the titans of tech and finance are increasingly muscling into the crypto space by adopting blockchain rails.

Ironlight, $21 million

Austin-based Ironlight has raised $21 million in Series A funding for its tokenised securities platform.

It is a sign of deepening convergence between traditional finance and blockchain markets. The round was led by Greg Braca, former TD Bank chief executive, who now chairs the company.

Operating under SEC and FINRA oversight, Ironlight aims to bring private equity and real estate assets on-chain via the Sei blockchain. The model blends a conventional order book with blockchain settlement, reflecting a broader push to institutionalise tokenised real-world assets.

TransFi, $19 million

Dubai-based TransFi has raised $19.2 million to expand its stablecoin-powered payments infrastructure across high-growth emerging markets.

Backed by Turing Financial Group, the round combines equity with a dedicated liquidity facility, suited to the demands of cross-border settlement.

The platform serves more than two million users across 70 countries, enabling near-instant payroll and vendor payments while bypassing legacy systems such as SWIFT. The model addresses persistent inefficiencies in global finance, positioning TransFi as a key enabler of faster, lower-cost international payments.

You’re reading the latest instalment of The Weekly Raise, our column covering fundraising deals across the crypto and DeFi spaces, powered by DefiLlama.

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at lance@dlnews.com.

The IPO documents falsely portrayed the firm as focused on expanding its reach as a crypto exchange, the lawsuit said. Instead, Gemini has shuttered operations in the UK, the EU and Australia. It has also laid off nearly one-third of its employees, including its chief operating officer, chief financial officer, and chief legal officer.

“As a result of defendants’ wrongful acts and omissions, and the precipitous decline in the market value of the company’s securities, plaintiff and other class members have suffered significant losses and damages,” the lawsuit says.

Since the September IPO, Gemini has seen its stock lose 82% of its value. In February, the firm projected that it would see a net loss of as much as $602 million in 2025, or $267 million before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortisation and other adjustments.

The lawsuit isn’t just the latest headache to befall the Winklevii. It also punctures an IPO craze that swept across the crypto industry over the past year.

IPO boom interrupted

Gemini was among the crypto companies that went public in 2025. Initial public offerings for crypto firms raised $3.4 billion last year, according to DefiLlama data.

While several companies have announced public listings this year, others are freezing those plans due to the market downturn, which has seen Bitcoin lose nearly half its value since October.

Crypto exchange Kraken confidentially filed for an IPO in November. Now, it’s reportedly putting its IPO plans on hold.

Other crypto companies have slashed jobs. Crypto.com, Messari, Optimism Labs, and, of course, Gemini are among those that have lowered their headcount since the start of 2026.

Allegations

Gemini’s IPO documents stated the company was “predominantly focused” on expanding its business by attracting new users, increasing trading volume, and adding new assets to its exchange, according to the lawsuit.

But those documents overstated Gemini’s business prospects, the lawsuit continues. Rather than follow through on its stated plans, the company launched an “expensive and disruptive restructuring.”

In December, Gemini said it would launch a prediction market. In a February blog post, the Winklevoss twins detailed their vision for the company’s future, dubbed “Gemini 2.0.”

The prediction market would be “more front and center in our experience,” the company would cut jobs, and it would exit European and Australian markets.

Gemini’s stock debuted at $28. As of Friday, it was trading at $5.82.

Co-founders of Facebook, the Winklevoss twins have become power players in Washington, DC. They donated millions to Donald Trump’s reelection campaign and reportedly derailed the nomination of the president’s first choice to lead the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. Eric Johansson is DL News’ managing editor. Got a tip? Email them at aleks@dlnews.com and eric@dlnews.com.

It’s impressive growth for a market that debuted just days earlier, and it’s the latest sign that blockchain-based traders are eager to trade in futures for traditional assets.

Hyperliquid has become a popular venue for weekend trading of tokenised oil futures amid the war in Iran, topping $1 billion in weekend volume earlier this month.

As traders increasingly use Hyperliquid and other blockchains to trade over nights and weekends, they may become a venue for true price discovery.

Oracles that bring the price of real-world assets onchain give enormous weight to an asset’s most recent price on traditional markets in order to prevent dramatic price swings in relatively illiquid onchain markets, Marcin Kazmierczak, founder of crypto oracle RedStone, told DL News.

“But as we move forward and this trading volume on HIP-3 keeps growing, this divergence between Friday closing and weekend trading can be larger and larger,” he added, referring to a Hyperliquid feature that allows users to deploy new markets without seeking permission from the blockchain’s creators.

Trade[XYZ], the firm that licensed S&P’s index for use on Hyperliquid, has a name for its feature limiting after-hours price movements: “Discovery Bounds.” It rolled out an updated version of this feature on Thursday for six new markets in order to allow prices greater freedom to move as trading outside regular business hours increases.

That feature was first introduced earlier in the week, after one of Trade[XYZ]’s oil markets hit $1 billion in weekend volume.

“To realise the radical concept of 24/7 trading, we made an explicit trade-off: limit the extreme tails of price movement, and the range within becomes substantially more conducive to genuine price discovery,” a pseudonymous employee wrote on X last week.

But Trade[XYZ]’s blockbuster markets have changed that calculus.

“With more participants, deeper liquidity, and higher-signal price movements, we’ve reached a point where the static protections themselves have become the primary constraint on price discovery,” they wrote.

And there’s much more room for onchain markets to reduce their reliance on price signals from traditional markets, according to Kazmierczak — all they need to do is grow.

“The closing price on Friday, it can have a parameter of relevance — let’s call it 90% and then 10% is the price discovery that’s happening [onchain] over the weekend,” Kazmierczak said.

“As more and more volume happens on Hyperliquid, this parameter can be diminished to, let’s call it 80% and maybe 70% and so on. It’s just the question of how much of the volume and the serious players will be playing.”

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. Have a tip? Email him at aleks@dlnews.com.

The volume is a record that underlines how fast traders are rotating into energy bets on the crypto-native decentralised trading platform as the Iran war spirals.

Hyperliquid’s growth amid all the chaos will “only accelerate,” Hyunsu Jung, CEO of Hyperliquid treasury firm Hyperion DeFi told DL News.

“We firmly believe liquidity begets liquidity, and Hyperliquid is currently the most liquid onchain venue by a wide margin, especially in terms of trading volume and open interest, which are key metrics for any perpetual futures exchange,” he said.

The milestone lands as Israel launched fresh strikes on Tehran on Friday. The strikes came despite President Donald Trump urging restraint following attacks on Iranian gas infrastructure.

Iran has retaliated against Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City, which processes about a fifth of global liquefied natural gas. The damage is expected to take years to repair.

As attacks intensify, uncertainty is ripping through global energy markets and redrawing trading flows in real time, pushing oil firmly above $100 a barrel.

The US-Israeli war on Iran has sent Hyperliquid’s native HYPE token up 35% over the past month even as Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies have mostly stagnated.

Arthur Hayes, Maelstrom chief investment officer, was quick to flag the rotation to Hyperliquid.

“Pretty impressive that oil contracts are trading $1.5 billion a day,” he said.

“HYPE is taking over. See you at $150.”

To be sure, that’s almost three times the all-time high of $59 HYPE notched in September. It currently trades at $40.

Traders are betting big that HYPE will stay above $35 over the next three months, according to onchain options platform Derive.xyz.

Polymarket punters put the chances of HYPE reaching $100 before the end of the year at 24%, according to one bet. Another prediction market put the chances of the price climbing to $44 in March at 56%.

War spiraling

The backdrop to this trading frenzy is a rapidly intensifying regional conflict that has already reshaped energy flows.

The Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for about 20% of global oil supply, still sits under heightened threat. Tankers face mounting insurance costs while naval patrols have increased. Western governments and Japan are scrambling to secure shipping lanes and diversify supply routes.

Markets are pricing not only barrels, but disruption, delay and escalation.

The war has already killed thousands and spread across multiple theatres. Energy infrastructure in Iran and neighbouring states is now in the crosshairs, transforming pipelines, terminals and liquified natural gas trains into strategic assets and potential targets.

In this context, Hyperliquid is also expanding its toolkit. The upcoming HIP-4 upgrade will introduce outcome markets, prediction contracts and bounded options designed for hedging cross-asset dislocation.

“With the coming HIP-4 Outcome Markets upgrade, users will also be able to access new instruments like prediction markets and bounded options, which can serve as hedging instruments for positions in perpetuals and HIP-3 assets,” Jung said.

Crypto market movers

• Bitcoin is up 1.7% over the past 24 hours, trading at $71,151.
• Ethereum is up 0.2% over the past 24 hours at $2,165.

What we’re reading

• XRP hits $1bn in tokenised assets. But price is stalling despite Ripple’s big plays — DL News
• Bitcoin options traders show ‘peak defensiveness’ as bets top $33bn — DL News
• Bitcoin Is in Uncertain Territory. Could Strategy’s STRC Be the Last Straw? — Unchained
• Why Washington won’t spoil crypto’s SEC victory — DL News
• Fed zaps Bitcoin investors’ risk appetite. Here’s what to expect next for the price — DL News

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at lance@dlnews.com.

They have been loading up heavily on downside protection at levels not seen in five years, according to VanEck’s latest Bitcoin ChainCheck report.

Last month, the put-to-call ratio — a gauge of bearish versus bullish bets — peaked at 0.84 and averaged 0.77. That’s the highest level since June 2021, and is among the 9% most bearish periods since mid-2019. Bitcoin options open interest is at around $33 billion.

Translation: investors are buying way more protection against Bitcoin falling than they are betting on the asset rising.

Puts function as insurance against price drops, giving investors the right to sell Bitcoin at a specific price even if it crashes below that level. Calls, by contrast, give investors the right to buy Bitcoin at a fixed price even if the asset rallies above it.

And unlike retail investors who mostly buy and sell spot Bitcoin, options markets are dominated by institutional players who use derivatives to bet whether an asset is going to rise or fall. So when a put-to-call ratio rises to extreme levels like 0.84, it signals that professional investors are paying premium prices for downside protection rather than betting on a true recovery.

VanEck’s analysis comes just as Bitcoin gets rattled amid another escalation of force in the war between Iran, Israel and the US. The top crypto dropped to around $69,000 during the evening hours of March 18.

Extreme defensiveness

When put-to-call ratios are high, they signal two possible scenarios.

The first scenario is that peak fear tends to mark the bottom. When everyone is positioned for more downside, it can signal capitulation.

Take the last time the ratio hit last month’s levels. In June 2021, right after China had banned Bitcoin mining. Bitcoin crashed to $30,000 from $64,000. Just a few months later, it bottomed near $29,000 before rising again to $60,000 in November.

Then there’s a second scenario: institutions see what’s coming. When investors are willing to pay elevated premiums for puts — and VanEck noted that this premium has reached record levels — it suggests they expect more pain ahead.

Meanwhile, today’s levels sit in the 91st percentile historically. That means in 91% of periods since mid-2019, options traders were less bearish than they are right now.

Piling into puts

There’s another particularly striking situation that’s playing out.

Even as options traders keep piling into puts, other sectors of the markets are cooling down, noted VanEck.

Futures funding rates — essentially the cost of borrowing money to bet on Bitcoin rising — dropped, while realised volatility fell, and the spot market has also stabilised some.

It’s one thing for retail investors to panic during a crash. But it’s another thing entirely for institutional options traders to maintain extreme defensiveness even as volatility drops and prices stabilise.

Either they are all wrong and are about to get caught flat-footed by a Bitcoin rally, or they’re seeing something in the macro environment — which could range from an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, some sort of regulatory risk, or concerns around liquidity — that justifies paying historically high premiums for protection against another crash.

Pedro Solimano is a markets correspondent based in Buenos Aires. Got a tip? Email him at psolimano@dlnews.com.