XRP witnessed a second week of capital withdrawal, bucking the trend of broader digital asset gains.

Digital asset investment products attracted $1.06 billion in inflows last week, extending their streak to three consecutive weeks of positive flows. The inflows arrived during intense geopolitical tensions, which appear to have strengthened the perception of digital assets, especially Bitcoin, as a relatively safe haven compared with traditional markets.

Since the Iran crisis began, assets under management in digital asset exchange-traded products have climbed 9.4% and reached a total of $140 billion.

Capital Flow Amid Iran Crisis

According to the latest edition of CoinShares’ Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly Report, roughly three-quarters of last week’s investment activity was captured by Bitcoin, which drew $793 million. Over a three-week period, cumulative allocations have reached $2.2 billion, which has narrowed the gap with the earlier five-week phase when about $3 billion left the sector. At the same time, short Bitcoin products added $8.1 million, which means that investors still hold mixed views.

Ethereum attracted $315 million last week, pushing its year-to-date performance toward a near-neutral level, which was supported in part by new US staking ETF launches. Other digital assets also received fresh capital. For instance, Solana added $9.1 million, Sui $3.1 million, and Chainlink $2.4 million. Multi-asset investment products drew an additional $2.5 million.

On the other hand, XRP appears to have bucked the trend as it suffered its second week of outflows of $76 million. Litecoin also saw a minor withdrawal of $0.3 million during the same period.

The US dominated regional activity and accounted for 96% of recent digital asset investments. Canada and Switzerland contributed $19.4 million and $10.4 million, respectively. Hong Kong also recorded $23.1 million, its largest weekly inflow since August 2025. Germany posted a $17.1 million outflow, which is its first weekly reduction of the year, while Sweden and the Netherlands experienced smaller outflows of $0.5 million and $0.2 million, respectively.

Rising Risk Appetite

Tensions in the Middle East continued to escalate. Amid these developments, BTC has reclaimed a major resistance level at 71,300. According to experts, this suggests that some risk capital is beginning to flow back into the market. However, liquidity remains concentrated between 72,700 and 74,000. In a statement to CryptoPotato, a Bitunix analyst explained,

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“If prices stabilize above 71,300, the market could enter a new zone of liquidity competition in the short term. On the downside, support liquidity around 69,000 and 70,200 will be closely watched. With geopolitical uncertainty still elevated, the short-term structure of the crypto market continues to be driven primarily by shifts in risk appetite and the distribution of derivatives liquidity.”

Andreas Antonopoulos, author of Mastering Bitcoin and one of the longest-serving Bitcoin educators, announced on Patreon that he’ll no longer produce livestreams or new content for subscribers.

While his Patreon account will stay active to maintain his existing library of books, workshops, and videos, his team stated over the weekend, “For health reasons, Andreas will not be doing any more livestream Q&A or producing any new content.”

According to Antonopoulos, he’s suffering from debilitating migraines that have resisted many attempts at treatment.

Antonopoulos has previously disclosed chronic, severe migraines. Someone in the community speculated that the condition could be something like Familial Hemiplegic Migraine, a rare and inherited neurological disorder whose episodic symptoms mimic strokes, including loss of motor control and speech.

Although Antonopoulos hasn’t publicly confirmed that specific diagnosis, the announcement pauses a notable public career.

Antonopoulos tried to get people into bitcoin early

Antonopoulos, a British-Greek computer scientist born in 1972, first learned about bitcoin (BTC) in 2011 when a single coin traded for a few dollars. 

By 2012, he’d quit his consulting job, abandoned a career at the research company he founded, and started speaking and writing about Bitcoin. BTC’s price was less than $15 in 2012.

A now-iconic video from the Bitcoin 2013 Conference in San Jose shows Antonopoulos explaining BTC to a nearly empty room. BTC at that time was worth roughly $120.

Key Takeaways

• Clear Street analyst Owen Lau upgraded CRCL to Buy from Hold, increasing the price target from $92 to $136
• USDC circulation reached a new record of $79 billion after recovering from January’s $70 billion level
• Analyst identifies five key growth drivers: tokenized financial products, prediction market expansion, Middle East payment needs, AI agent infrastructure, and upcoming stablecoin regulation
• Year-to-date, CRCL shares are up 46%, though they remain 56% below the June 2025 high of $264
• Expected passage of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act by summer’s end could trigger additional institutional investment

Shares of Circle Internet Group rallied 7.5% to $123.98 during Monday’s session after receiving a bullish upgrade from Clear Street, which elevated the stablecoin issuer to Buy and boosted its price target from $92 to $136.

Circle Internet Group, CRCL

The surge positions CRCL for its strongest closing price since October of last year, data from Dow Jones Market Data indicates.

Analyst Owen Lau at Clear Street outlined five distinct catalysts supporting the upgraded rating, emphasizing that each reflects genuine commercial adoption of USDC rather than speculative cryptocurrency trading.

Circulation of USDC has rebounded to a record $79 billion after sliding to approximately $70 billion in late January. This growth occurred despite the broader cryptocurrency market tumbling roughly 44% from October 2025 peaks.

“USDC market capitalization continued to trend higher, even as broader equity and crypto markets declined, suggesting demand was driven by transactional utility rather than speculative positioning,” Lau explained in his research note.

The ongoing Middle East conflict represents one significant demand driver. As traditional banking infrastructure and currency exchanges face disruption throughout the region, individuals have increasingly adopted USDC for remittance transactions and international payments — precisely the use case for which the stablecoin was originally designed.

Institutional Tokenization and Betting Platforms

Financial services firms continue accelerating their tokenization efforts — converting traditional assets into blockchain-based instruments — with USDC becoming a preferred settlement mechanism due to its regulatory framework and widespread platform integration.

Prediction markets contribute additional growth. Polymarket, which processed $22 billion in trading volume during the previous year and plans U.S. market entry, exclusively settles transactions in USDC. Increased activity on such platforms directly translates to higher USDC circulation.

The development of agentic AI represents a longer-horizon opportunity. The concept envisions autonomous AI agents executing tasks — arranging travel, executing contracts, processing purchases — without requiring human intervention. Such automated transactions demand digital payment infrastructure with 24/7 settlement capabilities. Circle is developing its Arc blockchain protocol specifically to support this emerging ecosystem.

“A central misperception among investors is conflating the fortunes of speculative crypto assets with the adoption trajectory of payment stablecoins,” Lau noted. “These are structurally distinct.”

Legislative Progress Expected

Clear Street anticipates a favorable regulatory development in coming months. The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act remains under negotiation, with the primary debate centered on whether stablecoin holders should receive yield on their holdings.

Given President Trump’s active engagement in pushing stakeholders toward resolution, Clear Street projects the Clarity Act will become law before summer concludes. The firm believes passage would remove a significant barrier to institutional capital allocation in digital assets.

“Our conversations with institutional allocators consistently highlight regulatory uncertainty as the primary barrier to increasing crypto exposure,” Lau stated.

The $136 valuation target applies a 30x EV/EBITDA multiple to Clear Street’s fiscal 2028 adjusted EBITDA projection of $1.132 billion, with an additional $2.3 billion in net cash incorporated.

CRCL experienced a dramatic decline from its $264 June 2025 peak to approximately $50 in February 2026 — representing an 81% drop — before staging a recovery exceeding 100%. The stock has gained 45.5% year-to-date and closed Monday’s session at $123.98.

Other Wall Street analysts maintain positive outlooks. Bernstein SocGen confirmed its Outperform rating, while Mizuho Securities lifted its price target to $120, highlighting that USDC transaction volume had exceeded competing stablecoin USDT for the first time since 2018.

Cryptocurrencies started the week on a strong footing with bitcoin BTC$73,470.16 surging above $74,000 and U.S. equities bounced as oil prices eased.

In morning U.S. trade, BTC hit its strongest price since early February at $74,500, up 3.9% over the past 24 hours. The largest crypto broke out of its six-week range, boosting sentiment across the broader market and lifting appetite for smaller, riskier tokens.

Bitcoin’s bounce from its earlier February bottom of $60,000 is now nearing 25%, a notable move given several bounces of about that amount during 2022’s long crypto winter. These rebounds failed multiple times that year before the final November flush to below $16,000, which came alongside the FTX collapse.

Altcoins are outpacing bitcoin over the past 24 hours. Ether (ETH), solana (SOL) and ADA$0.2856 have each climes more than 7%, suggesting renewed appetite for higher risk crypto assets after a period when capital largely concentrated in bitcoin.

U.S. equity indexes also were making moves higher after recent losses. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 were each more than 1% higher in the morning trading. Meanwhile, oil prices, a key driver of recent macro volatility, pulled back. Crude futures dropped about 4% Monday after briefly topping $100 per barrel over the weekend on Iranian strikes on energy infrastructure in the Middle East.

The Monday action happened as tensions around the Strait of Hormuz — a critical oil shipping route between the Persian Gulf and global markets — appeared to ease slightly. U.S. President Donald Trump called on other nations to help secure the waterway, while some Pakistani oil tankers reportedly have crossed the Strait, suggesting that traffic through the corridor has not been fully disrupted.

Crypto-related stocks were higher on Monday, with Circle (CRCL) up 6%. Strategy (MSTR) and Coinbase (COIN) were about 5% and 3% higher, respectively.

Bitcoin miners gain too

Amsterdam-based AI infrastrcuture provider Nebius (NBIS) signed an agreement with Meta (META) valued at up to approximately $27 billion, marking one of the largest AI compute partnerships announced this year.

Under the five-year deal, Nebius will provide roughly $12 billion in dedicated AI compute capacity across multiple locations. The infrastructure will be built on one of the first large-scale deployments of NVIDIA systems, designed to support Meta’s expanding AI workloads.

Shares of Nebius rose about 13% following the announcement, while Meta gained 2.5%.

The deal appears to be lifting sentiment across the broader AI compute and data center cohort. Among bitcoin-related names: IREN (IREN) was higher by 6%, Galaxy Digital (GLXY) by 8%, and Cipher Mining (CIFR) by 7%.

While, TeraWulf (WULF) secured a $500 million, 364 day senior secured bridge facility led by Morgan Stanley to fund construction of its Hawesville, Kentucky data center, providing development capital while longer term project financing is arranged. Shares are up about 12% following the announcement.

Crypto exchange Bithumb will have to pay a fine of 36.8 billion won, about $24.5 million, after it was found to be in violation of South Korea’s Anti-Money Laundering rules.

According to a local media report, South Korea’s Financial Intelligence Unit under the Financial Services Commission identified about 6.65 million violations during an AML inspection where the exchange failed to properly carry out customer identity verification, transaction monitoring, and record-keeping requirements. 

Bithumb facilitated 45,772 crypto transfers involving 18 unregistered overseas virtual asset service providers in violation of the country’s AML framework.

Regulators decided on the penalties following a sanctions deliberation committee meeting that reviewed the exchange’s compliance with the Act on Reporting and Use of Specific Financial Transaction Information.

Bithumb has also been banned from processing external crypto transfers for new customers for six months, from March 27 to Sep. 26.

Existing customers, however, will be able to continue trading and using external transfers, while new customers can still buy or sell crypto and deposit or withdraw Korean won through the platform.

The penalties follow repeated warnings from the Financial Intelligence Unit, which had been urging the exchange to suspend all activity involving unregistered overseas crypto firms. Bithumb reportedly failed to implement the necessary blocking measures despite those instructions.

The latest penalty marks the largest fine ever imposed on a South Korean crypto exchange among several platforms that regulators have sanctioned for AML violations.

Last year, Upbit, one of South Korea’s largest crypto exchanges, received a three-month restriction on crypto deposits and withdrawals for new users over dealings with unregistered VASPs, alongside a 35.2 billion won penalty.

Bithumb is also navigating another probe by the Financial Supervisory Service over its operational mistake in which it accidentally credited users with an enormous amount of Bitcoin.

On Feb. 6, the exchange inadvertently distributed 620,000 Bitcoin worth roughly $40 billion to $44 billion at the time after an employee mistakenly entered payout amounts in BTC instead of Korean won during a promotional event.

FSS Governor Lee Chan Jin said regulators would look into how an exchange with far fewer actual reserves was able to record and distribute such large phantom Bitcoin balances within minutes, raising questions about internal controls and electronic ledger systems at the platform.

CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.

The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 2140.46, up 5.1% (+104.17) since 4 p.m. ET on Friday.

All 20 assets are trading higher.

Leaders: ETH (+8.8%) and DOT (+8.5%).

Laggards: UNI (+0.9%) and BCH (+2.5%).

The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.

Ether (ETH) bulls are eyeing a move back toward $2,800 in March, with at least three indicators showing ETH price potential to rise higher.

Key takeaways:

• Ether’s price jumped by over 9% toward $2,280 on Monday.

• Multiple indicators, including a symmetrical triangle, hint at an extended price rally toward $2,800.

Ether invalidates a bearish chart pattern

On Sunday, Ether’s price action invalidated what initially appeared to be a bear pennant on the daily chart.

Related: Ethereum Foundation sells $10.2M worth of ETH to BitMine in OTC deal

The ETH/USD pair pierced through the pennant’s upper trend line at $2,100, jumping 9.8% to a six-week high of $2,287 on Monday. Its breakout came alongside a rise in trading volume, implying stronger conviction behind the rally.

The price also reclaimed two key support lines in the name of the 20-day exponential moving average (EMA, red line) and the 50-day EMA (yellow line) at $2,072 and $2,210, respectively.

That simultaneously increased the odds of a symmetrical-triangle bullish reversal.

A symmetrical triangle forms when price makes lower highs and higher lows, compressing into a tightening range. It resolves when the price breaks either of the trendlines and moves by as much as the pattern’s maximum height.

In Ether’s case, the measured move above the upper trend line points to about $2,850, 26% above the current price. The level aligns with the 200-day EMA (the purple line), as shown in the chart above.

Ether’s next hurdle is the 100-day EMA (blue) near $2,500. 

As Cointelegraph reported, a rejection there would weaken the breakout and raise the odds of a pullback.

Onchain data caps Ether’s upside at $2,800

ETH has been oscillating within a wide range defined by the realized price at $2,350 on the upside and on the downside at the lowest MVRV band of $1,650.

The chart below shows that the recent rebound off the lowest MVRV band mirrors the market structure observed in Q2 2022, where the price rallied past the realized price before being rejected by the first MVRV band just above. 

This similarity reinforces the outlook that the current recovery attempt could be stopped around $2,650, where the first MVRV band sits above the realized price.

Glassnode’s Entity-Adjusted UTXO Realized Price Distribution (URPD), showing at which prices the current set of ETH UTXOs were created, also revealed a dense supply zone at $2,770-$2,880 that has been gradually maturing into the long-term holder cohort. This is where investors acquired more than 7.9 million ETH.

This unresolved supply overhang remains a persistent source of sell pressure, likely to cap attempts around the $2,800 level. 

Meanwhile, ETH’s cost-basis distribution heatmap shows a heavy accumulation near $2,800, where more than 3 million ETH were previously purchased, suggesting a potential pathway toward this level in the short term.

Polymarket’s odds of $2,800 ETH price in March rise

Polymarket, a crypto-based prediction market where users trade contracts on real-world outcomes, is showing a clear bullish shift for Ether in March.

Traders now assign 13% odds that ETH reaches $2,800 in March, a 10% increase over the last 24 hours. The $2,600 and $2,400 targets carry even stronger convictions at 32% and 69%, respectively.

At the same time, the odds of the ETH price reaching $1,800 and $1,600 in March are priced lower than before, suggesting the crowd is trimming downside expectations.