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Trump pressures Powell to cut rates as Fed holds line on inflation

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Trump token initiative begins: More pay for play?

Trump ramps up pressure on Powell to slash rates to 1% even as the Fed holds at 3.50%–3.75%, lifts inflation forecasts, and warns the Iran oil shock risks stagflation.

Summary

  • Trump renews attacks on Powell, demanding immediate cuts and even 1% rates despite Brent above $110 and inflation expectations rising with the Iran war energy shock.
  • The Fed leaves rates at 3.50%–3.75% and signals only one 2026 cut, with officials warning that oil-driven inflation could keep PCE near 3% and delay any easing.​
  • Economists say the U.S. now faces a classic stagflation trap, as cutting to appease Trump risks entrenching inflation while holding steady deepens demand destruction.

U.S. President Donald Trump renewed his public pressure campaign on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Thursday, stating that Powell should cut interest rates — a demand that stands in direct contradiction to the Fed’s posture just 24 hours earlier, when the central bank held rates unchanged and signaled it expects only one cut for the entirety of 2026.

Trump’s statement, reported by Jinshi on Thursday, follows a pattern of escalating attacks on the Fed chair that has intensified since the Iran war began on February 28. As recently as March 12, Trump took to Truth Social to write: “Where is the Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell, today? He should be dropping Interest Rates, IMMEDIATELY, not waiting for the next meeting!” The president has reportedly called for rates as low as 1%, even as soaring oil prices are pushing inflation expectations sharply higher.

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Crypto markets have been trading this showdown in real time: Bitcoin has already slipped back below $70,000 after briefly tagging the mid‑$73,000s last week, while Ethereum has faded toward the low‑$2,200s as Fed funds futures price in barely a single cut for 2026 and the market starts to contemplate a “no‑cut” year. That leaves BTC caught between two narratives — a stagflation hedge if Powell caves to Trump and lets real yields fall, or just another high‑beta risk asset if the Fed digs in and higher-for-longer rates collide with an oil shock to crush liquidity across both TradFi and crypto.

The Fed voted to keep its benchmark rate in the 3.50%–3.75% range at its March 18 meeting, citing persistent uncertainty around both the Iran conflict’s economic impact and the residual effects of Trump’s 15% global tariff regime. Powell acknowledged that a rate hike remains unlikely but did not rule it out, noting that the Fed “will need to assess how enduring this situation is” in reference to the global energy crisis.

The Fed’s updated forecasts are expected to revise inflation projections upward, with many economists anticipating the central bank will now forecast inflation remaining as high as 3% by late 2026 — a level difficult to reconcile with rate cuts. Trump’s own nomination of Kevin Warsh to succeed Powell when his term concludes in May had been expected to usher in a more dovish era, but the Iran conflict may delay or complicate that transition.

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The core tension is acute. Trump wants lower rates to stimulate a slowing economy and support financial markets battered by oil-driven uncertainty. But the Fed faces a classic stagflation dilemma: cutting rates risks entrenching oil-fueled inflation, while holding or hiking risks amplifying the demand destruction already underway as energy costs squeeze consumers and businesses.

CME FedWatch data shows markets assigning over 99% probability to no change at the current meeting, and Wall Street economists are increasingly calling for a zero-cut year. Oxford Economics chief U.S. economist Lydia Boussour noted that “given our elevated forecasts for headline and core PCE inflation, we have adjusted our baseline to reflect only one 25 basis point cut in 2026 — but it is entirely plausible the Fed won’t implement any rate cuts this year.”

The oil shock has already erased the inflation buffer that lower energy prices had provided earlier in 2026 in the face of Trump’s tariffs. With Brent crude above $110 and Iranian strikes on Gulf energy infrastructure widening on Thursday, the Fed’s margin for maneuver is narrowing — even as Trump’s demands grow louder.

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Coinbase Commerce seed phrase page alarms security community ahead of March 31 shutdown

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Epstein files show crypto ties to Coinbase, Blockstream: DOJ

Coinbase Commerce’s seed phrase withdrawal page is drawing fierce criticism from security researchers, who warn it normalizes typing 12-word recovery phrases into a website just days before the March 31 shutdown deadline.

Summary

  • A Coinbase Commerce subdomain at withdraw.commerce.coinbase.com/seed-phrase asks merchants to type 12-word seed phrases into a plain-text web form to recover funds.
  • SlowMist’s Cos, CISO 23pds and on-chain sleuth ZachXBT say the page and its cloneable front end create a powerful phishing template, especially as Commerce is wound down into Coinbase Business by March 31, 2026.
  • Critics argue the flow trains users to ignore the industry rule to never enter a seed phrase online, reviving fears after earlier Coinbase impersonation scams stole about $2 million from users.

A subdomain page belonging to Coinbase Commerce — the company’s merchant payments product — has drawn sharp criticism from leading blockchain security researchers after it was found to be prompting users to enter their 12-word seed phrases, also known as mnemonic or recovery phrases, directly into a web form in plain text. The controversy erupted on Wednesday and intensified Thursday morning, with the discovery coming at a particularly sensitive moment: Coinbase is winding down Commerce entirely by March 31, 2026, as part of a broader platform consolidation under Coinbase Business — meaning tens of thousands of merchants have a narrow window to withdraw their funds.

The page in question, hosted at withdraw.commerce.coinbase.com/seed-phrase, was referenced in a now-deleted Coinbase Commerce help document that directed users to recover funds by importing their recovery phrases into compatible wallets such as Coinbase Wallet or MetaMask. SlowMist founder Yu Xian (known online as Cos) described the practice as demonstrating an “unbelievable lack of security awareness” from a major industry player, having received multiple user reports about the page. On-chain investigator ZachXBT independently flagged the page, warning that its existence creates a direct attack surface for social engineering campaigns targeting Coinbase users.

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The concerns go beyond the page itself. SlowMist’s Chief Information Security Officer, known as 23pds, escalated the alarm by pointing out that the page’s sitemap contains structural flaws that make it trivially easy for malicious actors to replicate. Using tools such as ResourcesSaver, attackers can download the front-end code and deploy visually identical phishing sites — particularly dangerous when combined with Coinbase-lookalike domains that could credibly deceive even experienced users.

The fundamental problem is one of normalisation. Every legitimate security protocol in the cryptocurrency industry is built on a single, non-negotiable principle: a seed phrase should never be entered into any website, form, or app under any circumstances — not even an official one. Seed phrases are the master cryptographic keys to a wallet; whoever possesses them owns the funds. By building a recovery workflow that requires users to type their phrase into a browser, Coinbase has — whether intentionally or through oversight — trained users to accept a behaviour that scammers routinely exploit. Coinfomania noted that the tool even suggests copying phrases from Google Drive as an intermediate step, compounding the risk.

ZachXBT’s warning carries particular weight given his track record. In January 2026, he exposed a Coinbase support impersonation scam that resulted in approximately $2 million in stolen crypto — a scheme that relied on users being conditioned to trust Coinbase-branded interfaces. The Commerce seed phrase page represents a ready-made template for a follow-up attack of potentially far greater scale.

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As of Thursday, Coinbase had not publicly responded to the criticism, despite multiple requests for comment. The company has offered alternative withdrawal methods — including a separate commerce withdrawal tool considered safer by researchers — but has not removed or modified the seed phrase page. With twelve days remaining until Commerce is permanently disabled, the pressure on the exchange to act is mounting rapidly. For the crypto industry’s most prominent publicly listed company, the reputational stakes of a mass phishing event triggered by its own migration tooling could scarcely be higher.

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EtherFi Allocates $25M to Plume to Bring RWA Yield Onchain

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EtherFi Allocates $25M to Plume to Bring RWA Yield Onchain

EtherFi has allocated $25 million to Plume’s real-world asset (RWA) protocol Nest, marking a move to integrate tokenized RWA yield directly into its platform as it looks to expand beyond crypto-native sources of return.

According to Thursday’s announcement, rollout will begin with exposure to Plume’s nBASIS vault, which is tied to Superstate’s USCC crypto carry fund, with plans to add a dedicated real-world asset vault directly into EtherFi’s interface in a later phase.

The initial allocation gives EtherFi users indirect exposure to a strategy combining crypto basis trades, staking rewards and government securities, a structure traditionally available only to institutional or sophisticated investors.

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The integration will extend RWA exposure across EtherFi’s more than $6 billion in user deposits. According to Plume, the vault structure is designed to simplify access by handling execution and reporting onchain, while incorporating predefined risk controls and compliance features.

EtherFi is a crypto yield platform that began with Ethereum liquid staking and has since expanded into broader yield offerings, while Plume provides infrastructure that packages institutional investment strategies into onchain vaults, giving users exposure to institutional strategies managed offchain through integrated crypto platforms.

Plume has also taken steps toward integrating with traditional financial systems, including registering as a transfer agent with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in October.

Related: Babylon-Ledger tie-up expands access to Bitcoin Vaults for collateral use

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Tokenized real-world assets activity surges

Unlike traditional DeFi yield, which is generated within crypto markets, real-world assets strategies derive returns from income streams such as interest on government securities and lending activity.

According to data from RWA.xyz, the value of tokenized real-world assets has surged to more than $27 billion from about $5.7 billion at the start of 2025. Much of that growth has been driven by tokenized US Treasury products, which account for over $11 billion in onchain value.

Real-world assets onchain. Source: RWA.xyz

Tokenized Treasurys give investors onchain access to government-backed debt instruments, combining blockchain-based settlement with yield from short-term bills and money market funds. 

Products from companies including BlackRock, Franklin Templeton and Circle account for a significant share of the market, with Circle’s USYC holding about $2.3 billion, BlackRock’s BUIDL fund around $2 billion and Franklin Templeton’s onchain fund over $1 billion in assets.

Tokenized Treasurys. Source: RWA.xyz

Plume reports 262,325 RWA holders holding more than $348 million in tokenized assets, with distributed asset value up 69% over the past 30 days, according to RWA.xyz data. Its Nest vault products are already live, including a basis-focused vault with more than $26 million in assets

In November, Plume co-founder and CEO Chris Yin told Cointelegraph that the tokenized real-world asset market could grow as much as fivefold this year.

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He added that while most RWA value is currently concentrated in US Treasury bills, a maturing market and shifting interest rate environment are driving users to seek higher-yield opportunities elsewhere.

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