Bitcoin BTC$69,793.75 slipped back toward $69,000 on Tuesday morning as a broader pullback in equities spilled over into crypto markets.

After trading near $71,000 earlier in the session, BTC fell to around $69,600 in the early U.S. hours, tracking a broader reversal in risk assets. Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL) and XRP (XRP) were also down 2%-3% over the past 24 hours.

Bitcoin appears to be continuing to follow a familiar trend over the past three months. It has typically risen by just over 1% on Mondays and then fall slightly under 1% on Tuesdays, according to Velo data.

The move also came as software stocks rolled over, with the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) dropping about 4%. Crypto prices have moved closely in line with the sector in recent months, with both trending lower since October. That relationship was on full display again, with digital assets weakening alongside that particular area of tech.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq equity indexes were 0.5% and 0.8% lower, giving up much of their Monday gains on news about talks between U.S. and Iran. Global yields continue to climb, the DXY remains firm above 99, and oil has risen 2% over the past 24 hours, reinforcing the broader risk-off tone.

Crypto-linked equities also came under pressure. Circle (CRCL), issuer of the USDC stablecoin, led declines, tumbling 16% in a sharp reversal after its recent rally that took the shares more than 100% higher in a month. Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) dropped 8%. The moves happened as CoinDesk reported late Monday that the latest version of the Clarity Act won’t allow rewards on balances, limiting yields on stablecoins. “That weakens a key part of the bull case by making USDC harder to evolve from a payments utility into a real store-of-value product,” Shay Boloor, chief market strategist at Futurum Equities, said in an X post.

USDT issuer Tether, key rival of Circle, also announced that it hired a “Big Four” accounting firm for a complete audit, seen as a major step to improve trust in USDT’s reserve assets.

Shift in interest rate expectations

In one of the more remarkable 180-degree turnarounds in recent years, market participants have gone, in a matter of weeks, from debating how many central bank rate cuts there would be in 2026 to pricing in imminent rate hikes.

According to CME FedWatch, there’s now zero chance of a rate cut at either the April or June Federal Reserve policy meetings, and instead about a 15% chance of a rate hike. The June Fed meeting would presumably be chaired by Kevin Warsh, whom President Trump has nominated to replace Jerome Powell as head of the U.S. central bank with the supposed intention of lowering borrowing costs.

Key Highlights

• Grab revealed plans to execute up to $400 million in share buybacks from its authorized $500 million program
• The company entered a $250 million accelerated share repurchase deal with JPMorgan Chase
• An additional contingent forward purchase agreement with Morgan Stanley accounts for up to $150 million
• The entire repurchase initiative is financed through cash on hand without incurring new debt
• GRAB shares increased 4.81% following the announcement; current analyst consensus sits at Buy with a $5.93 target

Shares of Grab Holdings (GRAB) advanced on Tuesday following the company’s disclosure that it plans to execute up to $400 million of its board-approved $500 million share repurchase authorization within the coming four-month period.

Grab Holdings Limited, GRAB

The Southeast Asian super-app operator made the disclosure through an SEC filing accompanied by a formal press release dated March 24, 2026.

The repurchase strategy consists of two distinct components. First, Grab established a $250 million accelerated share repurchase (ASR) arrangement with JPMorgan Chase Bank. This agreement provides Grab with an upfront delivery of approximately 54.9 million Class A ordinary shares, with final settlement quantities determined by volume-weighted average pricing through the completion date, anticipated during Q2 2026.

The secondary component involves a contingent forward purchase contract with Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC covering up to $150 million in value. This arrangement operates based on predetermined price levels and is set to conclude in July 2026.

At the time of publication, shares were trading 4.81% higher, signaling market enthusiasm for the capital allocation strategy.

Cash Reserves Power the Repurchase

Grab is financing both agreements exclusively through its current cash position. The company disclosed gross cash liquidity totaling $7.4 billion and net cash liquidity of $5.4 billion as of December 31, 2025.

This robust financial position enables Grab to distribute capital to shareholders while maintaining operational investment capacity. Following completion of this buyback execution, $100 million remains available under the original $500 million authorization for potential future deployment.

The share repurchase program received Board of Directors approval in February 2026. This marks just the second such program in Grab’s corporate timeline.

Analyst Perspective

The latest analyst assessment on GRAB reflects a Buy rating, accompanied by a price objective of $5.93.

Analyst models also identify an elevated P/E multiple and questions regarding cash-flow stability as continuing risk factors.

Grab’s market capitalization was approximately $14.93 billion when the buyback announcement was made.

The stock maintains an average daily trading volume of roughly 46.4 million shares.

Aptos’ APT price jumps off record lows as volume spikes, regulatory clarity lands, and network usage hits new highs, but the token still trades near the bottom of its historical range.

Aptos (APT) price is trading near $1.03 today, with CoinMarketCap showing APT up 8.57–10.20% over the last 24 hours and a 24‑hour trading volume of roughly $238.56 million. CMC’s latest analysis notes that APT is up 9.93% to $1.04 in 24 hours, driven by a “high‑conviction volume surge” as spot trading volume jumps 175.51% to about $204.96 million, far above its 7‑day average. Despite this bounce, Aptos remains deeply depressed versus history: the token printed an all‑time low of $0.7926 on February 23, 2026 and still trades more than 94% below its all‑time high around $19.90.

Aptos is a high‑performance Layer 1 blockchain built by former Meta engineers from the Diem/Move initiative, designed for security, scalability and mainstream adoption. According to CoinMarketCap, the network now clears close to 10 million daily transactions with average fees as low as $0.00007, a level of throughput that contrasts sharply with the token’s depressed price. Proposal 183, ratified by the community on March 1, 2026, set a hard supply cap of 2.1 billion APT and permanently directed gas fees to be burned, introducing structural deflation as on‑chain activity grows.

On‑chain and macro news flow has turned more supportive even as price lags. Recent CMC coverage highlights three major developments: the U.S. SEC has classified APT as a commodity, Binance is preparing to delist APT perpetual futures on March 25, 2026, and the network’s 10‑million‑transactions‑per‑day milestone is now paired with deflationary tokenomics. The removal of APT perps from Binance could temporarily sap derivatives liquidity and speculative open interest, but it also pushes price discovery back toward spot markets at a moment when volume is surging and the token is trading near historical capitulation levels.

In the wider smart‑contract sector, Aptos is still underperforming: CoinGecko data shows APT down about 9.90% over the past week, compared with a 0.70% rise in the global crypto market and a 1.70% gain for similar smart‑contract platforms, underscoring how sharp today’s bounce is relative to a still‑bearish medium‑term trend.

The team behind veteran DeFi protocol Balancer has posted two sweeping governance proposals that would wind down Balancer Labs, consolidate all operations under a DAO-controlled entity, and end BAL token emissions entirely.

The operational restructuring proposal, posted on March 23, formalizes the wind-down of Balancer Labs OÜ, the Estonian entity that originally built the protocol, and consolidates all activity under Balancer OpCo Limited, a BVI entity that operates as a direct agent of the DAO.

The team would shrink from roughly 25 to 12.5 full-time equivalents, with an annual operating budget of $1.9 million — a 34% cut from the $2.87 million approved under the previous roadmap.

The accompanying tokenomics revamp proposal, also published on Monday, goes further. It proposes halting all BAL emissions immediately, sunsetting veBAL — the protocol’s governance and yield-bearing token — and routing 100% of protocol fees to the DAO treasury. The move would replace a fragmented split that previously flowed to veBAL holders, core pool incentives, and partners.

To soften the blow for locked veBAL holders, the proposal includes a $500,000 compensation campaign paid in stablecoins over six months. The proposal also offers a BAL buyback and burn program capped at 35% of treasury holdings, or roughly $3.6 million, at net asset value (~$0.16 per BAL) — a slight premium to current market prices that would retire approximately 35% of circulating supply if fully exercised. The buyback and burn program is aimed at “providing exit liquidity for holders who want out.”

The projected impact, per the proposal, includes reducing Balancer’s annual deficit from ~$2.6 million to ~$700,000, and extending its treasury runway from under four years to roughly nine.

In an extended X post following the proposals, Marcus Hardt, CEO and co-founder of Balancer Labs, framed the moves as a necessary reckoning. “The technology works. Balancer v3 works. Boosted pools work. The infrastructure we built is strong,” he wrote. “What stopped working was the economic model around it.”

Hardt acknowledged the pain for veBAL holders directly:

“If you locked in good faith, losing those economic rights is painful. That is exactly why the buyback and the compensation campaign are part of the package. The goal is not to trap anyone into a decision.”

November Exploit

The restructuring comes as Balancer tries to find stable footing after a brutal stretch. The protocol was hit by a $128 million exploit in early November, the same week that Stream’s unwind shook broader confidence in DeFi. The proposals acknowledge that the November exploit “removed the option of growing out of” problems with the economic model that had been building for some time.

The exploit triggered months of crisis response, significant TVL loss, and difficult decisions about what the protocol could realistically sustain. The current restructuring proposals are the clearest signal yet of just how much the event reshaped Balancer’s trajectory.

Despite the severity of the changes, Hardt struck a cautiously optimistic tone. “Balancer still has real products. Boosted pools are generating real usage,” he wrote on X. “I believe the protocol still has room to build products and revenue streams that fit Balancer uniquely well.”

Both proposals are live on the governance forum and open for community discussion ahead of a snapshot vote.

BAL is mostly flat on the news, down less than 1% in the past 24 hours, and over 99% from its 2021 all-time hight.

Labs vs DAO Restructuring

Balancer’s restructuring is the latest in a string of high-profile governance crises forcing DeFi projects to confront whether the Labs-plus-DAO structure — once a standard template for decentralized protocols — is still fit for purpose. At Aave, months of escalating conflict between Aave Labs and the DAO over fee distribution, brand ownership, and token-holder rights eventually pushed Labs to propose routing 100% of product revenue to the DAO treasury — though not before key service provider BGD Labs announced it was leaving amid the fallout.

Meanwhile, cross-chain bridge protocol Across took an even more radical turn, with Risk Labs proposing to dissolve the DAO entirely and convert the project into a U.S. C-corporation, citing friction with institutional partners.

This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.

Ethereum-based decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol Fira said on Tuesday it was launching with about $450 million in deposits, highlighting demand for fixed-rate onchain credit.

Fira said the protocol’s fixed-rate credit market allows users to lock borrowing costs and lending returns for defined periods by organizing lending around maturities rather than floating utilization-based rates, according to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

The fixed-rate model differs from most DeFi lending protocols, where borrowers cannot lock funding costs, and lenders cannot predict returns, making long-term DeFi lending less predictable. Fira’s said its model organizes markets by maturity and determines interest rates by supply and demand mechanics, replacing utilization algorithms that fluctuate with borrowing activity.

Fira said the design is intended to create a more predictable onchain credit market by introducing yield curves and defined maturities, features that are standard in traditional fixed-income markets but rare in DeFi.

Fira is not the first DeFi lending protocol built around fixed-rate credit. Other protocols with similar structures include Notional Finance, IPOR and Term Finance.

Euler-linked liquidity migrated into Fira

Fira said it debuted with $450 million in deposits, which were “reallocated” from users of the modular lending platform Euler Finance during the pre-launch phase that started on Jan. 8, Pete Siegel, chief financial officer at Fira, told Cointelegraph. 

“Fira was pre-launched in January. It opened with a first market called UZR, which enabled roughly a thousand users who were already on Euler, in a product available on Euler to migrate their assets at a fixed rate.”

Siegel said the deposits reflect user interest in fixed-rate lending products.

DefiLlama currently shows Fira with about $451.6 million in total value locked on Ethereum, compared with roughly $25.3 billion for Aave, the sector’s largest lending protocol.

Related: Maestro launches mining-backed Bitcoin credit market for institutions

Fira said its smart contracts have undergone six independent security audits conducted by Sherlock, Spearbit via Cantina, Hexens and yAudit between November 2025 and early 2026.

Fira’s bug bounty program through Sherlock offers up to $500,000 in rewards for users finding critical vulnerabilities in the protocol’s open-source Ethereum-based smart contracts.