Barcelona, Spain — The question facing the digital asset industry is no longer one of legitimacy. After the approval of spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, the rollout of MiCA across the European Union, and growing allocations from asset managers and pension funds, institutions are in the market. The question now is one of execution — which platforms, counterparties and infrastructure will define the institutional layer of what comes next.

It is in that context that the European Blockchain Convention (EBC) will return to Barcelona on 16–17 September 2026 for its 12th edition — bringing together over 6,000 attendees from 70+ countries across two days of market intelligence, meetings and commercial momentum. Join the 12th edition with institutions like BlackRock, Cardano, Bitwise, Baillie Gifford, WisdomTree, Hilbert Capital, Zodia Custody, Midchains, and Caisse des Depots among others.

“EBC is built around a simple idea: when the right people are in the room, progress happens faster. In a market as fragmented as Europe’s digital asset landscape, that matters.”— Victoria Gago, Co-CEO, European Blockchain Convention

INSTITUTIONS AT THE CENTRE — SINCE THE BEGINNING

While the industry’s narrative around institutional adoption has accelerated sharply over the past 18 months, EBC’s focus on that audience predates the trend. From its first edition, EBC was designed not around retail participation or token launches, but around the decision-makers who control capital at scale: asset managers, banks, infrastructure providers, exchanges and the policymakers shaping the rules they operate under.

Europe compounds the challenge. It is not one market — it is a region of parallel conversations, different regulatory timelines and different capital pools across London, Paris, Frankfurt, Zurich and Barcelona. EBC’s positioning as Europe’s Digital Asset Marketplace reflects a structural reality: the market needs a place where those conversations converge. Over 12 editions, it has become that place.

EBC12: THE AGENDA

The programme spans the issues that define institutional participation in digital assets today: regulatory convergence and market structure across major jurisdictions; capital allocation strategy from sovereign funds to private banks; the infrastructure required for institutional-grade operations; the rise of real-world asset tokenisation; stablecoin and CBDC dynamics as settlement infrastructure; and the role of AI in reshaping market intelligence and execution.

“What makes EBC valuable is not scale for the sake of scale. It is the concentration of the right market participants in one place — decision-makers, operators, investors and infrastructure leaders — with enough relevance and intent to make the time count.”— Victoria Gago, Co-CEO, European Blockchain Convention

ABOUT EBC

The European Blockchain Convention (EBC) is the Europe’s Digital Asset Marketplace — the pan-European event where institutions, capital allocators, infrastructure providers and policymakers converge. Now in its 12th edition, EBC has established itself as the commercial centre of the European digital asset market.

Join EBC12 Barcelona and get 15% off your ticket with code BREAKING15:  https://eblockchainconvention.com/european-blockchain-convention-12/

Press contact: media@eblockchainconvention.com

Quick Summary

• SNDK shares declined approximately 5% during Wednesday’s trading session
• Google introduced TurboQuant, a new compression technology potentially reducing AI memory needs
• SanDisk revealed a $1 billion private placement deal to purchase roughly 3.9% of Nanya Technology
• The Nanya transaction featured a 15% price discount with a mandatory three-year holding period
• Prior to Wednesday’s decline, SNDK had surged nearly 196% in 2025

Wednesday proved challenging for SanDisk as the memory chipmaker confronted two significant developments. The unveiling of Google’s TurboQuant compression technology rattled memory sector investors, while a previously unannounced $1 billion strategic stake in Nanya Technology compounded selling pressure. By session’s end, shares had retreated approximately 5%.

Sandisk Corporation, SNDK

TurboQuant represents Google’s latest compression innovation aimed at minimizing memory footprint requirements in artificial intelligence applications. For a chipmaker whose extraordinary rally has centered on AI-fueled memory consumption, such technological advances present a direct challenge.

The additional pressure originated from SanDisk directly. The company announced that its operating unit had committed to purchasing approximately 139 million Nanya shares via private placement, totaling $1.0 billion and representing about 3.9% of Nanya’s total shares outstanding.

The acquisition price reflected a substantial 15% markdown from market value, immediately triggering investor scrutiny regarding deal structure and motivation. Additionally, the purchased shares carry a mandatory three-year restriction on resale.

Complementing the equity position, SanDisk and Nanya formalized a comprehensive multi-year strategic procurement agreement. Through this arrangement, Nanya commits to providing DRAM components to bolster SanDisk’s extended-term supply chain requirements.

The strategic rationale appears straightforward — secure a critical supply partner while acquiring ownership at favorable pricing. However, market participants responded with skepticism rather than enthusiasm.

Understanding the Market’s Negative Response

Following SNDK’s remarkable 1,200% climb over twelve months, investor expectations for capital allocation decisions have intensified substantially. Committing $1 billion toward a non-controlling supplier stake, instead of share repurchases or internal expansion, generated considerable debate.

The transaction remains subject to Taiwanese regulatory clearance before finalization, introducing additional uncertainty into the equation. Skeptics questioned whether this represented optimal capital deployment given the stock’s extraordinary appreciation.

The announcement’s timing compounded concerns. Market observers had already begun scrutinizing SNDK’s valuation following its meteoric rise. Any development that muddied the bullish narrative was destined to trigger meaningful volatility.

Core Business Metrics Remain Robust

Notwithstanding Wednesday’s retreat, SanDisk’s fundamental performance indicators continue showing strength. Management’s Q3 FY2026 outlook projects revenue between $4.4 billion and $4.8 billion, non-GAAP earnings per share ranging from $12 to $14, and gross profit margins spanning 65% to 67%.

These figures represent substantial improvement versus Q2 results, and executive leadership maintains conviction that AI infrastructure spending will sustain its upward trajectory. Under normal circumstances, such guidance would dominate market discussion.

Options market activity for SNDK on Wednesday displayed a moderately optimistic bias, indicating certain traders perceive the pullback as an attractive entry point once Nanya-related concerns dissipate.

Technical sentiment indicators entering Wednesday’s session registered a Strong Buy rating, while the equity maintains average daily volume exceeding 18 million shares.

Presently, the investment community faces two contrasting interpretations of SanDisk: a high-momentum enterprise capitalizing on legitimate AI-driven demand, versus a company that allocated $1 billion toward a transaction generating more uncertainty than clarity.

SanDisk’s valuation currently stands at approximately $103.7 billion in total market capitalization.

An anonymous crypto commentator who goes by “peepeepoopoo” on X ignited a wave of dark humor and genuine frustration across Crypto Twitter on March 24 after posting that strangers were minting meme coins off their online identity and then scamming each other with them — without any involvement or consent from the account itself. “They’re making fucking shitcoins out of me and scamming each other with it,” wrote @DeepDishEnjoyer, whose post accumulated 50,500 views within hours of publication.

The post struck a nerve precisely because the person behind it is not a celebrity or a major protocol figure — they are a pseudonymous, self-described “globalist” macro skeptic with a Substack, based in Boston, Massachusetts. With 40,100 followers and a persona built around bearish market commentary, the account had not actively promoted any token. In reply threads, @DeepDishEnjoyer framed their role in crypto discourse in deadpan terms: “I am more of a Jerome Powell figure, trying to independently dampen the market through guidance, and the cryptobulls are very mad at me for it.”

The irony runs deeper. The account previously created a joke token under the ticker $THATSIT, explicitly warning followers: “I told everyone it’s worth $0 and not to buy it.” Despite that disclaimer, the token was discovered by Chinese traders who, apparently noting that the creator was mutuals with prominent accounts in the artificial intelligence space, pumped it on the assumption it was an AI-related project. $THATSIT reached a market cap of $2.6 million before collapsing.

The dynamic playing out around @DeepDishEnjoyer is not isolated. Celebrity persona tokens have become a recurring feature of pump.fun’s ecosystem — from Caitlyn Jenner’s JENNER token, which briefly hit a $20 million market cap before its developer dumped all holdings, to a wave of influencer-adjacent coins that follow an increasingly predictable arc: hype, pump, rug. What distinguishes the “peepeepoopoo” situation is that the original account is actively mocking the process in real time, broadcasting its own victimization from a position of complete detachment.

Multiple tokens bearing the “peepeepoopoo” branding now circulate on pump.fun and PumpSwap, including one PP variant that reached a $7,400 market cap with a 149.76% 24-hour gain at the time of writing, and a PPPP variant previously listed on CoinGecko with a market cap equivalent to approximately $47,000. Neither is affiliated with @DeepDishEnjoyer.

The broader context matters. Pump.fun allows anyone to create a Solana token for less than $2, with no identity verification and no mechanism to prevent someone from deploying a coin under another person’s name, likeness, or online persona. That structural reality is what makes the complaint from @DeepDishEnjoyer both funny and illustrative: the platform is agnostic to consent. “At least nobody with a soul will get hurt,” the account wrote in a follow-up reply — an acknowledgment that the people buying these coins are likely not sympathetic victims.

Solana (SOL) is currently trading at $92.17, up 3.29% over the past 24 hours.

Ondo Finance said it will work with Franklin Templeton to bring tokenized versions of traditional investment products to blockchain users, a step that reflects a broader push to merge conventional finance with crypto infrastructure.

The effort centers on Ondo Global Markets, a platform that issues blockchain-based tokens backed by real-world assets such as publicly traded stocks and exchange-traded funds. These tokens track the value of underlying securities and can be held in digital wallets, allowing users to gain exposure without opening a brokerage account.

Franklin Templeton, which manages about $1.7 trillion in assets, will provide investment products and support the rollout. The firms also plan to launch education programs aimed at crypto-native users who may be unfamiliar with long-term portfolio strategies.

The partnership builds on a growing trend where large asset managers are testing blockchain rails to distribute products. Franklin Templeton has already developed digital asset tools, while others, including BlackRock, have explored tokenized funds and onchain settlement.

Ondo Global Markets, launched in September 2025, reports over $620 million in total value locked and more than $12 billion in trading volume across 60,000 users. The company says demand is coming from users who want exposure to traditional markets without the friction of cross-border accounts, currency conversions or trading hours.

The implications reach beyond convenience. Tokenization could reshape how assets move and who can access them. Traditional markets run on limited hours and layers of intermediaries. Blockchain systems, by contrast, operate round the clock and allow direct ownership through wallets.

Still, the shift will test how far tokenized securities can go within existing rules. Regulators have yet to fully address how these instruments should be treated when they move across borders and wallets rather than brokerages.

Competition is also building. A growing list of firms now offer tokenized funds, and major financial players are weighing how to defend their role as gatekeepers. If blockchain-based

distribution gains traction, it could chip away at the advantage long held by banks and brokers that control access to markets.

For Ondo and Franklin Templeton, the bet is that investors will prefer a model that blends familiar assets with new rails.

Binance Bahrain is expanding its onboarding framework by integrating Beyon Connect’s eKey 2.0 national identity solution to verify users during transactions. The announcement describes a collaboration that ties a government-backed digital identity to a leading crypto platform, aiming to improve security and streamline verification while preserving user convenience. By leveraging biometric authentication and 3D facial recognition, the solution seeks to reduce reliance on OTP-based methods and support a secure, compliant customer experience. The move reflects Bahrain’s ongoing digital transformation and its push to enable trusted private-sector access to regulated digital services through national identity infrastructure.

Key points

• eKey 2.0 integration will be used for secure digital verification during Binance Bahrain onboarding and transactions.
• The platform uses biometric authentication and 3D facial recognition, replacing OTP-based verification and aiming to reduce fraud.
• Beyon Connect holds exclusive reseller rights and the eKey 2.0 app is accessible via the Bahrain eGovernment App Store.
• The initiative is a national government product ready for wider use by government entities and the private sector.

Why it matters

This partnership links Bahrain’s national identity framework to a major financial service, potentially speeding secure onboarding for Binance Bahrain users and raising the bar for digital verification in regulated services. By relying on government-backed identity data and biometric authentication, the arrangement aims to improve security, reduce fraud risk, and simplify KYC without extensive infrastructure investment. The move aligns with Bahrain’s digital transformation goals and could influence how financial institutions and other sectors adopt national identity tools as part of everyday service delivery.

What to watch

• Rollout timeline and progress of the eKey 2.0 integration within Binance Bahrain onboarding.
• Real-world uptake by citizens/residents and any changes to the verification flow.
• Expansion of eKey 2.0 adoption across financial, telecoms, and government sectors in Bahrain.

Disclosure: The content below is a press release provided by the company or its PR representative. It is published for informational purposes.

Binance Bahrain Partners with Beyon Connect to Integrate eKey 2.0, Enhancing Secure and Seamless User Onboarding

March 25 2026, Bahrain: Binance Bahrain has announced a strategic partnership with Beyon Connect, enabling the integration of the Kingdom of Bahrain’s eKey 2.0 National Identity solution into the Binance Bahrain to enable secure digital verification of users when conducting transactions with Binance Bahrain . The collaboration marks a significant step in enhancing secure, seamless, and user-friendly digital verification for residents and nationals of Bahrain.

Through this partnership, Binance Bahrain is leveraging Beyon Connect’s exclusive reseller rights as an authorised reseller of the eKey 2.0 system, and the enhanced eKey application available through the eGovernment App Store (bahrain.bh/apps), operated by the Information and eGovernment Authority (iGA), to access reliable, verified government-backed user information required for Know Your Customer (KYC) processes. The integration allows eligible users to log in to Binance Bahrain’s services using eKey 2.0, enabling easy digital verification while maintaining the highest standards of security and compliance.

The enhanced eKey 2.0 National Identity solution is a cornerstone of Kingdom of Bahrain’s digital transformation journey and is a national government product ready for wider use by various government entities and the private sector. The solution supports reducing costs for current and future entities by enabling identity-matching mechanisms with high levels of information security, data protection, and user experience, without the need for investment in technologies or infrastructure. Powered by biometric-based authentication and 3D facial recognition (facial recognition), the platform replaces traditional OTP-based systems, significantly reducing fraud risks while enhancing convenience and overall user experience.

Trarik Erik, MENAT Lead, Binance,, commented: “We are proud to partner with Beyon Connect to integrate eKey 2.0 into Binance Bahrain’s onboarding journey. This collaboration reflects our commitment to supporting Bahrain’s innovation-driven digital vision, while delivering a seamless, secure, and efficient experience for users. By leveraging trusted national digital identity infrastructure, we are enabling citizens and residents to access regulated digital services with confidence.”

Beyon Connect CEO Chris Hild stated: “Trust and security are the foundations of financial services. Through eKey 2.0 we are enabling financial institutions to meet regulatory requirements with confidence, protect customers, and deliver faster and smarter services. This step represents an important advancement toward building a sophisticated and future-ready financial ecosystem in the Kingdom of Bahrain.”

The service is available to all citizens and residents of the Kingdom of Bahrain, accelerating registration processes and reducing barriers, while ensuring compliance with local regulatory and security requirements.The eKey 2.0 platform plays a vital role in empowering individuals and institutions by simplifying access to digital services, strengthening national security, and fostering private-sector innovation Its growing adoption across the financial, telecommunications, and government sectors reflects Bahrain’s ambition to establish its position at the forefront of the global digital economy.

About Beyon Connect

Beyon Connect, a subsidiary of the Beyon Group, is a leading provider of digital trust solutions and the developer of eKey 2.0 — Bahrain’s official platform for digital identity, secure authentication, and consent-based KYC.For more information visit: https://beyonconnect.com/

About Binance Bahrain

Binance Bahrain is part of Binance, a leading global blockchain ecosystem behind the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume and registered users. Binance is trusted by more than 260 million people in over 100 countries for its industry-leading security, transparency, and comprehensive suite of digital asset products and services. Binance is committed to supporting responsible innovation and building an inclusive crypto ecosystem that increases financial access and freedom.

For more information, visit: https://www.binance.bh

Key Highlights

• The memory chip manufacturer submitted a confidential filing to the SEC for a U.S. ADR listing, with plans to finalize the process by 2026
• SK Hynix aims to generate between $6.7 billion and $10 billion through this capital raising initiative
• Capital will be directed toward artificial intelligence infrastructure, including the Yongin HBM production cluster and an advanced packaging plant in Indiana
• During the annual shareholder gathering, CEO Kwak Noh-Jung announced plans to amass over 100 trillion won in net cash for strategic long-term investments
• Shares of SK Hynix climbed more than 5% in Seoul trading on Wednesday; the stock has appreciated approximately 60% since the beginning of the year

Shares of SK Hynix experienced a significant rally of over 5% during Wednesday’s trading session in Seoul following confirmation that the memory chip manufacturer had submitted a confidential filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding a prospective Wall Street debut. The stock’s year-to-date performance shows an impressive gain of approximately 60%, building on a remarkable 274% surge recorded in 2025.

The South Korean chipmaker intends to introduce American Depositary Receipts on U.S. exchanges and is working toward finalizing this offering before the end of 2026. According to company statements, precise details surrounding the offering’s magnitude and timeline remain under development.

According to reports from Korean financial media outlets, the company has set a fundraising target in the range of 10 trillion to 15 trillion won — equivalent to approximately $6.7 billion to $10 billion based on prevailing exchange rates.

SK Hynix initially revealed its intentions to pursue a U.S. stock market presence in December of last year. This strategic initiative aims to secure additional capital necessary for manufacturing capacity expansion as the appetite for AI-optimized memory chips remains exceptionally strong.

As the global frontrunner in high-bandwidth memory chip production, SK Hynix supplies critical components for AI processing units manufactured by major clients including Nvidia. The surge in HBM demand has intensified dramatically, contributing to a worldwide shortage of memory products and upward pressure on pricing.

Major Infrastructure Investments Underway

The capital secured through this offering is anticipated to support the company’s high-bandwidth memory semiconductor manufacturing complex in Yongin, South Korea, including a $15 billion production facility, along with its sophisticated packaging operations in Indiana. Management is also evaluating the establishment of an AI-focused investment division based in Silicon Valley.

During Wednesday’s annual meeting with shareholders, Chief Executive Kwak Noh-Jung outlined the company’s objective to accumulate more than 100 trillion won in net cash reserves to support long-range strategic initiatives.

The company’s recently completed M15X fabrication plant in Cheongju, South Korea, reached operational status earlier than originally projected. Development work continues on both the Yongin manufacturing cluster and the Indiana advanced packaging facility.

A communication distributed to shareholders highlighted “unprecedented growth” occurring within the memory market, characterizing memory as “a key-value product that determines the performance of AI systems.”

Massive Equipment Procurement Agreement

Merely one day prior to announcing the SEC filing, SK Hynix revealed plans to acquire 11.95 trillion won ($7.97 billion) in cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing equipment from ASML — representing one of the largest publicly disclosed procurement contracts for such technology on record.

The coordination between the ASML equipment purchase and the SEC filing submission signals a company acting decisively to cement its dominant position in the HBM marketplace ahead of competitors Samsung and Micron.

Samsung has been working aggressively to regain market share in the HBM segment, while Micron continues expanding its footprint as a domestically-based option for AI memory requirements in the United States.

SK Hynix indicated it will provide additional disclosures once specific parameters of the U.S. listing have been determined, or no later than six months following the initial submission.

The company’s ADR offering will utilize currently outstanding shares rather than issuing new equity, a structure that maintains value for existing shareholders.

Key Takeaways

• Amazon has finalized its purchase of Fauna Robotics, a humanoid robot company based in New York and established in 2024 by former engineers from Meta and Google.
• The startup’s flagship product, Sprout, is a bipedal humanoid robot measuring 3’6″ tall with a $50,000 price tag, operating on NVIDIA’s Jetson Orin technology.
• The transaction was completed last week, with no public disclosure of the acquisition price.
• Approximately 50 Fauna employees will transition to Amazon’s Personal Robotics Group in New York, functioning under the brand “Fauna, an Amazon company.”
• This acquisition follows closely on the heels of Amazon’s purchase of Rivr, a Swiss robotics company, indicating an aggressive expansion into consumer and delivery automation.

On Tuesday, Amazon publicly confirmed the completion of its acquisition of Fauna Robotics, a startup focused on humanoid robots that was launched in 2024 by engineering veterans from Meta and Google. The transaction reached its conclusion last week, although the purchase price remains undisclosed.

$AMZN has acquired Fauna Robotics marking its entry into the consumer humanoid market after the deal closed last week.

Fauna is developing a compact 42-inch humanoid called Sprout that can walk, grip objects, interact with people and even dance. pic.twitter.com/ibRfxcIOuT

— Shay Boloor (@StockSavvyShay) March 24, 2026

With this strategic purchase, Amazon enters the increasingly competitive arena of humanoid robotics, a sector that has witnessed substantial growth and innovation in recent years.

The flagship offering from Fauna is Sprout — a two-legged robot that stands at 3 feet 6 inches and tips the scales at 50 pounds. The design philosophy emphasizes accessibility and consumer appeal rather than industrial warehouse applications.

Amazon.com, Inc., AMZN

Priced at $50,000, Sprout is packaged with integrated software, gripper attachments, and a replaceable battery providing approximately 3 hours of operational time. The robot leverages NVIDIA’s Jetson Orin robotics computing platform and features memory capabilities that develop over time.

Sprout’s capabilities include walking, dancing, door manipulation, name recognition, and engaging in two-way conversations. Notable early adopters include Disney and Hyundai’s Boston Dynamics division.

The entire Fauna team of approximately 50 personnel will relocate to an Amazon facility in New York, maintaining operations under the designation “Fauna, an Amazon company.” Both co-founders, Rob Cochran and Josh Merel, will remain with the organization.

The integration places Fauna within Amazon’s Personal Robotics Group — a distinct division separate from the company’s warehouse automation operations.

Amazon’s Robotics Evolution

Amazon’s involvement in robotics extends over ten years. The company’s $775 million purchase of Kiva Systems in 2012 established the foundation for Amazon Robotics, which currently powers the company’s warehouse automation infrastructure.

Amazon previously ventured into the home robotics market with Astro, a $1,600 mobile household robot introduced in 2021 that continues to operate on an invitation-only basis. Sprout represents a more targeted consumer-focused initiative.

The Fauna acquisition arrives mere days after Amazon revealed its purchase of Rivr, a Swiss enterprise developing robotic solutions for last-mile delivery.

Intensifying Competition in Humanoid Robotics

Amazon enters an increasingly saturated marketplace. Tesla is advancing its Optimus humanoid robot at its Fremont manufacturing facility, with CEO Elon Musk projecting annual production of 1 million units.

Additional competitors in this domain include 1X, Figure AI, Apptronik, Agility Robotics, and China-based Unitree.

Amazon has indicated intentions to leverage its robotics knowledge, retail infrastructure, and devices division expertise to investigate potential applications for personal robots in consumer settings.

According to an Amazon spokesperson, the company is “excited about Fauna’s vision to build capable, safe, and fun robots for everyone.”

AMZN shares concluded Tuesday’s trading session with a 2.28% increase, gaining $4.73.

Solana price rises back above $90 with multi-billion-dollar volume as traders bet on congestion fixes, the Alpenglow upgrade, and SOL’s role as a leading high-throughput layer-1.

Solana (SOL) price is changing hands around $92.39 today, up 0.62% in the last hour, 3.27% over the past 24 hours and 2.78% in the past week, giving it a market capitalization of about $52.88 billion and 24-hour trading volume near $4.18 billion. External dashboards place SOL’s current price in the $92.02–$92.64 band, with a circulating supply of roughly 572.25 million tokens, a market cap of around $52.65–$52.89 billion and 24-hour volume between about $4.34 billion and $4.39 billion. Over the past several sessions in March, daily closes have clustered roughly in an $86–$94 range, confirming a consolidation phase after a volatile start to the month.

That performance is unfolding in a firm market: the total crypto market cap stands near $2.45 trillion, up about 1.31% over the last day, putting Solana among the stronger large-cap performers over the same period. In earlier March snapshots, SOL traded around $84.56 with a market cap of $48.18 billion and 24-hour volume of $5.40 billion, then climbed toward the mid-$90 area with a market capitalization near $54 billion and daily volume described as “moderate,” highlighting a steady recovery rather than a single spike. Together, these figures point to a liquid, actively traded market where price is being driven by both spot demand and derivatives positioning.

Solana is a high-throughput layer-1 blockchain that combines a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism with a timing technique called proof of history, which allows validators to order transactions more efficiently and target tens of thousands of transactions per second. The network has become a core venue for decentralized finance, NFTs, and consumer apps, with SOL serving as the native asset for transaction fees, staking and collateral, firmly placing it in the layer-1 smart contract platform category rather than a DeFi protocol or AI token. Historically, this speed-focused design has come with a trade-off: Solana has experienced multiple outages and congestion episodes, including several multi-hour network halts in 2023 and earlier, which pushed developers and validators to prioritize stability improvements.​

More recently, the project has been preparing a major core protocol overhaul known as Alpenglow, described as the most significant reconsideration of Solana’s architecture to date and expected in the first half of 2026. Community governance records show that about 98% of participating token holders backed the upgrade in a 2025 vote, indicating broad internal support for changes aimed at improving decentralization, throughput and fee dynamics. In parallel, client teams have rolled out updates such as version 1.17.31 and follow-on releases to mitigate persistent network congestion and transaction failures that surfaced during recent periods of high meme-coin and NFT activity.

Although detailed whale transaction feeds for Solana are spread across multiple analytics sites, available market metrics demonstrate heavy participation by larger traders and leveraged players. Historical data shows that on March 25, 2026, SOL traded in a $90.82–$93.21 band with daily volume around 4.43 billion units, corresponding to multi-billion-dollar turnover at current prices. Another dataset cites a volume-to-market-cap ratio near 8.2–8.3%, based on roughly $4.34–$4.39 billion in volume against a market cap just above $52.6 billion, a level of activity consistent with ongoing directional trading and derivatives hedging rather than solely passive holding.

Sector-wide, Solana is part of a cluster of alternative layer-1 networks that includes Ethereum, Avalanche and Sui, all of which compete on smart contract capacity but with different trade-offs in fees, security models and decentralization. Today, Ethereum trades around $2,180 with a market cap of about $263.11 billion and 24-hour volume near $19.19 billion, while Avalanche changes hands around $9.74 with a market cap of $4.21 billion and $262.28 million in daily volume, and Sui trades near $0.969 with a market cap of $3.78 billion and $382.72 million in 24-hour volume. This positions Solana as one of the most valuable and actively traded non-Ethereum smart contract platforms, a status that has persisted despite its checkered stability history and now rests heavily on the successful delivery of congestion fixes and the Alpenglow upgrade.

Within that broader landscape, Solana’s latest push back above $90 looks like a textbook consolidation rally in a flagship layer-1: price grinding higher in a defined range, supported by billions in daily volume and a clear catalyst path in the form of protocol upgrades and congestion relief.

Led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the U.K. government has announced an immediate moratorium on cryptocurrency donations to political parties, citing concerns that digital assets could be used to hide the origins of foreign money in British politics, according to the Press Association.

The move puts crypto at the centre of a wider crackdown on foreign interference, signaling that regulators are increasingly treating anonymous digital payments as a democratic risk rather than just a financial one.

The ban, triggered by the government-commissioned Rycroft review, covers donations of any size and takes effect today. Parties have 30 days from now to return any crypto received once legislation is passed, after which criminal penalties apply. Overseas donations from British expats will also be capped at £100,000 a year.

The review’s author, former senior civil servant Philip Rycroft, stopped short of calling for a permanent ban — framing the moratorium as a pause for regulation to catch up with reality. But with the rules written into the Representation of the People Bill currently going through Parliament, the bar to lift them is high.

“I wasn’t here to look out for the interests of any political party,” Rycroft said. “I was here to look out for the interest of our democratic processes.”

Members of Reform U.K., which currently leads polling data, walked out of Parliament during the announcement. Prime Minister Keir Starmer took a pointed swipe at Reform leader Nigel Farage, suggesting he would “say anything, no matter how divisive, if he is paid to do so.”