Crypto World
XRP Ledger Gets Native ZK Proof Verification Via Boundless Integration
The integration lays the groundwork for private, compliant financial applications on Ripple’s Layer 1 blockchain.
Boundless, a zero-knowledge (ZK) proving network originally launched by RISC Zero, has integrated with the XRP Ledger (XRPL), bringing native ZK proof verification to the Layer 1 blockchain for the first time.
The integration is designed to enable institutions to build financial applications on XRPL that can execute privately while maintaining regulatory compliance, according to the announcement.
XRPL is a public, open-source blockchain built for payments and tokenized finance. The network has attracted more than $550 million in ecosystem funding and counts SBI Holdings, Zand Bank, Archax, and Guggenheim Treasury Services among its institutional users.
Despite the institutional foothold, on-chain transparency has remained a barrier to deeper adoption. Transaction flows, treasury strategies, and counterparty relationships are visible by default on public ledgers, creating competitive risks and compliance friction. Ripple CTO David Schwartz acknowledged as much last year, noting that even Ripple itself could not use the XRPL DEX for payments due to compliance constraints around anonymous liquidity providers.
Emiliano Bonassi, VP of Engineering at Boundless, said the integration covers use cases from stablecoin payments to DeFi flows.
“Boundless brings scalable confidential compute directly to the XRPL ecosystem,” Bonassi told The Defiant. “Institutions can settle on XRPL with ZK proofs and cryptographic attestations for compliance and privacy-preserving logic, such as sanction screening to KYC/KYT/KYB. No trust assumptions, no data exposure, and full control over what gets disclosed and to whom.”
The privacy layer arrives as XRPL continues to expand its institutional network. Ripple teased major XRPL upgrades in February aimed at broadening XRP’s utility beyond payments into stablecoin settlement, tokenized assets, and lending. In November, Ripple partnered with Mastercard and WebBank to test RLUSD stablecoin card settlements on XRPL. And the network’s real-world asset push has accelerated, with Argentina’s YPF Luz launching an energy tokenization platform carrying over $800 million in tokenized assets on the ledger.
“XRPL has always been built for institutional finance. With Boundless, we are making confidential, compliant execution native infrastructure on XRPL, unlocking a new category of enterprise use cases,” said Odelia Torteman, Director of Corporate Adoption at XRPL Commons.
The integration reflects a broader industry shift toward privacy-first architecture powered by zero-knowledge proofs. At Ethereum’s DevConnect conference in Buenos Aires last November, ZK tooling emerged as a dominant theme, with Boundless among the projects highlighted for its work on ZK-powered cross-chain infrastructure. Proof systems have matured from experimental cryptography to what builders now consider core infrastructure for the next phase of institutional DeFi.
This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.
Shin Hyun-song, the nominee to lead the Bank of Korea, said a central bank digital currency (CBDC) and bank-issued deposit tokens should form the core of South Korea’s digital money system, with stablecoins playing a secondary role.
“I expect that central bank digital currencies and deposit tokens will be able to coexist with stablecoins in a manner that is supplementary and competitive to each other,” he said, Yonhap reported, citing the Bank of Korea.
In written remarks submitted to parliament ahead of his confirmation hearing on April 15, Shin said he supports introducing a won-based stablecoin, but stressed that trust in the currency must come first, according to Yonhap.
He framed stablecoins as useful tools for trading tokenized assets and enabling programmable payments, not as a replacement for state-backed money.
His proposal aligns with the central bank’s existing position that stablecoin issuance should begin with regulated banks. Shin pointed to compliance demands such as anti-money laundering and customer checks as reasons to start with established lenders, which already meet these standards.
He also questioned claims that blockchain-based coins would improve foreign exchange efficiency, pointing to uncertainty around regulatory compliance and added costs.
Of cryptocurrencies more broadly, Shin said digital assets fall short of money’s core roles as a unit of account, a medium of exchange and a store of value.
The Bank of Korea has warned that privately issued tokens could pose risks to monetary policy and financial stability, and has called for strict oversight including anti-money laundering and customer verification rules.
Shin’s remarks come as policymakers debate how far to open the market. While regulators have pushed for bank-led models, lawmakers have proposed broader frameworks that would allow non-bank issuers under new legislation.
The country’s first fully regulated stablecoin, KRW1, debuted in February through a partnership between crypto custody service provider BDACS and Woori Bank.
The crypto exchange’s move could signal a challenge to platforms like Kalshi through the integration of prediction markets, expected to be a $1 trillion market by 2030.
Crypto.com has signed a definitive agreement with online casino company High Roller Technologies as part of the cryptocurrency exchange’s move into prediction markets in a challenge to companies like Kalshi and Polymarket.
In a Tuesday notice, High Roller said the deal with Crypto.com would allow the crypto exchange to launch “an event-based prediction markets offering” to US-based users. The notice emphasized that the event contracts would be offered via CDNA, a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)-registered exchange, at a time when US state gaming authorities are cracking down on prediction markets.
“We believe this partnership gives us a strong starting position in a market with meaningful long-term potential, and we’re confident in our ability to deliver,” said High Roller CEO Seth Young.
Crypto.com’s move into prediction markets is the latest example of a crypto exchange attempting to enter what could become a $1 trillion market by 2030. Binance integrated similar features on its wallet app last week through an arrangement with Predict.fun, a prediction market platform on the BNB Chain.
Related: Polymarket bets removed from Google News after brief appearance: Report
High Roller’s (ROLR) stock price on the NYSE American more than doubled following the announcement, to $10.77 from $5.20.
While the CFTC and prediction markets like Kalshi have claimed in court that federal commodities laws preempt state gaming laws, the companies continue to face legal challenges in multiple jurisdictions. Cointelegraph sought a comment from High Roller but did not receive an immediate response.
Bernstein analysts expect prediction markets to move away from sports bets
According to a Tuesday report from analysts at wealth management company Bernstein, while event contracts on prediction markets centered around sports are the entry point for many of the platform’s users, they are “not the endgame.” The analysts expect the share of sports-based event contracts on the prediction platforms to fall from about 62% to 31% by 2030 as other markets take over.
“We expect the institutional market to develop around economics, business and political contracts, as investors seek more direct and discrete exposure to events,” said the Bernstein analysts. “We also expect hedging demand from corporates and insurance firms exposed to specific event risks.”
Magazine: Should users be allowed to bet on war and death in prediction markets?
A crypto scam posing as the official Ledger Live hardware wallet app passed Apple’s App Store review process and drained at least $9.5 million from more than 50 victims across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Tron, and XRP between April 7 and April 13, with stolen funds routed through more than 150 KuCoin deposit addresses and into a centralized mixing service.
Summary
- The three largest individual thefts were $3.23 million in USDT on April 9, $2.08 million in USDC on April 11, and $1.95 million in BTC, ETH, and stETH on April 8, with blockchain investigator ZachXBT tracing all stolen funds to deposit addresses linked to a mixing service called AudiA6, known for charging high fees to obscure illicit transactions.
- The attack worked by prompting users to enter their 24-word seed phrase into the fake app during what appeared to be a normal wallet setup flow; once a seed phrase is entered into any connected application, attackers gain full and immediate control of every wallet derived from it.
- Apple has removed the fake app from the App Store but has not publicly commented on how it passed the review process; ZachXBT separately reported that Apple appears to be blocking a security analysis tool from examining the fraudulent listing, which has complicated independent investigation.
A report on the theft brought the incident to wide attention after ZachXBT published his on-chain analysis. One of the victims, posting on X under the handle @glove, was Philadelphia musician Garrett Dutton of G. Love and Special Sauce, who lost 5.92 BTC accumulated over a decade of saving. “I worked ten years for this,” he wrote. “Be careful out there.” He was setting up his Ledger hardware wallet on a new MacBook when he searched the App Store for Ledger Live and downloaded the impersonating app. The seed phrase he entered gave attackers immediate access.
The incident is not without precedent. A nearly identical fake Ledger app scheme stole approximately $600,000 through Microsoft’s app store in 2023, using the same impersonation-plus-seed-phrase playbook.
The mechanism that makes this attack effective is not technical sophistication. It is social trust. Users going to the Apple App Store reasonably expect that the apps listed there have been reviewed and are legitimate. The fake Ledger app exploited that trust by appearing in search results for “Ledger Live” with convincing branding and a standard setup flow. Apple’s review process, which has rejected crypto apps for policy reasons, apparently did not catch a malicious application designed to steal funds from users of hardware wallets that Apple’s own review policies pushed them toward using in the first place.
Why Seed Phrases and App Stores Are Structurally Incompatible
The hardware wallet’s entire security model rests on one rule: the seed phrase never touches a connected device. The physical hardware generates the seed phrase offline and signs transactions internally, so private keys are never exposed to the internet. The moment a user types their seed phrase into any app, website, or keyboard, the hardware wallet’s protection is eliminated. No legitimate wallet provider, including Ledger, ever asks for a seed phrase during setup. Any application that requests one is either malfunctioning or malicious. Security experts recommend downloading Ledger Live only from ledger.com directly, never from any app store.
What Happens to Stolen Funds and Why Recovery Is Unlikely
ZachXBT traced the stolen funds through nine transactions into KuCoin deposit addresses linked to the AudiA6 mixing service. KuCoin has been barred from onboarding new EU users by Austrian regulators in February 2026, just three months after receiving a MiCA license, and previously paid over $300 million to US authorities in 2025 to settle anti-money laundering violations. Recovery would require coordinated law enforcement action and voluntary exchange cooperation that ZachXBT said he did not expect. The incident has prompted discussion of potential class-action lawsuits against Apple for platform liability, and reinforces why crypto security experts consistently warn against downloading wallet software from any source other than the manufacturer’s official website.
Victims of the OneCoin $4 billion fraud scheme can now seek compensation through a $40 million fund of seized assets, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Monday.
Between 2014 and 2019, Ignatova and Karl Sebastian Greenwood, co-founders of OneCoin Ltd. (OneCoin), and others operated an international cryptocurrency investment scheme defrauding up to 3.4 million investors from around the globe, the DOJ said.
The Sofia, Bulgaria-based operation marketed and sold a fraudulent crypto by the same name through a global multi-level-marketing (MLM) network.
Victims worldwide invested over $4 billion worldwide in the fraudulent cryptocurrency which operated through a network of promoters, who solicited investments in return for purported tokens, but notably did not actually involve any cryptocurrencies nor did OneCoin exist on any blockchain.
The ponzi scheme, which the DOJ called “one of the largest global fraud schemes in history”, collapsed in 2017, after Ignatova and her team were found to have manipulated OneCoin’s perceived value through the automatic generation of new coins.
In June 2024, the DOJ offered a new $5 million reward for the missing Cryptqueen. Greenwood, who allegedly called the investors “idiots”, admitted to federal wire fraud and money laundering charges in 2022.
“OneCoin’s founders sold a lie disguised as cryptocurrency, costing victims more than $4 billion worldwide,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York. He also said the DOJ would continue working to seize criminal proceeds and prioritize getting money back into the hands of victims.
The compensation process for OneCoin comes roughly four weeks after the FTX Recovery Trust announced it would distribute $2.2 billion to creditors in its fourth payout under the exchange’s Chapter 11 plan. Earlier rounds totalled more than $6 billion as part of a process aimed at recovering assets for users of the once-prominent crypto trading platform, which collapsed in November 2022, triggering a steep crypto bear market.
Update (April 14 7:51 PM UTC): This article has been updated to with date of nomination hearing.
Kevin Warsh, US President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve to replace Chair Jerome Powell, has reported millions of dollars in assets ahead of his confirmation hearing, including investments in crypto and AI companies.
In a filing with the US Office of Government Ethics, Warsh reported Excepted Investment Funds (EIFs) in Compound, Dapper Labs, Kinetic, as well as AI companies Delphi, Conversion, Factory, Glue and others ahead of his confirmation hearing in the Senate.
While the prospective Fed chair’s assets amounted to more than $100 million, none of his crypto and AI investments included a value range, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
It’s unclear why the value of the crypto and AI investments were not included in the disclosures, but the ethics’ office rules do not require reporting for assets under $1,000. Among the biggest disclosures were more than $50 million in the Juggernaut Fund and more than $10 million in income from consulting fees for Duquesne Family Office, the investment firm of Stanley Druckenmiller.
Trump announced Warsh as his pick to lead the US central bank in January, but only formally advanced his name to the Senate in March following numerous threats to oust Powell. Whoever heads the Fed has significant influence over US financial policy, including federal interest rates.
Related: Deutsche Börse invests $200 million in Kraken parent Payward
Powell’s second four-year term as chair ends on May 15. The Senate Banking Committee announced Tuesday afternoon that it will hold a hearing on Warsh’s nomination to replace the Fed chair on April 21.
Trump still hasn’t announced key nominations for financial agencies
While the Senate Banking Committee may soon consider Warsh’s nomination, Trump has not signaled that he plans to announce additional picks for commissioners at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), both of which have empty leadership seats at a crucial time for digital asset regulation.
The SEC currently has only three out of five commissioners in its leadership — all Republicans — while another Republican, Michael Selig, is the sole commissioner at the CFTC, where four remaining slots are unfilled. Both regulatory agencies are expected to play significant roles in digital asset regulation should the Senate pass a crypto market structure bill that has been stalled in the chamber since July 2025.
Magazine: Singapore is no ‘crypto hub’ — but it is serious about stablecoins: StraitX CEO
TLDR
- JPMorgan CFO Jeremy Barnum warned that stablecoins could become a form of regulatory arbitrage under inconsistent rules.
- He stated that some stablecoin models may replicate bank-like products without adhering to traditional banking safeguards.
- Barnum emphasized that equal regulation for similar financial products is necessary to prevent an uneven competitive environment.
- He noted that yield-bearing stablecoins could resemble bank deposits while avoiding capital and liquidity requirements.
- Coinbase has advocated for the ability to pass interest earned on reserve assets to stablecoin holders.
JPMorgan Chase Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Barnum warned that stablecoins could become regulatory arbitrage tools under uneven rules. He spoke during the bank’s first-quarter earnings call on Tuesday. He said inconsistent oversight could let firms replicate banking products without meeting banking standards.
Stablecoins and Regulatory Standards
Barnum framed the issue as a matter of oversight rather than technology change. He said some stablecoin structures could mirror deposit products without similar safeguards. He warned that uneven rules could create regulatory arbitrage.
“If the same product isn’t regulated the same way, you open the door to arbitrage,” Barnum said. He added that some models offer rewards that resemble yield to customers. He said firms could “run a bank” without core banking regulations in that case.
Lawmakers continue to review digital asset legislation in Washington, D.C. The proposed Clarity Act seeks to define oversight between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The bill also aims to clarify rules for stablecoins and related services.
The debate also centers on whether issuers can pass reserve interest to holders. Coinbase has urged lawmakers to allow yield distribution on stablecoin reserves. The company argues that interest sharing would improve utility as a savings product.
Banks oppose yield-bearing stablecoins under current frameworks. They argue that such products resemble deposits but avoid capital and liquidity requirements. They also say non-bank firms could attract funds by offering returns that banks cannot provide.
Barnum said JPMorgan supports clear digital asset rules. However, he stressed that consistency matters more than speed in policymaking. He warned that gaps could allow new entrants to operate outside existing boundaries.
JPMorgan Earnings and Digital Infrastructure
Barnum downplayed threats to JPMorgan’s core payments operations. He said the bank already runs a large wholesale payments network. He added that it processes transactions quickly and at low cost.
Instead, JPMorgan continues to build blockchain-based tools within its infrastructure. Through its Kinexys unit, the bank developed JPM Coin and tokenized deposits. These tools allow institutional clients to move funds around the clock.
Barnum described these efforts as part of modernization plans. He said programmable payments now integrate into existing systems. He stated that these features complement rather than replace traditional services.
On consumer products, Barnum addressed compliance requirements. He said stablecoins often appear as digital cash in public discussion. However, he stressed that identity checks and compliance rules still apply.
JPMorgan reported strong first-quarter financial results. Net income rose 13% year over year to $16.49 billion. Revenue increased 10% to $50.54 billion.
The countdown to Bitcoin’s next halving has reached its midpoint. Approximately 105,000 blocks remain before block rewards are cut in half again.
The Bitcoin network is now halfway through the current halving cycle that began in April 2024. When the network reaches block 1,050,000, estimated for April 2028, the block reward will drop from 3.125 BTC to 1.5625 BTC per block.
What the Bitcoin Halving Milestone Means for Supply
Each halving reduces the rate at which new Bitcoin enters circulation. Currently, miners produce approximately 450 BTC per day. After the 2028 halving, daily issuance will drop to roughly 225 BTC.
The halving mechanism is hardcoded into Bitcoin’s protocol and occurs every 210,000 blocks, approximately every four years. This predictable supply schedule is central to Bitcoin’s value proposition as a scarce digital asset.
With approximately 19.7 million Bitcoin already mined out of the maximum 21 million supply, halvings become increasingly significant for the remaining issuance. More than 98% of all Bitcoin will be mined by 2030.
Historical Bitcoin Halving Price Performance
Previous halvings have preceded significant price increases, though the magnitude of gains has diminished with each cycle. The pattern has made halving events closely watched by investors.
The first halving in November 2012 reduced rewards from 50 BTC to 25 BTC. The second halving in July 2016 cut rewards to 12.5 BTC. The third halving in May 2020 reduced rewards to 6.25 BTC. The most recent halving in April 2024 brought rewards down to the current 3.125 BTC.
In each case, Bitcoin’s largest price moves occurred 12 to 18 months after the halving event. However, past performance does not guarantee future results, and market conditions vary significantly between cycles.
This Cycle Is Different Due to ETF Demand
The 2024 to 2028 halving cycle differs fundamentally from previous cycles. Spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States now hold over 1.3 million BTC, worth approximately $92 billion at current prices.
This institutional demand creates a structural floor that did not exist in prior cycles. ETF investors tend to be longer term holders, including financial advisors, pension funds, and family offices building portfolio allocations.
Meanwhile, Strategy continues accumulating Bitcoin at a pace that exceeds new mining supply. The company now holds over 780,000 BTC and absorbs more Bitcoin monthly than miners produce.
The combination of reduced new supply and sustained institutional demand could amplify the supply and demand dynamics that have historically driven post halving price appreciation.
Two Years Until the Next Bitcoin Halving
With the countdown now at 50%, approximately two years remain until the fifth Bitcoin halving. The exact date continues to shift based on mining difficulty and network hashrate changes.
Current estimates place the halving in April 2028, though projections range from March to May depending on the data source. The network targets a 10 minute block time on average, but actual block times vary.
For miners, the approaching halving means another reduction in revenue per block. Mining operations must continue optimizing costs through more efficient hardware and cheaper electricity to remain profitable after the reward cut.
The halving countdown serves as a reminder of Bitcoin’s fixed monetary policy. Unlike fiat currencies where central banks can adjust supply at will, Bitcoin’s issuance schedule is transparent and unchangeable.
The post Bitcoin Halving 2028 Is Now 50% Complete appeared first on BeInCrypto.
The Bitcoin network is now more than halfway (50.01%) through its current halving cycle, with the next halving expected on April 12, 2028, just under two years away, according to mempool.space.
This cycle, known as “epoch 5”, which began in April 2024 and will continue through to 2028.
A halving occurs every 210,000 blocks, roughly every four years, and reduces the reward miners receive by 50%.
This process controls bitcoin’s issuance and ensures a predictable decline in its inflation rate (currently under 1%). In the current epoch, the block subsidy is 3.125 BTC per block. With blocks mined on average every 10 minutes, around 450 BTC are issued daily.
This 10 minute schedule is maintained through difficulty adjustments, which occur every 2,016 blocks. The network increases or decreases mining difficulty depending on how quickly blocks are found, keeping issuance consistent.
With approximately 104,986 blocks remaining in this cycle, bitcoin’s supply continues its dependable path toward its fixed cap. Each new epoch further reduces issuance and its inflation rate, reinforcing its long term scarcity.
Bitcoin has a fixed maximum supply of 21,000,000 coins, one of its main characteristics which underpins its scarcity. Recently, the network reached a major milestone as the 20 millionth bitcoin was mined, meaning the final million will take another 114 years to mine.
Bitcoin post-halving gains lag prior cycles
Bitcoin is up around 15% since the April 2024 halving, rising from roughly $64,000 to just under $75,000. Previously reached an all time high of around $126,000 in October 2025 before falling roughly 50% to $60,000 in early February.
However, it has underperformed previous cycles over the same post-halving period, continuing the trend of diminishing returns, according to Glassnode data.
This is largely expected as bitcoin matures, with greater adoption and a larger market cap requiring more capital to drive outsized gains. As a result, volatility is declining each cycle and price action is becoming more gradual compared to earlier cycles.
The Stripe-backed Tempo blockchain gained a pair of heavyweight validators in Visa (V) and Zodia Custody, the crypto custodian majority owned by Standard Chartered (STAN).
Alongside Stripe, Visa and Zodia will participate in the Tempo blockchain by maintaining network security and verifying transactions.
Visa, a long-time collaborator of the payments services provider, configured and managed the validator node entirely in-house, following six months of joint work with Tempo’s engineering team to integrate the card giant’s infrastructure directly into the blockchain, according to a press release.
Visa plans to run nodes on some other blockchains following the Tempo integration. The card network had previously said it will join the Canton Network, where there are plans to serve as a “Super Validator.”
For the past seven years or so, Visa’s blockchain engineers have been “living and breathing stablecoins,” said the head of Visa’s crypto team, Cuy Sheffield. Now the focus is on supporting the evolution of new payment flows such as machine-to-machine commerce using AI agents, he added.
“We’ve been an early design partner, working very closely with the Tempo team, looking at designing infrastructure that can support many types of new payment flows, and particularly agentic payment flows,” Sheffield said in an interview with CoinDesk.
Tempo, which is also backed by crypto investment firm Paradigm, went live last month with Machine Payments Protocol (MPP), a protocol that lets software and AI agents pay for services autonomously.
“Visa is a big part of MPP,” Sheffield said. “We added the MPP card spec. We announced Visa CLI, which is a wallet that is built on top of MPP where agents can use a Visa card to be able to spend. So we’ve been deeply involved in the Tempo and the MPP ecosystem, and now we’re running the underlying infrastructure on Tempo.”
There’s no doubting Stripe’s conviction when it comes to assembling an end-to-end blockchain-based system for stablecoin payments. But, taking a step back, some people might question how open and decentralized such a system is.
Sheffield, in response, said Visa is simply being pragmatic, looking for products that can drive payment volume.
“Our view has always been that decentralization is a spectrum,” Sheffield said. “There are many use cases where decentralization for the sake of decentralization doesn’t solve a problem. I think we’re now entering a phase in the crypto industry where decentralization is not the primary value prop. It’s whether a new payment infrastructure is fast, efficient, programmable and can outperform some existing payment infrastructure for certain use cases.”
Stripe moved into the stablecoin industry when it acquired stablecoin specialist Bridge for $1.1 billion in 2024. Earlier this year, Mastercard made a similar move, buying stablecoin firm BVNK for $1.8 billion.
Asked if Visa had any plans to offer its own stablecoin, Sheffield said:
“It’s so early and the rules haven’t even been fully written yet. We spent a bunch of time with the OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) and others,” he said. “I think there are many different roles that Visa can play, but everything we do, we want to make sure that we’re doing it in partnership with our clients and our network.”
UPDATE (April 14, 14:16 UTC): Rewrites headline, first paragraph to include reference to Zodia Custody.
Bitcoin extended its latest bounce, surging about 5% on Tuesday to a fresh intraday high near $76,120 as traders weigh a renewed bullish setup and stronger on-chain activity. The move rekindles expectations of a broader rally, with market participants eyeing higher targets if momentum persists and key resistance zones are cleared.
Key takeaways
- Bitcoin punched to an intraday high around $76,120, reclaiming earlier resistance and signaling renewed upside momentum.
- Analysts see a potential breakout above an ascending triangle pattern, with the next major hurdle near $80,000 and a measured target around $89,050.
- On-chain activity supports the price move: daily transaction count rose sharply in 2026, reaching 765,130 million as of April 5, a level last seen in November 2024 when BTC briefly topped $100,000.
- Network activity is corroborated by higher fee revenue, with total on-chain fees up about 4% week over week to roughly $153,700, suggesting greater willingness to pay for priority processing.
Price action and the chart setup
Trading data shows Bitcoin breaking above the upper boundary of its latest consolidation, with Tuesday’s rally pushing the price above $76,000—levels not seen since early February. Analysts described the move as a breakout that validates renewed bullish momentum, noting that a decisive close above the $75,000 to $76,000 zone would confirm the breakout and widen the path toward higher targets.
“Bitcoin surged above the $76,000 level, breaking above its March highs and signaling renewed bullish momentum,”
Skeptics and optimists alike are watching the same crucial points: a sustained close above the moving averages near $75,000 and a daily close beyond the resistance front near $80,000. If these thresholds are crossed, traders anticipate a continued push toward the measured target implied by the formation—roughly $89,050—which would mark a meaningful shift in the short-term trajectory.
Technical commentary also highlights the pattern at play: Bitcoin appears to be validating an ascending triangle after breaking above the upper trend line around $73,000 earlier in the week. A close above the confluence of the trend line and the 100-day moving average would bolster confidence in a bullish breakout, while a failure to sustain above $75,000 could reintroduce volatility and test lower supports.
As observers map the road ahead, one analyst emphasized that breaking above the pattern and the 100MA would indicate a genuine shift in momentum, potentially accelerating a move toward the $84,000 area and higher. The discussion underscores how chart structure, not just price level, is shaping expectations for the near term.
On-chain activity corroborates the price move
Price strength is aligning with rising on-chain usage. Bitcoin’s daily transaction count has surged in 2026, reaching about 765,130 million as of April 5, according to CryptoQuant data cited in market briefings. This level marks a multi-month high and echoes earlier bursts of network activity that accompanied major price moves.
That activity level was last observed during a period in November 2024 when Bitcoin briefly traded into the six-figure territory, approximating a macro moment when speculative fervor and investor interest peaked. An analyst known on social channels noted that the current transaction count is higher than during some earlier high-price eras, suggesting sustained network engagement rather than a fleeting spike.
The on-chain signal is complemented by commentary from observers who point to the broader implications of rising usage: increased transaction counts can reflect a growing number of market participants, higher merchant adoption, or greater trader activity seeking to execute orders with priority. In this context, the 2026 uptick in activity helps explain why the market is not only chasing higher prices but also experiencing more active on-chain participation.
“The network is showing bull market behavior,”
That sentiment came from a Twitter analyst who highlighted the robust on-chain activity as a meaningful backdrop to price action. While the precise drivers behind the surge remain multifaceted, the association between rising transaction counts and bullish momentum is a recurring theme in recent market cycles.
Fees rise as demand for on-chain priority grows
Beyond transaction counts, Fee activity also rolled higher. Glassnode’s Market Pulse observed that Bitcoin’s total on-chain fee volume increased about 4% over the prior week, reaching roughly $153,700. The uptick in fees is interpreted as heightened willingness among users to pay for priority processing, signaling sustained or expanding network demand even as price moves unfold.
From a market perspective, rising fees can reflect a mix of transaction acceleration by traders attempting to front-run or secure confirmations in a volatile environment, and real-world use cases driving higher activity. While fees alone do not determine price direction, they provide a complementary read on how busy the network is and how users are prioritizing their transactions in this phase of renewed activity.
What this means for traders and investors
The combination of a renewed price breakout, a believable chart pattern, and stronger on-chain signals paints a cohesive picture of renewed appetite among market participants. For traders, the key inflection point remains the daily close above critical resistance—roughly $75,000–$76,000—and confirmation of the ascending triangle’s breakout with a follow-through beyond the next hurdle near $80,000. If these thresholds hold, the measured move toward the mid-to-upper $80,000s—and potentially toward $89,050—becomes more credible.
Investors will also be watching whether the surge in on-chain activity and rising fee volume persists, as it can indicate longer-term engagement rather than a purely speculative sprint. The last time the network showed similar on-chain vigor was during prior price cycles when BTC breached notable price milestones, which adds a layer of historical context to the current setup.
Nevertheless, uncertainties remain. The macro landscape—regulatory developments, policy shifts, and broader market conditions—will always color Bitcoin’s trajectory. A decisive close above resistance levels, followed by sustained momentum, would strengthen the case for a continued advance; a retreat or muted follow-through could prompt a reversion to nearer support around the $75,000 mark.
For readers watching the next chapters, the immediate priority is confirmation: a daily close above the $76,000 zone and a sustained push beyond $80,000 would provide a clearer path toward the higher targets implied by the chart pattern and the improving on-chain backdrop. Until then, the market remains in a wait-and-watch phase, balancing chart psychology with real-time network activity.
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