Forget retail traders and Wall Street allocators for a moment. According to BlackRock, the next wave of crypto demand might not come from people at all, but from machines quietly transacting with one another, thousands of times a second, without a human anywhere in the loop.

In a new report titled “The Machine-Native Economy,” the $15 trillion asset manager argues that artificial intelligence and digital assets are converging in ways that could reshape how value moves through the global economy. The core idea is straightforward: as AI agents take on more autonomous tasks, from booking flights to purchasing datasets to renting cloud computing power, they will need a financial system built for machine speed rather than human bureaucracy. BlackRock believes that system already exists, and it runs on blockchains.

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Why Traditional Payments Can’t Keep Up With AI-Driven Crypto Demand

The report’s starting point is a blunt critique of existing financial plumbing. Card networks and automated clearing houses, BlackRock notes, were designed around human onboarding, batch settlement windows, and fee structures that make sense for a $50 purchase but collapse under the weight of a transaction worth a fraction of a cent. An AI agent calling an API a thousand times a minute, or paying machine-to-machine for slivers of compute time, doesn’t fit that mold.

That mismatch, BlackRock suggests, is exactly where crypto demand could surge. Blockchain rails, the report argues, are “particularly well suited to high-frequency, sub-cent, machine-to-machine transactions that take place around-the-clock,” pointing to use cases like on-demand data purchases and consumption-based compute billing as early examples of what an agent-driven economy might actually look like in practice.

Bitcoin as Savings, Stablecoins as Spending Money

Perhaps the most striking part of the report is its attempt to sketch out how AI agents might actually behave with money if given the choice. Citing research from the Bitcoin Policy Institute, BlackRock says controlled simulations found that AI systems generally gravitated toward stablecoins for everyday payments, while favoring bitcoin for long-term value preservation.

In other words, the machines sorted themselves into roughly the same two-tier monetary logic that many human crypto investors already follow: a stable, dollar-pegged token for spending, and a scarcer, harder asset for saving. BlackRock frames this as evidence of “a potential AI-native monetary architecture in which stablecoins serve as transactional money and bitcoin as a store of value,” a split that, if it holds at scale, could generate steady transactional crypto demand from stablecoins alongside accumulation-driven demand for bitcoin itself.

The report goes further, suggesting that as agentic AI systems become more capable and more widely deployed across industries, digital assets could become genuinely embedded in AI’s economic infrastructure. That would stretch beyond bitcoin and stablecoins to include tokenized real-world assets and other native crypto tokens that support blockchain settlement, according to the report.

BlackRock’s Growing Bet on Digital Assets

This isn’t a one-off musing from a firm dabbling in crypto commentary. BlackRock has steadily built out a crypto footprint over the past two years, most visibly through its iShares Bitcoin Trust, which the Securities and Exchange Commission approved in 2024. That fund went on to post the most successful debut of any ETF in history and now oversees more than $67 billion in assets, cementing BlackRock’s position as the dominant player among U.S. spot bitcoin funds.

The firm has also previously argued that bitcoin deserves to be treated as its own asset class, separate from equities or gold, and has pointed to investors using it as a hedge against potential sovereign debt crises. The AI-agent thesis adds a new, less conventional layer to that argument: instead of framing crypto demand purely around human portfolio allocation or macro hedging, BlackRock is now betting that software itself will become a buyer, and that machine-driven adoption could end up being an underappreciated force in the market.

Whether AI agents actually begin transacting in bitcoin and stablecoins at meaningful scale remains to be seen, and the report leans heavily on simulations rather than live market data. But coming from a firm managing trillions of dollars and sitting atop the world’s largest bitcoin ETF, the argument carries weight. If BlackRock is right, the next leg of crypto demand may not be driven by a bull run in sentiment among human traders, but by the quiet, round-the-clock commerce of machines that never sleep, never take holidays, and never wait for a bank to open.

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Justin Sun, the creator of TRON and crypto billionaire suing the Trump family, posted a bizarre admission on X yesterday when he stated that his exchange Poloniex is now “the world’s only exchange used solely by the boss himself.”

In essence, Sun, while perhaps being tongue-in-cheek, seemed to admit that most of the volume on Poloniex is down to him.

The only way to create nearly $1 billion dollars in volume on an exchange would be by trading with yourself. In other words, wash trading.

Read more: Is Justin Sun mixing HTX’s reserves with Poloniex?

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In most countries, wash trading is considered illegal because it can be used to manipulate the price of an asset. However, unless it can be verifiably proven it’s rarely prosecuted.

The SEC previously alleged (in a since-dropped case) that Sun had engaged in wash-trading of TRX.

Freedom in loneliness and rumors about harm

While Sun has been posting about finding freedom in trading crypto assets with himself, the rumor mill went into overdrive during the weekend in Mainland China.

A few individuals began spreading a fake screenshot claiming that UAE media outlets were reporting Sun had been shot in Dubai.

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The news spread fast and wide with some people in China being upset and worried for the billionaire, while others were almost celebratory in their response.

Nonetheless, Sun put the rumors to bed by posting “All is well” with a smiling sunglasses emoji on X on Sunday.

Sun has been hopscotching between Chicago, where he’s promoting TRON ETFs getting listed, and Singapore, where he’s set to attend a conference this week.

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news and investigations, follow us on X, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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Peter Thiel’s venture firm Founders Fund has led a $5 million purchase of governance tokens in Anvil, a decentralized finance protocol that lets businesses use digital assets as crypto collateral, in a deal that signals growing institutional appetite for infrastructure plays beyond simple bitcoin and ether bets.

Pantera Capital, Theta Blockchain Ventures, Bullish and Protoscale Capital also joined the purchase of ANVL tokens, according to a Monday announcement from the project. Terms of the valuation were not disclosed, and Anvil told CoinDesk the tokens were drawn from its existing treasury rather than minted fresh for the sale. The protocol’s token currently has a circulating supply of 80 billion out of a total 100 billion ANVL.

The investment arrives as Anvil, built on the Ethereum blockchain, pushes to make its brand of crypto collateral more accessible to companies that have no interest in writing blockchain code themselves. Alongside the funding announcement, Anvil Research Labs — the protocol’s affiliated research and development arm — unveiled a software development kit designed to let businesses plug into Anvil’s system directly, without needing in-house blockchain engineers.

A Different Approach to Crypto Collateral

What sets Anvil apart from the broader universe of decentralized finance lenders is its underlying mechanics. Most DeFi platforms require users to borrow against their crypto collateral, meaning a company looking to secure a transaction typically has to take out a loan and pay interest on it. Anvil’s model skips that step entirely: digital assets posted as collateral are used to guarantee a financial commitment — such as a payment or a credit line — without the provider taking on debt or paying interest.

That structure is part of what has attracted serious institutional names to the project. Founders Fund, which has backed companies ranging from Palantir to SpaceX, has increasingly dipped into crypto infrastructure in recent years, and its decision to lead this round suggests confidence that collateral-based protocols like Anvil could become plumbing for mainstream financial activity rather than remaining a niche corner of DeFi.

Pantera Capital, one of the earliest and most prolific crypto-focused investment firms, rounds out a backer list that also includes Bullish, the crypto exchange operator that has been expanding its footprint across trading and now venture investment. Their involvement adds weight to the idea that crypto collateral products are being eyed as a bridge between traditional finance and blockchain-based systems.

Lowering the Barrier for Business Adoption

The newly launched software development kit is central to Anvil’s pitch to potential enterprise partners. By abstracting away the technical complexity of interacting with Ethereum smart contracts, the kit is meant to let payment companies, lenders and other financial institutions tap into Anvil’s crypto collateral infrastructure the same way they might integrate any other third-party API — without hiring blockchain specialists or building custom tooling from scratch.

That focus on usability reflects a broader trend in the crypto industry, where protocols are racing to court traditional businesses that want exposure to blockchain-based efficiency without the operational headache of managing private keys, smart contracts or token mechanics directly. For Anvil, convincing businesses that commitments backed by digital-asset collateral are trustworthy — and easy to implement — is key to moving beyond its current base of crypto-native users.

“Businesses need to know the commitments behind payments and other financial obligations are solid,” the company said in its announcement, underscoring its argument that digital-asset-backed guarantees can offer certainty that traditional credit arrangements sometimes lack.

Whether that pitch resonates with risk-averse corporate treasuries and financial institutions remains to be seen. But the involvement of Founders Fund, Pantera and Bullish gives Anvil a credibility boost as it tries to position crypto collateral not as a speculative trading tool, but as practical infrastructure for everyday commerce.

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XRP is consolidating around $1.50 after a strong rebound from the $1.00 area. The broader structure has improved considerably, but the latest price action suggests that buyers are struggling to push through the overhead resistance zone. The key question now is whether the asset can break the $1.70 resistance, or whether another pullback toward support develops.

Ripple Price Analysis: The USDT Pair

The daily chart shows a major structural recovery from the $1.00 support zone. XRP broke sharply higher in August and subsequently reclaimed both the 100-day and 200-day moving averages. The 100-day MA is now around $1.25, while the 200-day MA is around $1.28, with the 100-day average aggressively approaching the other for a potential bullish crossover. This is a constructive development from a medium-term perspective.

The main resistance is located between $1.60 and $1.70. XRP has already tested this area twice in recent weeks, with the latest attempt in September failing to break out. A daily close above $1.70 would represent a significant structural improvement and could open the door toward the next major resistance around $2. Above that, the next resistance zone sits around $2.40, which coincides with a major high formed early this year.

On the downside, the $1.25-$1.30 region has become particularly important. It contains the 100-day and 200-day moving averages and coincides with a marked demand zone. As long as XRP remains above this support area, the broader recovery structure remains intact. A deeper decline back toward the $1.00 area would become more relevant if this support is decisively lost, which would reverse all the recent gains and put the market under immense pressure once more.

The 4-Hour Chart

The 4-hour chart shows XRP trading inside a tightening structure beneath a descending trendline. The trendline currently acts as dynamic resistance, with XRP repeatedly failing to establish a decisive move above it. At the same time, buyers have continued to defend the green support zone around $1.45, creating a relatively well-defined consolidation range.

The immediate resistance is around $1.70, followed by the significant $2 supply zone. A breakout above the descending trendline and subsequent move through $1.70 would strengthen the bullish case and could bring the $2 level into play.

Conversely, a loss of the $1.45 support zone would weaken the short-term structure. In that scenario, XRP could retrace toward the $1.30 area, which is a clear demand zone that buyers should defend at all costs in the short term. Otherwise, a bearish reversal scenario would materialize, which could once again send XRP back toward the $1 area, and potentially lower this time. Still, the current structure is better viewed as consolidation, with a higher probability of a bullish breakout, rather than a bearish reversal forming.

The post Ripple Price Analysis: Is XRP Consolidation Almost Over as the Range Tightens? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

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A majority of affluent investors across seven of the biggest economies hold digital assets, with crypto accounting for around 10% of their portfolios on average, according to a new CoinShares survey.

The survey covered 2,230 investors with at least $500,000 in investable assets across the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland. Digital asset ownership ranged from 54% in Sweden to about 70% in the US, UK, Germany and Switzerland.

At least 85% of current digital asset investors in five of the seven countries said they planned to increase their exposure in 2026, with as much as 91% in the US, UK and Germany.

CoinShares survey of affluent investors across seven countries. Source: CoinShares

The February 2026 crypto market downturn did little to dampen that appetite. In all seven countries, more respondents said the sell-off made them more likely to invest in digital assets than less likely.

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That resilience appears to reflect a longer-term view of the asset class. Long-term appreciation and diversification were the leading reasons respondents gave for investing in crypto, while speculation ranked last. Just 6% identified primarily as short-term traders.

Bitcoin (BTC) remained the most widely held digital asset, owned by 80% of digital asset investors on average, though 89% of BTC investors also held other digital assets. Meanwhile, 77% of respondents believed BTC would play a significant role in the future global financial system, while 79% supported increased regulation of digital asset markets.

Crypto exposure was particularly high among younger investors. That cohort allocated more to digital assets than older investors in all seven countries and roughly twice as much in four of them.

Related: Wealth in retirement: A use case for Bitcoin in IRAs

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Advisers lag crypto investors

The survey also found signs of a disconnect between affluent investors and their financial advisers. Roughly four in 10 respondents in Switzerland, France, the US and Germany who worked with an adviser said they found them overly cautious about digital assets.

The respondents’ view on advisers was echoed by Ric Edelman, founder of the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals and Edelman Financial Engines.

Edelman told Cointelegraph that financial advisers remain slow adopters of digital assets, with many lacking the knowledge or incentive to learn about the asset class. He said:

Advisors are busy; they are already operating a successful practice filled with happy clients — so why bother learning something new? — and most are getting little to no encouragement from their firms.

He added that some firms prohibit advisers from discussing crypto or offering crypto-related investments to clients. As a result, he said advisers may not know which of their clients own crypto and could be missing opportunities to provide tax, estate-planning and philanthropic services around those holdings.

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How much crypto should investors hold?

Edelman challenged CoinShares’ finding that crypto allocations among affluent investors average around 10%, saying his own research suggests allocations of 2% to 5% are far more common.

Despite questioning the survey’s figure, Edelman recommends allocations ranging from 10% to 40%, depending on risk tolerance. He recommends 10% for conservative portfolios, 25% for moderate portfolios and 40% for aggressive portfolios.

“As the asset class matures, 10% allocations or higher will become the norm,” Edelman said. “The sooner people do that, the better off they will be.”

Edelman’s recommended allocations stand in contrast to broader skepticism about using crypto for retirement savings. An August survey from the National Institute on Retirement Security found that 77% of Americans considered cryptocurrency in workplace retirement plans risky, including 46% who viewed it as very risky.

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Americans view of crypto in retirement plans. Source: National Institute of Retirement Security

Magazine: Peter Brandt says Bitcoin may hit $600K by 2029, calls XRP a ‘fool coin’

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TITLE: Pi Network Price Slides Below $0.09 as Bearish Signals Pile Up Despite Market Optimism
KEYWORD: pi network price
DESCRIPTION: The Pi Network price has fallen for five straight days, slipping under $0.09 even as broader crypto markets show signs of greed and optimism.

The Pi Network price has now fallen for five consecutive trading sessions, dropping below the $0.090 mark even as the rest of the cryptocurrency market enjoys a noticeably upbeat mood. The disconnect between Pi’s slide and the wider market’s “greed” sentiment is raising questions about whether the token can find its footing anytime soon, or whether deeper losses are still ahead.

As of Monday, PI changed hands around $0.0865, continuing a downtrend that has persisted despite a Fear and Greed Index reading of 67 on CoinMarketCap — a level that typically signals healthy risk appetite across digital assets. That broader optimism, however, has done little to rescue Pi Network, underlining just how disconnected individual token performance can be from overall market psychology.

Why the Pi Network Price Keeps Falling

Analysts tracking the token point to a combination of weak technical structure and shifting derivatives activity as the main culprits behind the ongoing slump. According to data from CoinAnk, futures open interest in PI has climbed to $10.15 million, up from $9.78 million the previous day — a roughly 3.8% increase in outstanding exposure even as the spot price continues to sink.

That rise in open interest is notable, but it doesn’t necessarily signal bullish conviction. Open interest simply measures the total notional value of active contracts; it doesn’t distinguish between new long positions, fresh short bets, or some mix of both. In Pi Network’s case, the simultaneous increase in open interest and decline in spot price suggests traders are actively positioning themselves, but the direction of that conviction remains unclear. For anyone holding leveraged long positions, the combination of rising exposure and falling prices adds an extra layer of risk that shouldn’t be ignored.

Technical Indicators Favor the Sellers

The charts paint an equally discouraging picture for Pi Network bulls. The token currently sits below all of its major daily exponential moving averages, a classic sign of sustained bearish pressure. The 50-day EMA sits at $0.0911 — just above the current trading price — making it the first hurdle any recovery attempt would need to clear. Further above, the 100-day EMA rests near $0.0991, while the 200-day EMA looms much higher at $0.1219, underscoring how far the token has drifted from its longer-term trend.

Momentum readings tell a similar story. The Relative Strength Index for Pi Network currently sits around 43, below the neutral 50 threshold, pointing to weakening buying momentum even though the token hasn’t yet slipped into technically oversold territory. The Moving Average Convergence Divergence indicator is also mildly negative, reinforcing the sense that sellers currently hold the upper hand in the near term.

Key Levels to Watch

For traders watching the Pi Network price action closely, a handful of support and resistance levels stand out. Immediate support lies at $0.0827, which corresponds to the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement measured between a high of $0.1341 and a low of $0.0704. A secondary support zone sits at $0.0801, marking the low recorded on July 31.

Should both of those levels give way, analysts suggest the $0.0704 swing low could become the next major downside target — a scenario that would represent a substantial extension of the current losing streak. On the upside, any meaningful recovery would first need to reclaim the $0.0911 resistance level tied to the 50-day EMA before the broader bearish structure could be considered under threat.

For now, the gap between Pi Network’s struggling price action and the rest of the crypto market’s relatively cheerful mood remains the defining story. Broader sentiment gauges suggest investors are generally willing to take on risk, yet that appetite has not translated into renewed demand for PI. Whether nearby support levels can finally attract enough buying interest to halt the slide, or whether sellers continue to dictate the token’s trajectory, will likely determine where the Pi Network price heads next.

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Hedera price has become one of the more closely watched charts in the broader cryptocurrency market this week, after HBAR tumbled roughly 23% from its late-September peak near $0.131 to trade close to $0.101. The sharp reversal has left traders split over whether the token can stabilize above the psychologically important $0.10 level and mount a fresh push toward $0.12 before October closes out.

The pullback follows a brisk late-September rally that briefly carried Hedera to its highest level in weeks, only for momentum to fade just as quickly. On Binance’s HBAR/USDT daily chart, the token has recently traded between roughly $0.10019 and $0.10489, hovering just above the round-number support that many traders see as the line in the sand for this correction. A slip below that zone would likely reopen a path toward lower liquidation clusters that market-data trackers such as CoinGlass have flagged in the sub-$0.10 range.

Hedera Price Faces a Wall of Resistance Overhead

Chart watchers point to a cluster of technical hurdles standing between HBAR and a meaningful October rebound. The daily Ichimoku conversion line currently sits at $0.11166, well above the token’s latest price, while the base line is marked at $0.10146 — a level HBAR has recently struggled to hold. That leaves Hedera sandwiched below two separate resistance markers, with the larger gap to the conversion line underscoring how much ground buyers would need to recover just to flip short-term momentum back in their favor.

Adding a sliver of encouragement, the forward-looking Ichimoku cloud has turned green, spanning roughly $0.09762 to $0.10656. That shift suggests underlying conditions aren’t uniformly bearish, even as the token trades beneath its immediate daily indicators. Meanwhile, the Aroon indicator shows Aroon Up readings easing to 50% from a stronger late-September posture, while Aroon Down remains pinned at zero — a mixed signal that reflects fading upward momentum without yet confirming a fresh downtrend.

Weekly Charts Tell a More Optimistic Story

Zooming out, the picture for Hedera price brightens somewhat. On the weekly chart, HBAR sits near $0.10126, comfortably above the Supertrend support line at $0.06943 — a gap of roughly 31%. That Supertrend indicator has flipped green following the recent bounce, and the weekly Awesome Oscillator has moved into positive territory for the first time after an extended stretch of negative readings, hinting at firmer underlying momentum than the daily chart’s sharp pullback might suggest on its own.

Still, a formidable ceiling looms further out. Weekly charts show horizontal resistance marked at $0.14051, a zone that has repeatedly acted as a turning point in past market cycles. Reaching it from current levels would require HBAR to climb nearly 39%, a tall order given the token has yet to reclaim even its late-September high of $0.131.

What Traders Are Watching Next

For the bullish case to play out this month, analysts suggest Hedera price would first need to clear $0.11166 on the daily chart, opening the door to a test of $0.12 and eventually the recent $0.131 peak. Only a sustained break above $0.131 would put the much larger $0.14051 weekly resistance meaningfully in play.

Independent analyst Giannis Andreou, writing on X on October 5, flagged $0.12 to $0.15 as Hedera’s next major weekly resistance zone, while suggesting a recovery scenario hinges on support holding somewhere between $0.085 and $0.10. That view echoes the broader technical consensus: Hedera’s near-term fate rests on whether $0.10 holds as a floor, even as longer-term weekly indicators retain a cautiously bullish tilt.

The divergence between daily weakness and weekly resilience is a familiar pattern in cryptocurrency markets, where a token can post a bullish longer-term signal while still absorbing a sharp short-term correction — particularly when support lines on higher timeframes sit far beneath current trading levels. For now, Hedera price remains in a holding pattern, with $0.10 as the line separating consolidation from a deeper retreat, and $0.12 standing as the next meaningful target should buyers regain control before October ends.

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