Crypto World
Solana (SOL) ETFs Continue Attracting Institutional Money Despite 57% Price Drop
Key Takeaways
- SOL has declined 57% since US-based Solana ETFs debuted in July, currently trading around $88
- Despite price weakness, Solana ETFs have attracted $1.5 billion in net inflows with minimal redemptions
- Institutional investors account for 50% of total ETF capital inflows
- February 2026 saw Solana process a record-breaking $650 billion in stablecoin transactions
- The network now ranks second only to Ethereum in USDC supply across all blockchains
While Solana’s token price has experienced significant pressure since its exchange-traded fund launch in the US, underlying network metrics and capital flows paint a different picture.
The SOL token currently hovers around $88, representing a 57% decline from the July ETF launch price. The token has also retreated 70% from its January 2025 peak of $293, which occurred during a speculative memecoin trading frenzy.
Yet despite this substantial price deterioration, Solana-focused ETFs have accumulated $1.5 billion in net capital and retained nearly all of it, according to Bloomberg’s ETF specialist Eric Balchunas.
In a Thursday analysis, Balchunas highlighted that institutional investors represent 50% of total inflows, characterizing this as a “serious investor base.”
He emphasized that ETF products launching during such severe market downturns typically struggle to attract any capital whatsoever, and most funds would collapse if their underlying asset lost 57% of its value within the first six months of trading.
When normalized for relative market capitalization, Solana ETFs have effectively pulled in the equivalent of $54 billion in Bitcoin-adjusted terms—approximately double the comparative flow Bitcoin ETFs experienced at the same stage post-launch.
On Thursday, Solana ETFs experienced their first net redemption day in more than a month, with $6 million exiting the six available products. This followed a $19 million net inflow recorded Wednesday, based on CoinGlass tracking data.
Network Processes Unprecedented Stablecoin Activity
Beyond price movements, Solana’s blockchain infrastructure achieved a milestone $650 billion in stablecoin transaction volume throughout February 2026, as detailed in a Grayscale Investments research report.
This represents the highest monthly stablecoin transaction volume ever documented on any blockchain network, accomplished within just 28 days. The figure more than doubled the previous record established merely four months prior in October 2025.
According to Grayscale’s analysis, this volume stemmed primarily from SOL-stablecoin trading activity and genuine payment transactions, rather than speculative memecoin speculation.
Solana’s minimal transaction costs have enabled economically viable small-value transfers, attracting developers creating payment infrastructure and micropayment applications that would be economically unfeasible on networks with higher fee structures.
Climbing the Stablecoin Ecosystem Rankings
Solana currently maintains the fourth-largest total stablecoin supply among all blockchain networks. When examining USDC exclusively, it holds the second position, trailing only Ethereum.
Given USDC’s preference among institutional market participants, Solana’s runner-up status in this specific category represents a significant indicator for market observers.
Ethereum continues dominating tokenized real-world assets, processing $15.57 billion over the trailing 30-day period compared to Solana’s $2 billion, based on rwa.xyz analytics.
SOL has declined 2.7% in the past 24 hours and 11% over the past 30 days, according to CoinGecko data. The token last changed hands at approximately $88.40.
Oil’s violent intraday squeeze is colliding with fragile crypto risk sentiment, setting up a tense weekend for Hyperliquid oil perps and broader macro-linked digital assets.
Summary
- WTI crude spiked 13% intraday, pushing toward the key $90 level per barrel.
- The move comes as rate-cut expectations firm and crypto trades lower across majors.
- Hyperliquid oil perps now sit at the crossroads of an energy shock narrative and a tired crypto risk complex.
WTI crude’s surge to around $89.21 per barrel, a 13% intraday jump is a full-blown squeeze into a psychologically loaded $90 handle, leading to what analysts say could be a $100 or even $200 barrel price as the war with Iran rages on.
Coupled with that, WTI has ripped to fresh highs with daily relative strength index (RSI) pushing above +88, a momentum extreme ZeroHedge notes hasn’t been seen since the Kuwait War, as crude rockets through resistance on Iran‑linked supply fears and panic‑level volatility. That combo – geopolitics, stretched positioning, and technicals at blow‑off levels – is exactly what’s now bleeding into Hyperliquid perps, Polymarket oil markets, and, by extension, the entire crypto macro trade.
The immediate backdrop is a macro tape increasingly conditioned on Federal Reserve cuts later this year, with multiple officials signaling openness to easing if data cooperates and market pricing in a non-trivial probability of a June cut. In that context, oil ripping higher injects an inflationary tail-risk back into the narrative right as investors were starting to price a smoother disinflation glide path.
Oil and the broader crypto market
Crypto is not trading in a vacuum here. Majors like BTC (BTC), ETH (ETH), and BNB (BNB) are flashing red, with BTC around $68,446.80, ETH near $1,981.04, and BNB at $631.50, all down between roughly 3–5% on the day. Even HYPE (HYPE), a proxy for appetite around Hyperliquid’s ecosystem, is off about 2.62% at $29.81. In a classic macro playbook, higher oil plus fading momentum in crypto raises the probability of a broader de-risking if energy stays bid into next week.
Hyperliquid oil-linked futures volume surges
Hyperliquid has already shown what an Iran weekend looks like in the perps tape. During the first wave of strikes last weekend, the exchange saw nearly 17 million dollars in oil derivatives volume and roughly 148 million dollars in gold trading in a single weekend session, pushing total 24‑hour commodity turnover close to 200 million dollars while COMEX and CME were dark. Subsequent reports put open interest in Hyperliquid’s CL USDC oil perpetuals above 50 million dollars and highlighted gold and silver perps turning into a de facto 24/7 macro hedge, with some instruments briefly trading above 5,400 dollars per ounce as traders rushed to price Iran risk before legacy benchmarks reopened.
For Hyperliquid traders running oil perps into the weekend, the setup is binary and unforgiving. On one side, if $90 breaks and holds, you are effectively long an inflation scare that could bleed into rates, equities, and high-beta crypto, with oil longs and defensive tokens outperforming.
On the other, if this move is an overextended squeeze driven by positioning and thin liquidity, mean reversion early next week could crush late longers while offering crypto a brief relief window as real-yield fears ebb. With Fed expectations fragile, upcoming data and any geopolitical headlines around supply will matter more than usual.
Oil’s spike is not just about Fed cuts and positioning; it is about Iran risk bleeding into the tape. A widening U.S.–Israel confrontation with Tehran and shipping disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz have injected a hard geopolitical premium into crude, with analysts warning that up to a third of global seaborne supply and a fifth of LNG flows sit in the crosshairs if transit is impaired. Even before WTI flirted with $90, oil had been grinding higher on fears of supply shocks and potential blockage scenarios, keeping prices elevated despite otherwise comfortable inventories. For Hyperliquid oil perps, that means you are no longer just trading a chart; you are implicitly taking a view on whether Iran risk escalates into a genuine supply event or fades back into background noise as flows normalize.
Polymarket oil market opportunities?
Polymarket’s crude oil markets are already trying to price that regime shift in real time, with contracts on where CL settles by month‑end and whether oil prints specific upside targets effectively encoding crowd probabilities on an Iran‑driven spike. As of March 26, Polymarket traders are pricing $150 barrel oil at 9%, while bettors see a $100 barrel at 71%.
Crypto World
Coinbase Prime Integrates Regulated Futures and Cross-Margin Trading for Institutional Crypto
TLDR:
- Coinbase Prime now offers 20+ CFTC-regulated futures contracts with 24/7 trading through Coinbase Financial Markets.
- Unified cross-margin allows institutions to manage spot and futures exposures within one single capital framework.
- Assets are secured under Coinbase’s NYDFS-regulated custodian, keeping all trading within a fully regulated structure.
- Coinbase’s Deribit acquisition moves the platform closer to one unified exchange for spot, futures, and options.
Coinbase Prime has taken a major step forward in institutional crypto infrastructure. The platform announced integrated regulated futures trading and unified cross-margin functionality across spot and derivatives markets.
Through Coinbase Financial Markets, its CFTC-regulated futures commission merchant, institutions now access over 20 futures contracts.
These include perpetual-style products with round-the-clock trading availability. The launch positions Coinbase Prime as a full-service, regulated prime brokerage built specifically for institutional-grade digital asset operations.
Unified Cross-Margin Reshapes Capital Management for Trading Desks
Traditionally, spot and futures trading required separate collateral pools and independent risk systems. That separation often created inefficiencies for institutional trading desks managing complex multi-market strategies. Coinbase Prime now brings both under one capital framework through unified cross-margin.
With this setup, institutions can evaluate spot and futures exposures together within a single portfolio view. Capital moves more freely across strategies, while risk is monitored holistically across the entire platform.
This is particularly useful for basis trading, where hedged positions can benefit from more efficient margin treatment.
Coinbase Institutional shared the development on X, stating that Prime is now “the most comprehensive operating system for institutional crypto.”
The post noted that institutions can now “trade, finance, and manage assets within a regulated full-service crypto prime brokerage framework.”
Prime’s deterministic risk model also allows trading desks to calculate margin requirements before execution. That transparency reduces reliance on opaque margin engines that have historically complicated pre-trade planning for institutions.
Regulated Infrastructure Brings Futures Directly Into the Prime Workflow
Futures access through Coinbase Financial Markets, a CFTC-regulated FCM, is now embedded directly into the Prime workflow.
Institutions no longer need separate platforms to access derivatives markets. Execution, custody, and risk management now operate within a single environment.
Assets remain secured within Coinbase’s NYDFS-regulated qualified custodian throughout the trading lifecycle. This structure allows institutions to operate within a fully regulated framework while accessing both spot and derivatives markets simultaneously.
Beyond futures, Coinbase Prime also covers financing, lending, and operational infrastructure at institutional scale.
The platform is designed so trading desks no longer need to coordinate across fragmented or self-assembled systems.
Coinbase’s recent acquisition of Deribit, the world’s leading crypto options exchange, further broadens this ecosystem.
The goal is a single platform where institutions can access spot, futures, perpetuals, and options together. That consolidated model reflects Coinbase Institutional’s broader objective of building what it describes as an “Everything Exchange” for professional market participants.
The team behind the Curve Finance decentralized finance (DeFi) platform accused the PancakeSwap decentralized exchange (DEX) of using its code without the proper licensing.
The code is tied to the “StableSwap” feature used for swapping stablecoins and “tightly-pegged” assets on PancakeSwap Infinity, the latest version of the PancakeSwap DEX.
“If you want to enjoy using stableswap without legal problems and to borrow some of our expertise to keep users SAFU, you still can contact us for licensing and collaboration,” the Curve team said on X.
In a separate post, Curve said “deep stableswap expertise” is needed to safely integrate swap features, and cited the 2022 hack of the Saddle Finance DEX and the $116 million hack of DeFi protocol Balancer in 2025 as examples of swap-based code exploits.
The PancakeSwap team said it would reach out to Curve Finance to discuss the issue. “Indeed, better to be friends and build together,” the Curve team responded.
Cointelegraph reached out to both teams but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
The incident highlights the potential cybersecurity and legal issues that arise in decentralized finance as projects and protocols continue to iterate on products and expand features.
Related: Curve founder says DeFi must ditch token emissions for real revenue
PancakeSwap Infinity launches and goes cross-chain
PancakeSwap Infinity launched on the Arbitrum network and BNB Chain in April 2025, following the integration of one-click, cross-chain swaps that allow users to move digital assets between blockchain protocols.
The updated DEX introduced “hooks,” smart contract plug-ins that customize parameters for liquidity pools, including dynamic fee structuring, tailored rebates and onchain limit orders that execute when preset conditions are met.
The upgrade also lowered pool creation fees by up to 99% and was built to accommodate different liquidity strategies, according to PancakeSwap.
In July 2025, PancakeSwap Infinity launched on Base, an Ethereum layer-2 (L2) scaling network, and touted up to 50% cheaper trading fees when Ether (ETH), the native token of the Ethereum layer-1 blockchain network, was traded against ERC-20 tokens.
ERC-20 is the token standard for most assets minted on Ethereum, including the gas and governance tokens of Ethereum L2s, memecoins, and other projects issuing tokens on Ethereum.
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Kazakhstan’s central bank has announced a strategic move to invest up to $350 million in cryptocurrency assets, marking a significant shift in its reserve management strategy.
Kazakhstan’s central bank has unveiled plans to invest up to $350 million in cryptocurrency assets. This decision represents a substantial policy shift aimed at diversifying the country’s reserves.
Kazakhstan has emerged as a significant player in the global crypto mining sector, contributing approximately 6-8% of Bitcoin’s global mining due to its low electricity costs. The government is also working on a regulatory framework to legalize and tax crypto mining and trading, further solidifying its position as a crypto-friendly nation, according to Reuters.
The central bank, which oversees Kazakhstan’s monetary policy and manages its currency reserves, is implementing this investment strategy as part of a broader approach to reserve management.
This move is likely to influence neighboring Central Asian countries, encouraging them to consider similar investments or regulatory measures. The shift could potentially transform the regional crypto landscape, making Central Asia a hub for cryptocurrency development and innovation.
The investment decision aligns with global trends where central banks are increasingly exploring crypto assets as part of their reserve diversification strategies.
This article was generated with the assistance of AI workflows.
Bitcoin outflows from exchanges continued during the Hormuz crisis, signaling holders are moving coins into cold storage rather than selling.
Bitcoin (BTC) held near $70,000 on March 6 after a geopolitical shock tied to tensions around the Strait of Hormuz pushed energy prices higher and triggered risk-off behavior across global markets.
Despite the turbulence, blockchain data shows BTC continuing to leave exchanges, suggesting many holders are not preparing to sell.
Energy Shock Rattles Markets
Analyst GugaOnChain linked the latest volatility to disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz, a major energy shipping route, which remains effectively closed amid the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
The market watcher noted that Brent crude traded near $85 and West Texas Intermediate around $81 as the situation pushed up fuel costs, including a $0.27 increase in U.S. gasoline prices during the week.
According to the same analysis, the shock drained liquidity across global markets and led to outflows of just under $228 million from Bitcoin exchange-traded funds on March 5. However, exchange flow data showed an unusual divergence. Using a seven-day moving average, Bitcoin’s net exchange flows remained negative, meaning more coins were leaving exchanges than entering them. Daily data showed withdrawals of 500 BTC, while the weekly total reached about 6,500 BTC, leaving trading venues.
According to GugaOnChain, such movements often signal that investors are transferring holdings into cold storage, which reduces the supply immediately available for sale.
“Given the notable on-chain resilience, the directive is to adopt a tactical defensive stance, maximizing cash now and awaiting confirmation of a reversal in institutional flows before raising exposure again,” the analyst advised.
Trading Activity Intensifies on Major Exchanges
While coins are leaving exchanges overall, trading activity inside platforms has accelerated. Data shared by Arab Chain on March 6 showed Bitcoin turnover on Binance reaching about 425,000 BTC over the past 30 days, one of the highest readings since December.
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Binance’s Bitcoin reserves currently stand near 660,000 BTC, and compared with the 30-day turnover figure, the liquidity ratio sits around 0.64, meaning about 64% of those reserves have been traded or transferred during the period.
That pattern suggests the same coins are changing hands repeatedly within a short time frame, which reflects increased speculative activity and stronger liquidity circulation within the market.
Bitcoin has fallen from a monthly peak attained earlier in the week, with price data from CoinGecko showing the asset trading just under $71,000 at the time of writing, down about 2% in the last 24 hours but still up close to 5% over seven days.
At the moment, the flagship cryptocurrency is sitting between renewed institutional demand and global macro pressure. Exchange withdrawals imply that many holders are waiting rather than rushing to exit positions, even as traders remain active inside the market.
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As part of Outset PR’s Web3 communications talks, the agency founder Mike Ermolaev recently spoke with Jamie Elkaleh, CMO of Bitget Wallet, about how marketing changes when a crypto wallet evolves from a trading tool into a broader financial interface.
Summary
- Crypto marketing is moving towards utility-driven adoption, where product experience and real-world usability play a central role.
- Regional differences increasingly shape communication strategies, as adoption patterns, regulations, and user expectations vary between markets such as Asia and the West.
- As the industry matures, both media narratives and market movements are becoming more influenced by verifiable data, institutional capital, and macroeconomic forces.
While the full conversation explores everything from user acquisition to media strategy and the shifting dynamics of crypto markets, here are several key insights that are worth broader market attention.
Smooth onboarding drives sustainable user acquisition
One of Jamie’s key points is that sustainable wallet growth is no longer driven by incentives. Airdrops and points programs are often used to generate rapid attention. But according to him, these tactics rarely translate into long-term users. Instead, the focus should be on reducing product friction and simplifying onboarding.
“When users can transact without managing seed phrases or holding native gas tokens, adoption becomes more sustainable.”
In a utility-driven market, Jamie says, product design effectively becomes marketing.
Marketing in Asia vs. the West reflects different user expectations
Another point Jamie raised is that crypto marketing strategies vary significantly by region.
In Asia, adoption is closely tied to everyday financial use cases such as remittances, cross-border transfers, and stablecoin payments. As a result, communication tends to focus on speed, accessibility, and practical value.
“In 2025, the region recorded a 69% year-over-year increase in on-chain value. That reflects strong grassroots usage.”
In Western markets, the situation is different. Regulatory clarity and institutional trust shape user expectations much more strongly.
“With frameworks such as MiCA in Europe and new U.S. stablecoin legislation, users prioritize compliance, proof of reserves, and risk transparency.”
Despite these differences, Jamie notes that the core requirement remains the same across regions: products must work reliably in real-world financial contexts.
Data now underlies media credibility
At Bitget Wallet’s scale, Jamie insists that media coverage can’t rely on generic commentary. Journalists increasingly expect verifiable data that helps explain what is actually happening in the market.
“We publish research reports based on on-chain analytics and user behavior trends, which allows reporters to reference measurable insights.”
Per him, stories supported by real usage patterns – whether in transaction volume, adoption, or user growth – travel much further across the media ecosystem. This approach also changes how the team evaluates PR performance.
“We prioritize tier-one mentions, analyst citations, and share of voice within strategic narratives. Secondary indicators include organic brand mentions, backlink authority, inbound media inquiries, and invitations to podcasts or research collaborations.”
The real signal, Jamie adds, appears when external analysts start referencing the company’s data independently.
Crypto markets now move with macro capital
Jamie also confirms that crypto’s relationship with news has fundamentally changed. In earlier cycles, a single headline could move markets within hours. Today, price actions are increasingly shaped by macro capital flows, because
“Crypto has matured into a macro-sensitive asset class.”
As sector valuations reached multi-trillion-dollar levels, individual headlines naturally stopped carrying such influence.
With nearly $44 billion flowing into Bitcoin ETFs in 2025, institutional capital now plays a structural role in the market. In this environment, narratives matter less than fundamentals.
Utility is becoming crypto’s growth model
Reflecting on the conversation, one pattern becomes clear: the crypto industry is gradually shifting away from narrative-driven growth toward functional adoption.
Wallets are used not just for trading but for payments, transfers, and yield farming. Users expect reliability rather than explanations. And as institutional capital becomes a structural force, macro conditions are more important than short-term hype.
In that environment, the logic of marketing changes as well.
“If users don’t need to understand the infrastructure behind the product, the marketing has done its job.”
Buterin proposed AI-assisted wallets where algorithms suggest transaction plans but users must manually confirm large transfers.
Vitalik Buterin has outlined his perspective on how artificial intelligence (AI) could redefine the next generation of Web3 wallets.
He also proposed a model where humans remain directly involved in approving high-value transactions.
AI Will Shape Newer Crypto Wallets
The Ethereum co-founder shared his views on the decentralized social media platform Farcaster, noting that it is “pretty obvious” that the next iteration of wallets will heavily involve AI.
Despite this, Buterin added that he would not trust LLMs with multi-million-dollar transactions or control over large amounts of money. Instead, he gave an approach in which AI systems assist users while leaving the final decision in human hands.
He described an optimal workflow in high-value situations that would involve an AI system proposing a plan, after which a local light client simulates the transaction. The person would then review the intended action and the required outcome before manually confirming it.
However, Buterin warned that this approach must be implemented conservatively with a strong emphasis on security. He suggested that one way to achieve this is by removing decentralized application interfaces from the transaction process. By eliminating dApp user interfaces from the flow entirely, the system could reduce several attack vectors associated with theft and privacy risks.
The 32-year-old has previously discussed how cryptocurrency and AI could evolve together. He envisions blockchains and the technology working hand-in-hand, with crypto providing the trust, privacy, and economic infrastructure that it needs to operate safely and fairly.
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Proposed AI-Assisted Wallet Workflows
Other developers and community members responded to Buterin’s comments by describing potential implementations of the idea.
Ethereum developer Andrey Petrov suggested two additional scenarios. In the first, a user initiates a transaction as usual while AI analyzes the payload about to be signed. The technology would then attempt to guess their intended action and explain it in plain language, allowing them to confirm whether the transaction accurately reflects what they meant to do.
In the second case, the user either states their intended action directly or relies on the explanation generated in the first step. The AI then tries to reconstruct the transaction independently, without referencing the original amount, to determine whether it arrives at the same outcome. He explained that any differences between the two would show areas that require further review before the process is finalized.
Another Farcaster user, identified as fkaany, described a framework in which AI plans complex crypto strategies such as multi-hop swaps, yield optimization, and gas minimization.
This would involve a local light client simulating the outcome, which would allow individuals to review a clear summary and manually confirm the transaction, helping reduce risks from blind signing, phishing interfaces, and malicious dApp payloads.
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TLDR:
- Minimmit achieves finality in one signing round, replacing Casper FFG’s two-round justification and finalization process. (truncate to fit — 105 chars)
- The new gadget lowers fault tolerance from 33% to 17%, but raises the unilateral censorship threshold from 67% to 83%.
- Buterin argues censorship poses a greater threat than finality reversion, as it lacks immediate, verifiable on-chain evidence.
- Minimmit requires 83% of clients to share a bug before incorrect finalization occurs, giving developers a wider safety margin.
Minimmit has been put forward as a direct replacement for Casper FFG within Ethereum’s consensus layer. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently shared a detailed technical post comparing both finality gadgets.
Casper FFG has long served as a two-round finality mechanism on the network. The proposed system, by contrast, achieves finality in a single round of validator signatures.
The proposal is drawing attention as the Ethereum community continues to evaluate changes to its consensus architecture.
Why the New System Operates in a Single Round
Casper FFG asks each attester to sign a block on two separate occasions. The first signature “justifies” the block, and the second “finalizes” it.
Minimmit cuts this down to a single signing round. This makes the process more efficient for validators across the network.
The change comes with a direct cost to fault tolerance, though. The new system’s threshold sits at 17%, compared to 33% under Casper FFG.
A smaller portion of malicious stake can therefore disrupt finality under the new model. Still, Buterin’s post makes the case that other properties of the system more than offset this drop.
In the post shared on X, Buterin described himself as a long-standing “security assumptions hawk” in Ethereum’s consensus research. He cited his past push for 49% fault tolerance under synchrony.
He also referenced his work on DAS for dishonest-majority-resistant data availability checks. Despite this record, he stated he is “even enthusiastic” about the proposed design.
The asynchronous network case also differs between the two systems. Under ideal 3SF, finality holds as long as an attacker controls less than 33% of stake.
The proposed gadget lowers that same protection to 17%. In both cases, any reversion of finality triggers massive slashing penalties against offending validators.
Censorship Resistance and the Broader Security Picture
Buterin’s argument centers on identifying censorship as the more dangerous threat. Unlike finality reversion, censorship produces no immediate, publicly verifiable evidence against the attacker.
A reversion event, on the other hand, results in automatic, large-scale slashing. This asymmetry is a core reason behind his support for Minimmit’s design.
Both systems require an attacker to control over 50% of staked ETH to carry out censorship. The key distinction lies in what happens at higher thresholds.
In 3SF, an attacker above 67% can finalize the chain unilaterally, removing any coordination point for honest validators. The new system raises that threshold to 83%.
Software bugs present another area where the proposed gadget holds an advantage. Under 3SF, a flaw shared by 67% of client software can accidentally finalize an incorrect chain state.
Minimmit raises that bar to 83%. This wider margin gives developers more time to identify and respond before errors become permanent.
Buterin also addressed the economic argument against finality reversion attacks. With 15 million ETH staked, reverting finality under 3SF would require slashing 5 million ETH, or roughly $10 billion.
He noted that the 17% baseline still represents an enormous deterrent on its own. From there, he argues the proposed system’s other properties make it the stronger overall consensus design for Ethereum.
Nevin Shetty was convicted of wire fraud related to secretly moving $35 million in funds from a Seattle startup to his own crypto platform in 2022 to use for DeFi investments.
A Seattle judge has sentenced the former chief financial officer of a local startup to two years in prison following his conviction for wire fraud related to a cryptocurrency business.
In a Thursday notice, the US Justice Department said Nevin Shetty would serve two years in prison after he “secretly moved approximately $35 million in company funds to a cryptocurrency platform he controlled as a side business.” He moved the funds to the HighTower Treasury platform in 2022 before a crypto market downturn, resulting in the disclosure of the transfer.
According to the DOJ, Shetty was able to transfer the funds without any executives or board members at the Seattle startup knowing about it, then using the money to invest in “high-yield DeFi lending protocols that promised to generate returns of 20% or more.” He initially earned $133,000 in the first month before the collapse of the Terra ecosystem contributed to a significant market downturn.
“[T]he cryptocurrency investments that Shetty made with the stolen funds soon began declining and by May 13, 2022, the value of the investments was nearly zero,” said the DOJ. “After the $35 million was essentially gone, Shetty told two of his fellow executives what he had done. He was immediately fired.”
Shetty was indicted on charges of wire fraud in May 2023 and found guilty on four counts in November 2025 after a nine-day jury trial. He has been ordered to pay back the stolen funds and be on supervised release for three years after serving his two-year sentence.
Related: Analysts reject Jane Street ‘10 a.m. dump’ claims, say Bitcoin isn’t easily manipulated
Former FTX CEO is still waiting on an appeal
Shetty’s 2022 case happened months before the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which later resulted in the arrest and conviction of its former CEO, Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried. SBF was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2024 but has filed to appeal the ruling. As of Friday, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had not announced any decision since it heard arguments in November.
Magazine: The debate over Bitcoin’s four-year cycle is over: Benjamin Cowen
Astana’s $350M pivot from gold and FX to digital assets lands just as Bitcoin grinds against the $70K ceiling, adding fresh “real money” bid to an already tight market.
Summary
- Kazakhstan will reallocate up to $350M from its gold and FX reserves into crypto-linked assets starting April–May.
- The move trims exposure to sanction‑prone reserve assets and adds indirect Bitcoin and Ethereum exposure via funds and infrastructure stocks.
- It lands as Bitcoin trades in the high‑$60Ks to low‑$70Ks with resistance near $73K–$76K, tightening the macro link between sovereign flows and crypto pricing.
According to Reuters, Kazakhstan’s central bank has confirmed plans to carve out up to $350M from its roughly $69B stockpile of gold and foreign exchange reserves to build a crypto‑focused portfolio, a structural shift few emerging market monetary authorities have dared to make.
Rather than loading Bitcoin directly onto the balance sheet, the National Bank will channel capital into funds, index products, and equities tied to digital asset infrastructure, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) exposure via intermediated vehicles. The allocation, slated to begin around April–May, will be funded by rotating out of existing gold and FX holdings, effectively swapping a slice of traditional reserves for higher‑beta digital risk.
Commentators have been blunt that diverting reserves into crypto‑linked assets is a hedge against the kind of reserve freezes Russia faced in 2022, when “safe” FX and gold suddenly proved politicized. By allocating to liquid, globally traded crypto instruments and the companies that support them, Kazakhstan is testing whether digital rails can complement the legacy reserve system without openly confronting it. With only a small fraction of total reserves at stake, the central bank preserves plausible deniability while signaling to miners, exchanges, and infrastructure providers that Astana wants to be a regional hub.
The timing intersects directly with a taut crypto market. Bitcoin is trading in a consolidation band roughly between the high‑$60Ks and mid‑$70Ks, repeatedly probing resistance around $73K–$76K amid rising volumes and a market cap north of $1.4T. Short‑term forecasts cluster around a $72K–$76K range, with technicians watching for a breakout that could extend toward $78K–$80K if fresh capital keeps arriving. Against that backdrop, Kazakhstan’s $350M is not huge in nominal terms, but it is “sticky,” multi‑year reserve capital—precisely the kind of flow that strengthens the narrative of Bitcoin as an emerging reserve adjunct rather than just a speculative trade. If more mid‑tier sovereigns follow, price action at $70K stops being just a chart level and starts to look like a policy decision made in central bank boardrooms.
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as WTI rips past $90, is there a weekend opportunity?
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