By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Bitcoin BTC$73,979.85 and the wider crypto market are taking a breather in advance of today’s Federal Reserve rate decision, which could confirm that the interest-rate backdrop is becoming less of a tailwind.

The central bank is widely expected to keep the benchmark borrowing cost unchanged in the 3.5%-3.75% range, putting the focus on growth and inflation projections as well as Chairman Jerome Powell’s comments at the post-meeting press conference.

“For investors, the key question is whether the dot plot shifts toward fewer cuts and whether Powell emphasizes the danger of easing financial conditions too quickly,” said Fabian Dori, chief investment officer at Sygnum Bank, referring to the chart of where decision makers expect interest rates to be at year-end. “Either development would reinforce a ‘higher for longer’ bias and tighten financial conditions at the margin.”

According to Dori, the bitcoin price is at a critical juncture, where repeated failures to stay above $75,000 signals caution and mean-reversion behavior. Should the Fed raise alarm over the inflationary impact of the Iran war-related oil-price shock and reinforce expectations of slower or delayed rate cuts, then BTC is likely to remain below $75,000.

“A more hawkish stance could keep bitcoin capped below 75k and extend the current consolidation phase,” he noted.

Singapore-based QCP Capital said markets have pared easing expectations as the higher oil price complicates the case for interest-rate cuts, even as growth and labour data soften. This leaves the rates backdrop less supportive for crypto.

Bitcoin’s stalled upswing stalled comes despite renewed institutional appetite for spot ETFs and regulatory clarity from the SEC and CFTC.

The broader market continues to mirror the largest cryptocurrency. The CoinDesk 20 Index has been largely steady for the past 24 hours, alongside similar action in ether (ETH), XRP (XRP), solana (SOL), and other majors. Smaller coins such as SIREN, M, and KAS, however, have gained about 10% each.

In traditional markets, futures tied to the S&P 500 index have risen by 0.5%, signaling an extension of a two-day rally. Meanwhile, the Dollar Index pulled back to 99.50 from Friday’s high above 100, and the 10-year Treasury yield receded to 4.17% from 4.30%. Taken together, these moves point to continued risk-on sentiment. Stay alert!

Read more: For analysis of today’s activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today

What to Watch

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead“.

• Crypto
• Macro
  • March 18, 8:30 a.m. ET: U.S. PPI MoM for February est. 0.3% (Prev. 0.5%); Core PPI MoM est. (Prev. 0.8%)
  • March 18, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. PPI YoY for February est. 3.7% (Prev. 3.6%); Core PPI YoY est. 3.2% (Prev. 3.6%)
  • March 18, 9:45 a.m.: Bank of Canada interest-rate decision est. 2.25% (Prev. 2.25%)
  • March 18, 10:00 a.m.: U.S. Factory Orders MoM for January (Prev. -0.7%)
  • March 18, 2:00 p.m.: Federal Reserve interest-rate decision est. 3.50%-3.75% (Prev. 3.50%-3.75%); FOMC economic projections
  • March 18, 2:30 p.m.: Fed Chair press conference
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
  • March 18: Bitfarms (BITF), pre-market, -$0.03

Token Events

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead“.

• Governance votes & calls
  • March 18: Jupiter (JUP) to hold its weekly Planetary Call community session with team updates.
  • March 18: THETA$0.1876 head of marketing and PR to discuss ecosystem updates.
  • WalletConnect Network is voting on allocating 50 million WCT tokens as a dedicated rewards budget for WalletConnect Pay in 2026. Voting ends March 18.
  • ENS is voting on a one-time transfer of 900,000 USDC from the ENS Endowment to wallet.ensdao.eth to cover a shortfall in stream payments owed to ENS Labs. Voting ends March 18.
• Unlocks
• Token Launches
  • March 18: Katana (KAT) to be listed on Binance, MEXC, KuCoin, and others.

Conferences

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead“.

Market Movements

• BTC is down 0.73% from 4 p.m. ET Tuesday at $73,825.38 (24hrs: +0.11%)
• ETH is down 0.44% at $2,307.45 (24hrs: -0.33%)
• CoinDesk 20 is down 0.78% at 2,148.73 (24hrs: -0.27%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 6 bps at 2.75%
• BTC funding rate is at -0.0069% (-7.5643% annualized) on Binance

• DXY is unchanged at 99.56
• Gold futures are down 0.10% at $4,996.20
• Silver futures are up 0.65% at $80.05
• Nikkei 225 closed up 2.87% at 55,239.40
• Hang Seng closed up 0.61% at 26,025.42
• FTSE 100 is up 0.29% at 10,433.60
• Euro Stoxx 50 is up 1.02% at 5,828.33
• DJIA closed on Tuesday up 0.10% at 46,993.26
• S&P 500 closed up 0.25% at 6,716.09
• Nasdaq Composite closed up 0.47% at 22,479.53
• S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.16% at 32,929.09
• S&P 40 Latin America closed down 3.50% at 3,459.11
• U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is down 2 bps at 4.20%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 1.30% at 6,809.00
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 1.57% at 25,184.00
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average futures are up 1.18% at 47,595.00

Bitcoin Stats

• BTC Dominance: 59.11 (0.15%)
• Ether-bitcoin ratio: 0.03139 (0.1%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 919 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $32.37
• Total fees: 3.08 BTC / $228,857
• CME Futures Open Interest: 115,080 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 14.9 oz.
• BTC vs gold market cap: 4.93%

Technical Analysis

• The chart shows the number of BTC/USD longs, or bullish bets, on Bitfinex.
• The growth has stalled, with the tally now at 78,470 versus 79,115 early this month.
• As counterintuitive as it may sound, past data shows that declines in long positions on Bitfinex tend to be bullish for BTC, and vice versa.

Crypto Equities

• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Tuesday at $210.23 (+3.40%), +1.77% at $213.95 in pre-market
• Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $23.50 (+1.73%), +0.89% at $23.71
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $9.24 (+0.11%), +0.97% at $9.33
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $14.68 (+1.94%), +1.02% at $14.83
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $16.42 (–3.24%), +1.46% at $16.66
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $10.11 (+0.90%), +0.99% at $10.21
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $9.24 (–0.86%)
• CoinShares Bitcoin Mining ETF (WGMI): closed at $40.13 (–0.79%)
• Circle Internet Group (CRCL): closed at $132.31 (+5.15%), +1.50% at $134.30
• Bullish (BLSH): closed at $39.94 (+0.81%), +1.10% at $40.38

Crypto Treasury Companies

• Strategy Inc. (MSTR): closed at $150.28 (+1.87%), +0.32% at $150.76
• Strive Asset Management (ASST): closed at $11.10 (+2.21%), unchanged in pre-market
• SharpLink (SBET): closed at $8.31 (+1.34%), +0.48% at $8.35
• Upexi (UPXI): closed at $1.15 (+6.48%), –0.87% at $1.14
• Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.21 (–3.20%)

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

• Daily net flows: $199.4 million
• Cumulative net flows: $56.51 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~1.29 million

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flows: $138.2 million
• Cumulative net flows: $11.99 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~5.76 million

Source: Farside Investors

While You Were Sleeping

ETH is up 22% year-on-year while Bitcoin has shed nearly 11% over the same stretch, a divergence that is starting to show up in the charts.

Bitcoin’s market share is stuck between 58% and 60%, which is a six-month trading range that one expert says will decide whether Ethereum and smaller altcoins enter a bullish season or suffer more losses.

As such, the market observer urged keeping an eye on the level at which dominance could break, ushering in the next big move in the crypto market.

The Narrow Corridor Controlling Crypto’s Fate

Bitcoin dominance (BTC.D), which measures how much of the total cryptocurrency market cap BTC makes up, was stuck between 58% and 60% for the last 6 months. But according to analyst Ash Crypto, this consolidation has created a technical setup where a break above 60% could send dominance up to 63% or 64%.

And if that happened, it would mean that institutions are only buying Bitcoin, causing altcoins to bleed further and pushing the value of the ETH/BTC pair to new lows.

On the other hand, a break below 58% would mean that capital is leaving Bitcoin and going into Ethereum and other altcoins. The analysts said that this would confirm an ETH/BTC breakout above the 0.0320 level, which would mark the start of a genuine altcoin season.

The ETH/BTC pair itself is printing what Ash Crypto described as a bear trap, something it has done twice before.

“Break above 0.0320 and ETH starts outperforming Bitcoin,” the expert wrote. “Break below 0.0280 and new lows follow.”

At the time of writing, ETH/BTC was trading close to 0.0314, just below the critical threshold Ash Crypto had identified.

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Ethereum’s Technical Picture Gets Interesting

BTC itself has been mostly flat over the past 24 hours, staying just above $74,000 after hitting a six-week high of about $76,000 on Coinbase on Tuesday. However, there’s much more action over longer periods, with the asset up more than 6% in the last seven days and about 8% across 30 days.

Ethereum has had a pretty good performance in the last few weeks, going up about 14% in the last seven days and about 18% in both the last 14 and 30 days. At the time of writing, it was trading above the $2,300 level, up 22% from the same time last year, compared to BTC’s nearly 11% drop in the same period.

At the same time, ETH’s SuperTrend indicator changed from “Sell” to “Buy” for the first time since September 2025. Recall, the last two times that signal showed up, the cryptocurrency rose by 52% and 174%, respectively, prompting analyst Ali Martinez to identify $2,400 and $2,600 as the next levels to watch.

Bitcoin BTC$73,833.82 consolidated following Tuesday’s jump to $76,000 alongside a 33% drop in daily trading volume to $36.9 billion.

The largest cryptocurrency has added just 0.4% since midnight UTC after bouncing off $73,500 as it looks to establish a new level of support ahead of a potential bullish breakout.

While analysts predicted a fast move to $80,000 after $72,000 was taken out, price action has actually been much more measured. Traders with long positions took profits and those who were forced out of short positions are waiting on the sidelines to reenter.

Volatility has also retreated in commodities gold, silver and crude oil, with the war in Iran continuing to put complete risk-on mode on hold.

U.S. stocks are beginning to experience a period of prolonged upside; Nasdaq 100 futures are up 0.66% since midnight UTC, followed by the S&P 500, which has gained 0.5%.

Investors will be keeping a close eye on Wednesday’s Federal Reserve meeting because although a rate pause is all but certain, increased inflation numbers due to the surge in oil prices and weaker job numbers in the U.S. could influence sentiment at the post-decision press conference.

Derivatives positioning

• Growth in bitcoin futures open interest (OI) on major exchanges has stalled alongside slightly negative fund rates. That’s a sign that traders are not adding new bullish positions and bears are getting a slight edge.
• OI in ETH, XRP and SOL fell from early Tuesday highs as spot prices lost bull momentum. This suggests traders are unwinding positions, pointing to a cooling of speculative activity.
• OI in privacy-focused ZEC, which has gained nearly 4% in 24 hours and 31% in a week, has risen to 1.75 million ZEC, the most since Jan. 25. The increase in OI validates the recent price rise.
• Funding rates for XRP, BNB and SOL have flipped negative, indicating a bias for bearish short positions. Traders may be hedging for potential downside volatility after the Fed meeting.
• Bitcoin’s one-day implied volatility, or the expected price swing over 24 hours, remains steady at around an annualised 50%. That equates to a 24-hour move of about 2.6%. In other words, the market doesn’t see the impending Fed meeting as a major price mover for the largest cryptocurrency.
• The same can be said for ether, solana and XRP.
• On Deribit, options market positioning looks defensive in both bitcoin and ether, with skews showing a bias for put, or bearish, options.
• Block flows featured demand for limited profit potential strategies such as bitcoin call diagonal spreads and volatility bets like straddles. In ETH’s case, traders preferred risk reversals and straddles.

Token talk

• The altcoin market continues to show strength with the “Altcoin Season” index hitting its highest in six months. The reading of 54/100 is a far cry from early February, when it languished at 22/100.
• Privacy coin zcash (ZEC) was one of the best-performing altcoins on Wednesday, adding 3.4% since midnight despite the rest of the market trading relatively unchanged. It has now increased by 32% in the past week.
• Decentralized finance (DeFi) lending token MORPHO also continued its rich vein of form after rising by 2.3% since midnight to add to a monthly gain of 33%.
• The best-performing benchmark over the past 24 hours has been the
  CoinDesk Smart Contract Platform Select Capped Index (SCPXC), with the index heavily weighted towards layer-1 tokens posting a 0.8% gain, while the CoinDesk Memecoin Index (CDMEME) lost ground, tumbling by 2.7%.

Ripple has expanded its financial infrastructure in Brazil, targeting deeper institutional adoption and regulatory approval. The company introduced payments, custody, and treasury tools for local institutions. Meanwhile, it plans to secure a Virtual Asset Service Provider license under Brazil’s evolving digital asset framework.

Ripple Expands Enterprise Services in Brazil

Ripple has launched a full enterprise platform tailored for Brazil’s financial institutions. The rollout includes cross-border payments, custody solutions, and treasury management tools. Moreover, the company added prime brokerage features to extend services beyond basic payment rails.

The expansion aligns with Brazil’s structured regulatory push for digital assets and financial innovation. Ripple continues to focus on compliance while scaling operations in regulated markets. Therefore, the planned VASP license application supports its long-term presence in the country.

Brazil offers a mature financial ecosystem, which attracts global fintech firms seeking growth opportunities. Ripple has maintained a regional focus due to increasing demand for efficient settlement systems. Consequently, the company positions its infrastructure as a solution for modern financial operations.

Institutional Adoption and RLUSD Growth

Ripple Payments now operates across more than 60 markets and has processed over $100 billion globally. The platform enables faster settlement using both fiat currencies and stablecoins. Additionally, several Brazilian institutions actively use the network for payments and liquidity management.

Banco Genial uses Ripple’s system for same-day U.S. dollar disbursements and plans to integrate RLUSD into payment flows. Braza Bank supports U.S. dollar transfers and issued its BBRL stablecoin on the XRP Ledger. Meanwhile, Nomad manages treasury flows between Brazil and the United States using Ripple infrastructure.

Other firms continue to adopt Ripple’s tools for various financial operations across the region. Azify supports currency exchange into major global currencies using the Ripple system. Similarly, Attrus and Frente Corretora use the platform for cross-border payments and foreign exchange settlements.

RLUSD adoption continues to rise across Latin America, supported by institutional demand for liquidity solutions. The stablecoin has surpassed a $1.5 billion market capitalization. Furthermore, regulators in the United States oversee RLUSD through established financial authorities.

Ripple Custody has also expanded into Brazil, offering secure digital asset storage for institutions. The platform integrates compliance tools and supports staking across multiple proof-of-stake networks. As a result, firms such as CRX and Justoken now use custody services for tokenized asset operations.

CRX has settled nearly $100 million on-chain using Ripple Custody and XRPL infrastructure. Meanwhile, Justoken has tokenized over $1.7 billion in assets and plans regional expansion. This growth reflects increasing institutional reliance on blockchain-based financial systems.

RLUSD now trades on platforms such as Mercado Bitcoin, Foxbit, and Ripio across Brazil. Additionally, several financial institutions support the stablecoin for treasury and settlement use cases. This integration strengthens Ripple’s broader payments ecosystem across Latin America.

A cross-party parliamentary committee in the United Kingdom has urged the government to impose an immediate moratorium on cryptocurrency donations to political parties until stronger safeguards are in place.

In a report published on Wednesday, the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy said the government should amend the Representation of the People Bill to impose an “immediate moratorium on crypto donations” until the Electoral Commission produces statutory guidance ahead of the next general election, due by August 2029.

The committee also called for the creation of a Political Finance Enforcement Unit to oversee these activities and reduce the minimum threshold for declaring gifts tied to political donations from 11,180 British pounds ($14,900) to 500 pounds ($668), and proposed increasing the maximum custodial sentences to three years for wrongdoing involving foreign financing.

The committee cited growing foreign state threats and efforts to influence the UK’s positions on critical issues, including its relations with the US, the European Union and Ukraine.

The recommendation comes amid rising scrutiny of crypto-linked money in British politics. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK became the first party to start accepting crypto donations in 2025. Reform UK recently disclosed a $4 million donation from crypto investor Christopher Harborne in the fourth quarter of 2025, after a record $12 million gift in the previous quarter.

Crypto donations pose “unnecessary” risk for UK politics

Crypto donations pose an “unnecessary and unacceptably high risk” to the integrity of the political finance system and public trust, barring robust regulator guardrails, the report states.

“We see no democratic imperative to permit the use of crypto in political finance until adequate safeguards are in place.”

The committee also cited jurisdictions, such as Ireland, that have banned party members from accepting political cryptocurrency donations due to foreign interference concerns.

The report comes shortly after Matt Western, chair of the committee, urged the government to put a temporary halt on crypto donations to political parties, citing foreign interference risks, Cointelegraph reported on Feb. 26.

Related: UK Lords launch stablecoin inquiry as Bank of England moves to finalize rules

Crypto donations raise concern in the UK

Political cryptocurrency donations are legal in the UK, subject to permissible rules under the Electoral Commission guidance. UK lawmakers reportedly started considering a ban on political cryptocurrency donations in December 2025.

Weeks later, seven senior UK Labour Party MPs have urged Prime Minister Keir Starmer to ban crypto for political donations, Cointelegraph reported on Jan. 12. 

“Crypto can obscure the true source of funds, enable thousands of micro donations below disclosure thresholds, and expose UK politics to foreign interference,” wrote business and trade committee chair Liam Byrne, one of the seven signatories of the letter.