Crypto World
AI will boost jobs; trillions in infrastructure
Artificial intelligence is being reframed as a fundamental utility rather than a purely productivity unlock, according to Jensen Huang, the founder of Nvidia. In a blog post this week, Huang portrays AI as essential infrastructure on par with electricity and the internet. He argues the facilities that design chips, operate data centers, and deploy AI applications represent the largest infrastructure buildout in human history. The sentiment is tempered by the recognition that the job of constructing and maintaining this ecosystem will be enormous, spanning a wide array of skilled trades. The analysis arrives as Nvidia (NVDA) continues to benefit from surging demand for AI hardware, a cycle that has propelled its stock higher in the past 18 months. (EXCHANGE: NVDA)
Huang’s “five-layer cake” concept frames AI infrastructure as a stacked, interdependent system. In his view, energy supplies the base; AI chips drive computation; the underlying infrastructure enables services and platforms; AI models provide reasoning and intelligence; and applications translate capabilities into real-world use cases. The blog argues that the architecture must be rebuilt almost from scratch to accommodate autonomous reasoning, real-time inference, and on-demand intelligence, rather than merely following stored instructions. This restructuring implies not only new factories and fabs but also a reimagining of operational workflows across industries. The five-layer framework has quickly become a touchstone for executives and policymakers contemplating how to allocate capital and talent in the AI era.
AI isn’t a single model. It’s a full stack.
Energy. Chips. Infrastructure. Models. Applications.
That’s the five-layer cake powering the largest industrial buildout in history — and the jobs, factories and AI applications rising with it. pic.twitter.com/rwxO6fdTnE — NVIDIA Newsroom
Huang notes that much of this infrastructure has yet to exist and requires a workforce that is still in short supply. The emerging demand for AI data centers—capable of housing powerful GPUs, high-speed networks, and robust cooling—will demand electricians, plumbers, steelworkers, network technicians, and operators. These are not entry-level roles; they require specialized training and experience, aligning with a broader push for skilled labor across advanced manufacturing and digital-enabled services. As the AI buildout accelerates, Huang argues, the scale of the opportunity will extend beyond any single country or sector, touching a wide spectrum of industries and geographies.
The AI boom’s corporate beneficiaries have become a focal point for investors. Nvidia, already a dominant supplier of AI accelerators, has emerged as one of the biggest winners in the current cycle. Its shares have surged more than 1,300% since 2023, a rally that followed the public release of ChatGPT and the ensuing AI race. The company’s role at the center of both the hardware ecosystem and the software-enabled AI pipeline has reinforced its status as a core proxy for AI demand, even as critics argue the cycle may be tempered by regulatory scrutiny, supply chain constraints, and macro headwinds. (EXCHANGE: NVDA)
Within this broader narrative, Huang’s comments echo a larger industry trend: the AI data-center expansion is reshaping employment patterns and wage prospects in specialized trades. A recent wave of corporate restructurings—at Block, Pinterest, and Dow—has highlighted how AI-enabled efficiency and automation are influencing staffing decisions. Block, Inc. announced a large-scale workforce reduction, a move its co-founder attributed in part to AI-enabled restructuring. Pinterest and Dow also cited AI as a driver for workforce reductions, underscoring a common theme: automation and AI adoption can compress roles while intensifying demand for high-skilled positions in AI hardware, data-center operations, and software engineering. Analysts at Goldman Sachs have characterized AI-driven layoffs as visible but modest, suggesting the macro impact on unemployment might be gradual even as the technology accelerates. (EXCHANGE: SQ)
The story also intersects with broader market dynamics. Nvidia’s ascent underscores the hardware supply chain’s centrality to AI-enabled growth, a trend that has implications for other technology equities and for sectors linked to data-center energy consumption. The AI infrastructure cycle is a reminder that the push into AI is not merely a software upgrade; it is a capital-intensive, global effort that requires policy alignment, capital allocation, and a capable workforce. As capital continues to flow into data centers, chip manufacturing, and related services, the demand for skilled labor, reliable power, and resilient networks is likely to remain a core feature of the investment landscape. (EXCHANGE: NVDA)
AI’s footprint in the economy is expanding rapidly, and Huang’s framework suggests a multi-decade horizon for the buildout. AI data centers will need not only hardware but also the operational expertise to install, maintain, and secure complex systems. The labor market for skilled trades—traditionally insulated from pure software cycles—could see persistent demand for technicians who can design, install, and upgrade AI-ready infrastructure. This reality may influence everything from wage dynamics to vocational training programs, and it could even shape incentives for crypto mining and other power-intensive activities that rely on cost-effective, scalable AI-capable hardware and energy platforms. The net effect is a gradual, rather than explosive, reallocation of resources toward AI-enabled capabilities across industries. (EXCHANGE: PINS; EXCHANGE: DOW)
As the AI narrative matures, investors and policymakers will be watching how the five-layer cake translates into real-world deployments and jobs. Huang’s estimate that “hundreds of billions” have already been invested, with trillions more to come, highlights the scale of the opportunity—and the risk of bottlenecks in supply chains, talent, and regulatory frameworks. In parallel, financial markets will assess whether the AI infrastructure cycle can sustain a broader earnings and growth trajectory for hardware suppliers, cloud providers, and software developers delivering AI-powered services. The cross-currents—tech capex, energy demand, labor shortages, and macro risk sentiment—will continue to shape how this AI era unfolds. (EXCHANGE: NVDA; EXCHANGE: SQ; EXCHANGE: PINS; EXCHANGE: DOW)
Why it matters
For investors, Huang’s framework reframes AI from a short-term optimization trend to a structural, capital-intensive expansion that will require a steady inflow of funding and a highly skilled workforce. The implied long horizon for infrastructure expenditure could sustain demand for AI accelerators, data-center gear, and software ecosystems for years, potentially supporting a more durable equity narrative for hardware-centric players and cloud providers. For builders and operators, the emphasis on a multi-layer stack underscores the importance of resilient, scalable energy, cooling, and networking capabilities. It also highlights the need for training pipelines that can deliver electricians, technicians, engineers, and operators who understand AI workloads from edge to core. For policy and macro participants, the discussion points to the macroeconomic implications of a large-scale industrial transition that could influence employment, wage dynamics, and regional competitiveness as nations compete to attract investment in AI-enabled infrastructure.
From a market-structure perspective, the AI infrastructure wave intersects with broader sectoral trends, including data-center consolidation, hyperscale capacity expansion, and the ongoing evolution of industrial tech. While the short-term price moves in any given stock or token can be volatile, the longer-term signal is one of sustained, capital-intensive growth in a space that sits at the convergence of compute, energy, and human capital. Crypto markets, which have historically been sensitive to energy pricing, risk sentiment, and technology cycles, may experience indirect effects as AI-driven optimization and automation influence energy demand, hardware pricing, and risk-off/ risk-on dynamics across tech-heavy equities. The net takeaway is a cycle that rewards suppliers of AI hardware, creators of AI software, and the labor ecosystem that will build and maintain the infrastructure of the AI era.
What to watch next
- Capital expenditure plans from Nvidia and peers to expand AI data-center capacity, with quarterly updates and guidance.
- Trends in skilled-labor supply for AI infrastructure, including training program developments and wage indicators for electricians, network technicians, and operators.
- Regulatory developments affecting AI deployment, energy efficiency standards, and data-center permitting in key markets.
- Announcements of new AI-enabled products or services from leading cloud providers and hardware suppliers, including integration of AI models into enterprise workflows.
Sources & verification
- Jensen Huang’s blog post outlining the “five-layer cake” framework: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/ai-5-layer-cake/
- Article discussing AI data centers and bitcoin mining considerations: https://cointelegraph.com/news/ai-data-centers-local-resistance-bitcoin-mining
- NVIDIA becomes a leading AI boom beneficiary (AI hardware dominance): https://cointelegraph.com/news/nvidia-becomes-first-4t-market-cap-company-on-ai-boom
- Block, Inc. layoffs attributed to AI-driven restructuring: https://cointelegraph.com/news/jack-dorsey-block-cuts-4000-jobs-ai-restructuring
- Pinterest and Dow announcements linking AI to workforce reductions: https://cointelegraph.com/news/ai-use-work-causing-brain-fry-say-researchers
- Goldman Sachs analysis on AI-driven layoffs and unemployment trends: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/goldman-sachs-warns-ai-fueled-layoffs-could-raise-the-unemployment-rate-this-year-chart-154251740.html
What the story means for the market
The trajectory Huang sketches positions AI infrastructure as a multiyear, capital-intensive cycle that could recalibrate how investors value hardware suppliers, cloud platforms, and enterprise software tied to AI workloads. As the industry navigates talent shortages, energy considerations, and macro uncertainties, the sector’s performance will hinge on the pace of data-center expansion, the efficiency of AI training and inference pipelines, and the alignment of policy with rapid technology adoption.
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Bitcoin prices could continue to consolidate for a while yet, as network activity indicates decreasing momentum amid reduced selling pressure.
Bitcoin didn’t remain above $70,000 for long and has fallen back below it in early trading on Wednesday morning. Resistance was too strong, and it has returned to the middle of its five-week range-bound channel.
Long-term holder activity has decreased significantly, declining to levels typically seen during bear markets, according to CryptoQuant analyst ‘Darkfost’ on X on Wednesday.
They added that this decline in activity “reflects a reduction in selling pressure, which likely helps Bitcoin continue consolidating.”
📉 LTH activity has decreased significantly, to the point where it has returned to levels typically seen during bear markets.
This chart shows the monthly total of BTC spent by LTHs.
⁰Be careful when interpreting the spike in November, as it corresponds to the period when… pic.twitter.com/kXIRnpukdy— Darkfost (@Darkfost_Coc) March 10, 2026
Months of Boring Sideways Markets
Analyst ‘Daan Crypto Trades’ observed that it has been another week where BTC’s price closed below the 200-week exponential moving average, a very long-term trend indicator. He added that it tried to get back above it on this push early in the week, but failed, falling back below $70,000.
Meanwhile, the bull market support band is “moving down rapidly and will meet the price relatively quickly, as long as it keeps hovering around here,” he added. This could result in months of consolidation and sideways markets.
“My base case is still that we will spend quite a while in this larger, let’s say ~$60K-$80K region. Could easily take several months before we see a decisive move again, I think.”
“Back and forth. Back and forth. That’s the current rhythm of Bitcoin,” commented MN Fund founder Michaël van de Poppe on Tuesday. “No breakout, but the longer it stays in here, the stronger the move will be,” he added.
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Meanwhile, ‘RedHotTrade’ said Bitcoin is “compressing between $60,000 and $70,000 and “multiple technical patterns are forming at once.”
“When several patterns point to the same breakout level, the move that follows is often explosive.”
Analyst Matt Hughes observed that BTC price keeps getting rejected just above $71,000, “so we can’t celebrate a real breakout until weekly candles close above this level.”
Crypto Market Outlook
Crypto markets are flat on the day with total capitalization remaining at $2.45 trillion, close to where it has been since early February.
Bitcoin was rejected at $71,600 on Tuesday and had fallen back to $69,600 at the time of writing. Meanwhile, Ether prices remained tightly coiled just above $2,000, slowly eroding previous minor gains.
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Stani Kulechov, the founder of decentralized lending platform Aave, says decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) need a rethink, namely, how much tokenholders vote on as opposed to input from leaders.
His comments came in the wake of governance disputes about the future of the protocol.
Kulechov said in an X post on Tuesday that DAOs, in their current form, are “extraordinarily difficult” to operate because of internal conflicts and proposals that can take weeks of forum posts, temperature checks and multiple votes to pass.
DAOs are intended to operate without core leadership, with all decisions made through community consensus; however, average participation rates in DAOs are estimated at 15% to 25%, which can lead to issues such as power centralization and ineffective decision-making.
“DAOs also become politicized very quickly and it’s easy for voting to become about attention. Participants take sides, lean toward the loudest voices, and form political alliances to get their own proposals passed later,” Kulechov said.
“It can often feel like we took the worst parts of corporate bureaucracy and removed the parts that create accountability in the name of decentralization. But that doesn’t mean DAOs are doomed. They are far from that,” he added.
DAOs should keep what works, leave the rest
Kulechov said the path forward needs to involve DAOs keeping what they “got right” and fixing “what they got wrong.”
He proposes that rules should stay in the code, DAOs typically resolve decisions through smart contracts on a blockchain, the treasury should stay visible to everyone, and token holders should still have input on major decisions.
Related: Vitalik Buterin proposes using AI to strengthen DAO governance
However, Kulechov argues that going forward, token holders shouldn’t vote on everything, because running the protocol day-to-day requires teams and leaders, not thousands of voters.
“Someone needs to wake up every morning with the full context in their head and make hard calls,” he said.
“The difference is that their decisions and performance are all on-chain and transparent, and token holders can fire the team when objectives are not met. Accountability is verifiable, and that is what separates this from a traditional company. There is no vendor lock-in.”
Aave governance proposals spark exit
Kulechov’s comments come amid a proposal, the “Aave Will Win Framework,” which passed a temperature check on March 1.
Soon after, a major governance delegate, the Aave Chan Initiative, announced it would wind down its involvement with the Aave DAO over concerns with the governance standards and voting dynamics during the proposal process.
In January, another proposal to transfer control of Aave’s brand assets and intellectual property to its DAO failed, prompting renewed debate within the Aave community over the protocol’s long-term direction and governance structure.
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Bitcoin could reach $1 million per coin if it captures a meaningful share of the global store-of-value market, according to a new memo from Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise Asset Management.
Summary
- Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan says Bitcoin could reach $1 million if it captures about 17% of the global store-of-value market.
- The analysis frames Bitcoin as a competitor to gold, which currently dominates the store-of-value sector.
- Increasing adoption through spot Bitcoin ETFs and institutional investment could help drive Bitcoin’s market share higher.
Bitcoin’s path to $1M runs through gold’s market: Bitwise CIO
In the memo titled “How Bitcoin Gets to $1 Million,” Hougan argues that Bitcoin’s (BTC) long-term valuation depends largely on its ability to compete with traditional store-of-value assets such as gold and government bonds.
Hougan estimates the global store-of-value market at roughly $38 trillion, with Bitcoin currently accounting for only a small portion of that total.
The largest share is held by gold, which he describes as Bitcoin’s most direct competitor.
According to the analysis, if the store-of-value market grows to around $120 trillion over the next decade and Bitcoin captures roughly 17% of that market, the cryptocurrency could reach a valuation close to $1 million per coin.
Hougan argues that such a scenario is not as far-fetched as it once seemed, citing the rapid institutional adoption of Bitcoin in recent years.
A key factor driving that adoption has been the launch of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the United States, which have opened the asset class to pension funds, financial advisors and other institutional investors that previously had limited access to crypto markets.
Hougan said these developments have helped position Bitcoin as a legitimate macro asset alongside traditional stores of value. As institutional allocations increase and global demand for non-sovereign assets grows, Bitcoin could gradually gain market share within the broader store-of-value ecosystem.
“As I see it, the base case—that the store-of-value market will continue to grow as it has, and bitcoin will continue to gain market share as it has—leads you to much, much higher prices than we have today,” Hougan wrote.
The memo stops short of predicting an exact timeline for the $1 million milestone, but suggests the target could be achievable within roughly a decade if Bitcoin adoption continues to expand and the broader market for store-of-value assets grows.
A US Senate Democrat says crypto and banking lobbies will both have to accept compromises amid a new proposal to move the crypto market structure bill forward.
Senator Angela Alsobrooks, a key Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said at an American Bankers Association event on Tuesday that she and Republican Senator Thom Tillis are working on a compromise proposal, but crypto and banking interests can’t let “perfect be the enemy of good.”
“All of us will probably walk away just a little bit unhappy,” she said. “What we don’t want is to have an unregulated system — to have crypto not regulated at all — and not to have the guardrails to allow a situation where we will have deposit flight.”
Banking groups, including the American Bankers Association, have pushed for the Senate to include a ban on third-party stablecoin yield payments in crypto market structure legislation pending in the Senate.
The groups argue that the payments are a deposit flight risk for bank accounts that could destabilize the banking system and that the ban would close a perceived loophole in the GENIUS Act, which banned stablecoin issuers from offering yield on their tokens.
Stablecoin yield payments are a popular way for crypto exchanges to entice customers, and crypto lobby groups have fought against the proposal to ban them.
The fight has stalled the crypto bill from moving forward, which outlines how market regulators would police crypto.
Senator Alsobrooks said that in negotiations for the GENIUS Act, lawmakers knew they’d have to “revisit the issue around interest and yield,” adding that crypto market structure legislation must address the issue of stablecoin yields so they don’t end up undermining the banking sector.
Related: Donald Trump takes swipe at banks over stalled crypto bill
“If it quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it is a duck,” she said. “Making sure that we are not allowing bank-like products without bank-like protections — this is what we know is really important.”
Americans want stablecoin yield limits if banks at risk
Alsobrooks’ comments come as the American Bankers Association shared a survey finding that 42% of respondents agreed that Congress should ban stablecoin yields if there is any risk that it could reduce the amount of money available to banks.
The survey, conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of the lobby group and polling a national sample of 4,456 adults, also found that 84% agreed that a business providing bank-like services, like a savings product, should be “held to the same standards for consumer protection that banks are.”
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XRP price turned on Tuesday as the crypto market rallied, and after Brand Garlinghouse highlighted Ripple’s priorities for the year.
Summary
- XRP price has moved sideways in the past few weeks.
- Brad Garlinghouse highlighted the key priority areas for the company this year.
- The coin has formed a bullish divergence pattern, pointing to a rebound.
Ripple (XRP) token rose to $1.3895 from this week’s low of $1.3365. It has remained in this range in the past few weeks.
In an X post, Garlinghouse, Ripple Labs CEO, highlighted some of the top priorities the company is focusing on this year. He made the comment after traveling to three continents in five days, together with Monica Long, the president.
He expects the company to continue focusing on key areas like payments, custody, liquidity, and treasury management.
The company has already made some major announcements on this recently. For example, it launched Ripple Payments, a solution tailored to corporations, providing them with solutions like managed custody, unified collections, and advanced liquidity.
These solutions will be at the intersection of fiat and stablecoins, helping companies to save money and accelerate the speed of cash management.
Ripple Labs has also intensified its RLUSD growth recently. Data shows that the RLUSD stablecoin has accumulated over $1.6 billion in assets across Ethereum and XRP Ledger network. It will then roll out the coin to other chains, including Base and Polygon, through Wormhole.
Additionally, the developers launched the Permissioned DEX platform, which allows companies to take part in decentralized finance through a regulated platform. Its use case will be in areas like cross-border payments, fiat and stablecoin swaps, payroll management, and international payments.
XRP price prediction: Technical analysis
The three-day chart shows that the XRP price has drifted sideways in the past month as demand has remained thin. Indeed, spot XRP ETF inflows have been highly limited in this period, a sign that investors are remaining in the sidelines.
On the positive side, the Stochastic RSI has reversed and moved to the highest point in weeks. The Percentage Price Oscillator has formed a bullish crossover pattern.
Therefore, while the coin remains below all moving averages and the Ichimoku cloud, there is a possibility that it will rebound in the near term. If this happens, the next key target to watch will be at $1.6700, its highest point in February.
The bullish XRP price forecast will become invalid if it drops below the key support level at $1.3363.
A couple in western Paris was held hostage and forced to transfer roughly €900,000 ($980,000) in Bitcoin after three criminals posing as police officers broke into their home in what appears to be the latest crypto “wrench attack.”
Summary
- Three attackers posing as police forced their way into a home in Yvelines, threatening the victims with a knife and demanding a crypto transfer.
- The husband transferred roughly €900,000 in Bitcoin under duress before the suspects tied him up and fled.
- The attack adds to a surge of crypto-related kidnappings and extortion attempts in France, where criminals increasingly target digital asset holders.
The attack took place Monday morning in Le Chesnay-Rocquencourt in the Yvelines department, where the suspects rang the doorbell and claimed to be police officers.
When the woman opened the door, the men forced their way inside and threatened her with a knife, demanding that her partner transfer the cryptocurrency to a wallet under their control.
Under duress, the husband complied and transferred the equivalent of €900,000 in Bitcoin (BTC). The attackers then tied him up while the woman suffered minor injuries before the group fled the scene in a white van.
The woman later managed to free her husband and alert neighbors, ending the ordeal shortly after.
The Versailles prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into charges including organized armed robbery, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy. The case is being handled by France’s Brigade for the Repression of Banditry (BRB), and no arrests had been reported so far.
France sees rise in crypto “wrench attacks”
The incident adds to a growing wave of so-called “wrench attacks,” where criminals use physical violence or coercion to force victims to hand over digital assets rather than attempting technical hacks.
France has emerged as a major hotspot for such crimes. Earlier reporting shows that the country has seen dozens of crypto-linked kidnappings and extortion attempts, with investors and their relatives increasingly targeted as the value of digital assets rises.
The number of verified wrench attacks worldwide jumped significantly in 2025, with France accounting for a notable share of incidents.
Recent cases include the kidnapping of relatives connected to cryptocurrency entrepreneurs and a string of violent robberies aimed at forcing victims to transfer crypto funds. Authorities have made arrests in some investigations, but the attacks continue to surface across the country.
Sentiment in the bitcoin market has flipped bullish and traders are betting on a rally above $80,000, with traders positioning for a rally above $80,000.
That’s the message from decentralized exchange offering on-chain trading in crypto futures and options.
“Current options pricing shows roughly a 35% probability that BTC will reach above $80K by the end of June,” Nick Forster, founder of on-chain options platform, Derive.xyz, told CoinDesk in an email. “Combined with the recovery in skew, this activity suggests many traders expect bitcoin to recover toward the $80K level between June and September.”
Options are derivative contracts that let you bet on BTC prices moving up or down, but with a inbuilt safety net that ensures you lose only a small upfront fee, not your whole account, if the bet fails. It’s akin to buying a lottery ticket.
A call lets you bet on price rallies, while a put lets you bet on price dumps. The latter is, therefore, seen as a protective hedge.
Traders typically track options skew – that telltale pricing gap between calls and puts – to sniff out where the market’s leaning. Calls pricier than puts indicates Bullish tilt, while put premium suggests otherwise.
BTC’s skew recovers
Bitcoin’s seven day and 30-day skews have clawed back to -6% from the -25% panic lows in early February, when BTC cratered toward $25,000.
The shift signals traders dialing back on protective puts – less crash hedging, more steady nerves.
“Despite earlier fears of a catastrophic crash of the crypto markets, derivatives markets suggest those concerns may have been overstated. BTC skew – a key measure of sentiment in options markets – has rebounded sharply from around -25% (normalized by at-the-money implied volatility) to roughly +10% today, signaling a significant shift away from aggressive downside hedging,” Forster said.
Skews based on leading centralized options exchange Deribit paint a similar picture.
According to Forster, put shorting (writing) has surged across venues in recent days, a sign that traders are willing to take on downside risk in exchange for premium, which is consistent with expectations of stabilizing or rising prices.
At press time, bitcoin changed hands near $70,000, up nearly 5% for the month, according to CoinDesk data.
XRP drifted lower in quiet trading as declining volume and repeated rejection near $1.44 kept the token trapped inside a tightening range.
News Background
- XRP continues to move largely in line with broader crypto sentiment, with no major token-specific catalysts driving recent price action. The token has spent much of the past week consolidating between roughly $1.34 and $1.44 as traders wait for a clearer directional signal.
- Despite muted market participation, activity on the XRP Ledger has picked up.
- Daily transaction counts have climbed to around 2.7 million, according to market data, reflecting rising network usage tied in part to real-world asset tokenization projects building on the chain. The value of tokenized assets on the network has approached roughly $461 million.
- While growing network activity suggests improving ecosystem fundamentals, traders remain focused on short-term technical levels as liquidity across crypto markets remains relatively thin.
-
Price Action Summary
- XRP slipped slightly to around $1.38 during the latest session
- The token traded inside a roughly $1.34–$1.44 range
- The session high near $1.44 came on a brief volume spike before sharp rejection
- Price later drifted back toward $1.38 as participation declined
Technical Analysis
- The most important move in the past session came when XRP briefly pushed toward $1.44 during a burst of trading activity before sellers quickly rejected the advance. That rejection reinforced the $1.43–$1.44 zone as near-term resistance.
- Following the failed breakout, XRP formed a series of lower highs on declining volume, suggesting momentum faded after the initial rally attempt. The token has since moved sideways near $1.38, with several tests of this level indicating it is acting as short-term support.
- Volume trends remain a key signal. Overall trading activity has contracted to well below its recent average, indicating traders are waiting for confirmation before taking larger positions.
- This type of compression — with price trapped between resistance near $1.44 and support closer to $1.34–$1.38 — often precedes a larger directional move once liquidity returns.
What traders say is next?
- Market participants are watching whether XRP can maintain support above the $1.34–$1.35 area.
- If that level holds, the token could remain in consolidation before attempting another breakout toward $1.44 and potentially $1.50 if momentum returns.
- A breakdown below $1.34, however, would weaken the consolidation structure and could expose the next downside zone around $1.30–$1.32.
Bitcoin touched $71,612 on Tuesday evening before settling back to $70,036 by Wednesday’s Asian session, as oil price slide revved up risk sentiment.
A key catalyst was a Wall Street Journal report that the International Energy Agency had proposed the largest crude reserve release in its history, exceeding the 182 million barrels released in 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The proposal responds to Persian Gulf production cuts that have removed roughly 6% of global oil output since the Iran war began, sending jet fuel and cooking gas prices soaring worldwide.
Brent crude dropped below $90 per barrel on Wednesday after plunging 11% in the prior session. That matters for crypto because oil has been the transmission mechanism connecting the Middle East conflict to every risk asset on the planet. Higher oil means stickier inflation, which means no rate cuts, which means tighter liquidity and further pressure for risk assets.
Bitcoin was trading at $70,036 on Wednesday morning after reaching as high as $71,612 on Tuesday evening, up 2.5% on the week. The move from Monday’s low near $66,000 to Tuesday’s high amounts to roughly 8.5% in two days, though the overnight pullback gave back some of those gains.
“Bitcoin trading above $70,000 tells you buyers are trying to push this market out of consolidation, but it still has to prove it can hold,” said Daniel Reis-Faria, CEO of ZeroStack, said in a mail. “The difference this time is that leverage had cooled off a bit before the move higher, which gives it a more stable setup.”
“Now it comes down to whether Bitcoin can stay above $70,000 and build from there, or whether it slips back into the same pattern we’ve been in for weeks,” he added.
Elsewhere, FxPro analysts noted that bitcoin is forming a series of higher local lows since the end of February, the first structural sign of buyers gaining confidence within the range.
But they flagged $73,000 as the level that matters, where last week’s peak and the 50-day moving average sit together.
The broader market was calm. Ether held at $2,034, down 0.3% on the day but up 2.8% on the week. BNB was flat at $643. XRP edged up 0.3% to $1.38 with a 1.7% weekly gain. Solana added 0.2% to $86.42 but remains down 0.8% over seven days, still the weakest major on a weekly basis.
Dogecoin was up 1% to $0.093, holding onto some of Tuesday’s Musk-driven gains.
The Fed meeting on March 17-18 remains the next major event. With oil potentially easing on the IEA reserve release, the stagflation scenario that had been pricing into markets last week looks slightly less severe.
If crude stays below $90, the argument for rate cuts later this year gets marginally stronger. Bitcoin’s 90-day correlation with the S&P 500 is still at 0.78. Whatever the Fed signals, crypto will trade it.
Ripple announced plans on Wednesday to secure an Australian Financial Services License through the proposed acquisition of BC Payments Australia Pty Ltd, per a release shared with CoinDesk.
The acquisition, which is still subject to completion, would allow Ripple to offer its full payments stack in Australia, covering onboarding, compliance, funding, foreign exchange, liquidity management, and payout through a single integration.
Australian customers currently using Ripple Payments include Hai Ha Money Transfer, Stables, Caleb & Brown, Flash Payments, and Independent Reserve.
“Australia is a key market for Ripple, and an AFSL strengthens our ability to scale Ripple Payments across the region,” said Fiona Murray, managing director for Asia Pacific, in a statement.
The regional numbers back up the push. Ripple said its APAC payments volume nearly doubled year-on-year in 2025, though it didn’t disclose specific figures.
That growth sits alongside the $100 billion in total processed volume the company reported last week when it announced managed custody, virtual account collections, and stablecoin settlement capabilities across 60 markets.
Ripple also said it is participating in Project Acacia, an initiative led by the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre focused on digital asset infrastructure.
The licensing approach is notable. Rather than applying for an AFSL directly, Ripple is acquiring a company that already holds one. That’s a faster path to market but means the license is contingent on the deal closing, which hasn’t happened yet.
XRP was trading at $1.38, up 0.3% on the day and 1.7% on the week.
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