Crypto World
Bitcoin Dips Below $70,000 as Extreme Fear Index Hits 10: What Traders Are Watching Next
TLDR:
- Bitcoin fell over 3% in 24 hours, sliding from above $74,000 to around $68,700 on Sunday amid macro fears.
- The Crypto Fear and Greed Index dropped to an extreme fear reading of 10, reflecting sharp decline in market confidence.
- Trader Lennaert Snyder targets a Bitcoin drop to $65,580, planning to add shorts after a confirmed bearish structure break.
- Institutional buyers continue accumulating BTC as exchange supply hits multi-year lows, contrasting with heavy retail panic selling.
Bitcoin fell sharply on Sunday, dropping from above $74,000 to around $68,700 in a matter of hours. The move pushed the Crypto Fear & Greed Index to an extreme fear reading of just 10.
Rising oil prices, a pause in Federal Reserve rate cuts, and ongoing geopolitical tensions drove the sell-off. Bitcoin recorded a 3.11% decline over 24 hours, with trading volume reaching approximately $29.1 billion.
Short Positions Build as Bears Set Their Sights on $65,000
The latest price drop has given bearish traders confidence to hold and grow their short positions. Selling pressure remained active throughout the week, contributing to a total seven-day decline of 4.02%.
This combination of macro pressure and bearish momentum pushed market fear to its most extreme reading in recent weeks.
Crypto trader Lennaert Snyder shared his bearish stance openly on social media during Sunday’s session. “My target is still the ~$65,580 low, and possibly even lower for Bitcoin,” Snyder wrote. He also planned to add margin to his shorts using the upper wick of the next weekly candle.
Snyder noted caution around a key level at $72,700, identifying it as a Fair Value Gap zone. He stated he would only enter a trade after seeing a liquidity push and a bearish market structure break.
His approach pointed to a disciplined strategy, waiting for price confirmation before committing to new short trades.
A notable counterrisk, however, remains for those currently holding short positions. Whale Insider reported that $5 billion in crypto shorts would face forced liquidation if Bitcoin climbs back to $75,000. That level therefore becomes both a target for bulls and a danger zone for active short sellers in the market.
Institutional Buyers Accumulate as Exchange Supply Drops to Multi-Year Lows
Even as retail sentiment fell to extreme fear, institutional buyers continued accumulating Bitcoin through the downturn.
This divergence between retail and large-scale buyers has been a repeated pattern during past crypto market corrections. Institutions appear to view the current dip as an entry point rather than a reason to sell.
Exchange supply has also dropped to multi-year lows, further shaping the current market picture. Lower exchange balances typically point to Bitcoin being moved into cold storage for long-term holding.
This movement often tightens available sell-side supply on exchanges, setting the stage for potential price rebounds.
Market watchers are now turning their attention to Monday’s session, closely eyeing the $72,000 price level. A recovery above that zone could signal a momentum shift and place short positions at increased risk. Bulls will need consistent buying volume to challenge the bearish tone that dominated the weekend.
Bitcoin’s near-term path will largely depend on how macro factors unfold over the coming days. Bears are holding firm to the $65,580 target, while bulls look for a sustained break above $72,000.
The market remains at a crossroads, with either outcome carrying major consequences for active traders on both sides.
Key Takeaways
- Q1 2026 earnings release scheduled for April 14, pre-market hours
- Options market anticipates approximately 3.87% price movement — exceeding the 2.71% historical average
- Consensus estimates point to $5.45 EPS (+7% YoY) and $49.13B revenue (-8% YoY)
- Goldman Sachs upgraded target to $365 (Buy rating); Morgan Stanley lowered to $334 (Equal Weight)
- Shares gained 8.3% in the past month despite a 3% year-to-date decline
JPMorgan Chase unveils its first-quarter 2026 financial results this Tuesday, April 14, ahead of the market open. As the banking sector’s lead-off reporter, the company’s performance will provide critical insights into industry-wide trends.
The options market is signaling potential volatility, with implied movement around 3.87% following the earnings announcement. This exceeds JPM’s typical post-earnings fluctuation of 2.71% across the previous four quarters, suggesting investors are bracing for significant revelations.
Shares have slipped approximately 3% since the year began. Investor sentiment has been dampened by concerns surrounding artificial intelligence infrastructure spending and geopolitical instability related to tensions with Iran.
However, recent momentum has shifted favorably. JPMorgan’s stock has climbed 8.3% during the last 30 days, tracking closely with the banking sector’s 8.5% advance over the identical timeframe.
Consensus Forecasts and Expectations
Analysts project first-quarter earnings per share of $5.45, representing 7% year-over-year expansion. Revenue projections stand at $49.13 billion, reflecting an approximately 8% contraction compared to the prior-year period.
The anticipated revenue downturn deserves attention. During the previous quarter, JPMorgan reported $46.77 billion in revenue — a 6.9% annual increase — yet fell short of earnings expectations.
Estimate revisions have remained relatively stable throughout the past month, indicating analysts aren’t anticipating major deviations. The banking giant has historically demonstrated an ability to surpass Street predictions.
Wall Street Price Targets Show Divergence
Analyst perspectives vary considerably approaching the earnings event.
Goldman Sachs analyst Richard Ramsden elevated his valuation target to $365 from $352 while maintaining a Buy recommendation. Goldman’s thesis centers on improved banking sector valuations following this year’s roughly 7% decline, which has brought multiples closer to historical benchmarks.
Goldman highlighted several focal points for investors: net interest income projections, capital markets revenue impact from market turbulence, and potential credit quality deterioration or loan loss reserve changes stemming from elevated energy costs.
Conversely, Morgan Stanley adopted a more cautious stance. Analyst Manan Gosalia reduced his price objective to $334 from $365 while retaining an Equal Weight designation. The firm implemented sector-wide target reductions averaging 9%, citing inflationary pressures, Middle Eastern geopolitical risks, and private credit market vulnerabilities.
These contrasting targets frame the current Street consensus. Among 12 Buy recommendations and 8 Hold ratings, the average analyst price target stands at $337.00 — suggesting potential upside of approximately 8.76% from present levels. The aggregate rating qualifies as a Moderate Buy.
Serving as the inaugural major banking institution to report this earnings cycle, JPMorgan’s financial disclosure will establish the narrative framework for peer institutions. Trading commences at 9:30 AM ET on April 14.
Bitcoin price is not doing badly at all, but Arthur Hayes drops his most provocative macro prediction yet, and the biggest threat to BTC isn’t missiles over the Middle East. Hayes, Maelstrom CIO and BitMEX co-founder, is calling $500K–$750K by end-2026, but the path there runs through a deflationary minefield that isn’t pricing in.
In a wide-ranging Coinage YouTube interview, Hayes argued that AI-driven displacement of high-income knowledge workers is the dominant deflationary force compressing crypto sentiment right now. Oil futures do reflect Israel-Iran geopolitical tensions, Hayes concedes, but the layoff cascade from AI adoption tightens credit, cuts consumption, and delays the liquidity surge Bitcoin needs.
He frames BTC explicitly as a “liquidity smoke alarm,” something that doesn’t move until the credit taps open. With RSI sitting at a neutral, the chart agrees: Bitcoin is waiting. Middle East developments remain a live variable for short-term volatility either way.
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Bitcoin Price Prediction: War and AI Collide?
Bitcoin current price of $70,700 places it in a well-defined prediction zone. The key technical level traders are watching is the $76,000 resistance above, with support anchoring near current prices and a deeper downside scenario targeting $75K before any meaningful rebound, per Hayes’ own near-term roadmap.
RSI at 50-ish signals neither overbought enthusiasm nor capitulation, more of consolidation with directional tension building underneath.
If Israel-Iran conflict triggers emergency Fed liquidity measures, BTC can clear $76K resistance and accelerate toward 30% of Hayes’ intermediate $250K target on the back of historical rate-cut tailwinds post-geopolitical stress.
However, AI deflation and credit tightening would likely keep BTC range-bound between $70K–$74K through Q3 2026, with a breakout contingent on Fed signaling a pivot.
AI layoff acceleration could also deepen the deflationary shock faster than war-driven liquidity can offset it; Bitcoin price might retests sub-$70K, invalidating Hayes’s prediction for the year-end.
It’s worth remembering (Hayes himself would likely not mind the reminder) that his $200K by March 2026 call went unfulfilled as BTC lingered near $71K. Bold targets require bold catalysts. The Fed and the battlefield are the only two variables that matter right now.
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LiquidChain Fixes What BTC and Alts Can’t
Bitcoin at $70,000 with resistance at $76,000 tells a familiar story for cycle veterans: the big move hasn’t happened yet, and large-cap BTC at current prices offers asymmetric upside only if Hayes’ macro thesis fully materializes, a significant if.
LiquidChain ($LIQUID) is positioning itself as a cross-chain infrastructure for exactly the liquidity environment Hayes describes. The Layer 3 project fuses Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana liquidity into a single execution environment.
A new layer emerges. Only a few see it first. — LiquidChain (@getliquidchain) March 24, 2026
The future is LiquidChain 
⟁https://t.co/vqvBcdSj94 pic.twitter.com/R7ZeZ0NPGl
With Liquid, developers deploy once, access all three ecosystems simultaneously through its Unified Liquidity Layer and Single-Step Execution architecture. Verifiable Settlement and Deploy-Once Architecture reduce the fragmentation cost that has historically bled value from cross-chain protocols.
The presale has raised north of $650K at a current price of $0.01449. LiquidChain is approaching the $1M presale milestone, which tends to accelerate retail attention, especially with its 1600% APY staking bonus.
The post Bitcoin Price Prediction: Arthur Hayes on AI, Oil Price, and War Against Crypto appeared first on Cryptonews.
South Korea’s central bank says crypto exchanges should have their own “circuit breakers” that halt trading to prevent a repeat of the market fallout after Bithumb mistakenly sent more than $40 billion in Bitcoin to its customers in February.
The Bank of Korea said in a payments report on Monday that lawmakers should consider introducing mechanisms similar to the Korea Exchange’s trading curbs to suspend trading if crypto prices suddenly fluctuate.
“Currently, the virtual asset industry lacks internal control mechanisms and faces lower regulatory intensity compared to established financial institutions,” the bank said.
“Consequently, as similar incidents could occur at other virtual asset exchanges, it is necessary to strengthen relevant regulations to prevent them in advance,” the report added.
It comes as South Korean lawmakers are currently looking to pass laws to further regulate crypto, which the Bank of Korea said should include its suggested measures “to enhance the safety and transparency of virtual asset exchange operations.”
In early February, Bithumb erroneously sent customers 620,000 Bitcoin (BTC), worth around $42 billion at the time, instead of 620,000 Korean won, worth $400.
The price of Bitcoin on Bithumb fell as users rushed to sell, causing others to panic-sell and further driving down its price, according to the bank’s report.
Bithumb halted trading and reversed its Bitcoin sends within minutes, but the exchange said that 1,788 BTC, worth around $125 million, had been sold before it could act, and it covered the shortfall using company reserves.
Related: South Korea tightens crypto withdrawal-delay exemptions after scam losses
The Bank of Korea suggested that crypto exchanges should be required to have systems capable of detecting and preventing “erroneous payments caused by human error.”
It added that exchanges should also have systems to automatically verify a platform’s internal assets compared to those on the blockchain to flag discrepancies.
Magazine: South Korea gets rich from crypto… North Korea gets weapons
Solana (SOL) treasury companies have shed between 75% and 92% of their stock value since late 2025, as the token’s 34% year-to-date decline punishes concentrated digital asset strategies.
Analyst Ted Pillows compared the price action of these firms to that of meme coins on the Solana network, warning investors that the selling may not be over.
“They are already down 80%-90%, but could go down another 30%-50% before the bottom,” he said.
Forward Industries (FWDI), the largest institutional SOL holder with 6.9 million tokens, has seen its stock plunge over 89% from a multi-year high near $46 recorded in September.
CoinGecko data showed that the company purchased SOL at an average price of around $230. Yet, with the token now trading near $82, the company carries over $1 billion in unrealized losses.
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Other firms face similar pain. Sol Strategies (STKE), which was listed on Nasdaq in September, has dropped over 92% since then. Sharps Technology’s stock (STSS) is down roughly 89%, with the company carrying $225.45 million in paper losses. DeFi Development Corp (DFDV) has fallen around 75%, with $56.43 million in unrealized losses.
Pillows also highlighted that Ethereum treasury firms are showing relative near-term strength, potentially attracting buying pressure into ETH.
However, he cautioned that this is likely a temporary reprieve before both ETH and its associated treasury stocks also move to new lows.
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Ultimately, sustained crypto asset recovery would ease balance-sheet pressure across the sector. Without one, treasury firms face growing questions about whether concentrated single-asset strategies can survive prolonged drawdowns.
The post Solana Treasury Stocks Mirror Meme Coin Crashes, Analyst Warns of 50% More Downside appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Key Highlights
- ARK Invest acquired 85,485 shares of Palantir valued at approximately $11.15M distributed across five ETFs
- The firm divested 44,446 AMD shares totaling roughly $10.52M, scaling back semiconductor holdings
- Palantir shares declined approximately 2% Friday following Thursday’s 7% retreat
- Michael Burry flagged Palantir as “bubble”-valued, pointing to Anthropic’s competitive momentum
- Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives countered Burry’s position, reaffirming Buy rating with $230 target
Cathie Wood’s investment management firm, ARK Invest, executed significant portfolio adjustments during April 10-11, 2026. The fund manager purchased Palantir Technologies stock while simultaneously reducing its Advanced Micro Devices holdings, based on the company’s published daily transaction reports.
ARK accumulated 85,485 Palantir shares representing approximately $11.15 million in value. The acquisition was distributed among five exchange-traded funds: ARKK acquired 46,455 shares, ARKQ added 15,127, ARKW purchased 11,865, ARKF bought 5,973, and ARKX obtained 6,065.
Palantir Technologies Inc., PLTR
Concurrently, ARK divested 44,446 shares of Advanced Micro Devices, representing approximately $10.52 million in total value. These sales were similarly allocated across the identical five fund portfolios.
These transactions indicate ARK’s strategic pivot from semiconductor hardware investments toward artificial intelligence software platforms.
Market Turbulence Hits Palantir
Palantir’s stock experienced significant headwinds during the week preceding ARK’s purchase. The shares retreated approximately 2% Friday after suffering a 7% decline the previous session.
A portion of this downturn stemmed from commentary by Michael Burry, the prominent investor famous for “The Big Short” trade. Burry published remarks on X suggesting Palantir’s market valuation has entered “bubble” levels.
Burry contended that Anthropic, the emerging AI company, is capturing market share from Palantir through its innovative “Mythos” model and accelerated expansion. Cathie Wood apparently viewed the price weakness as an attractive entry point.
ARK additionally liquidated 75,389 shares of Strata Critical Medical worth $305,325, extending a pattern of reducing exposure to that equity during recent sessions.
Wall Street Opinions Remain Split
Burry’s perspective doesn’t enjoy universal support. Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives characterized Burry’s viewpoint as a “fictional narrative.”
Ives maintained his Buy recommendation on Palantir while keeping his price objective at $230. He highlighted Palantir’s impressive 137% expansion in U.S. Commercial revenue as proof that the company’s competitive advantages remain intact.
Benchmark analyst Yi Fu Lee takes a more reserved stance. Lee suggests that Palantir’s elevated valuation metrics require continued strong operational performance to support current stock prices.
The Street consensus on Palantir currently stands at Moderate Buy. This rating reflects 14 Buy recommendations, 5 Hold ratings, and 2 Sell calls.
The mean price objective following the recent market turbulence reaches $194.61, implying roughly 52% appreciation potential from Friday’s closing price.
Advanced Micro Devices shares advanced 3.55% during the same trading session when ARK executed its sale.
Ethereum price is trading just below $2,200, with a macro chart prediction forming since 2017 signals the next move could be violent to the upside. An X analyst has flagged a golden triangle structure on ETH’s 3-week chart, a setup nearly a decade in the making that projects a parabolic rally above $12,000 by 2027–2028. The full target range may surprise even committed bulls.
The pattern is defined by two converging trendlines: a rising lower boundary anchored from the March 2020 Covid crash low and a flat upper resistance connecting the rally peaks of 2021, 2024, and 2025.
ETH has respected both boundaries repeatedly across multiple market cycles, with each touch producing a meaningful bounce. Currently, price is pressing the lower trendline again, forming what appears to be a higher low versus the 2025 bottom in a structure historically associated with breakout setups.
Separately, analyst CryptoFeras identified a rising diagonal support on the 3-day chart connecting cycle lows from 2022, 2023, and 2025, each of which preceded substantial multi-hundred-percent rallies.
Although the market backdrop complicates the picture, the Fear & Greed Index sits at 15–16, deep in extreme fear territory, while Ethereum’s deflationary supply dynamics and growing institutional flows via BlackRock’s ETHA provide structural support.
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Ethereum Price Prediction: $7,500 Before the End of 2026?
ETH is currently consolidating in the $2,000–$2,200 range following a sharp drawdown to $2,000 earlier this month. Volatility sits at 3.89% in a medium intensity level, with 60% green days across the trailing 30 periods, suggesting sellers are losing consistent momentum despite the fear-heavy sentiment.
Key levels define the near-term map. Support clusters at $2,162 (50-day SMA) and $1,760 (2026 year-to-date lows), with a deeper floor at $1,400 if macro conditions deteriorate sharply.
Resistance sits at $2,451 (5-day high) and $2,666 (200-day SMA), the latter being the critical reclaim zone for any sustained recovery thesis. RSI reads 54, neutral, but directional indicators on the daily and weekly timeframes are both flagging buy signals.
If ETH can hold $2,090 SMA support, it could reclaim $2,400, and the golden triangle breakout initiates a run toward Standard Chartered’s revised target of $7,500 by end-2026 and $15,000 by 2027.
The pattern is compelling. Whether price validates it in weeks or months remains an open question.
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Bitcoin Hyper Targets Early-Mover Upside as Ethereum Tests Key Levels
ETH at $2,100 offers meaningful upside potential, but reaching $7,500 still requires a 3.5× move from current prices, and Standard Chartered’s timeline stretches to late 2026. For some of us watching the crypto market structure and seeking asymmetric early-stage exposure, the current cycle is surfacing infrastructure plays operating at a fraction of established asset valuations.
Bitcoin Hyper is one generating notable presale traction. The project positions itself as the first-ever Bitcoin Layer 2 with SVM (Solana Virtual Machine) integration, delivering smart contract speed and programmability on Bitcoin’s security layer, targeting sub-second finality faster than Solana itself.
The presale has raised more than $32 million at a current token price of still just $0.0136, with staking available during the presale period. The core proposition addresses Bitcoin’s three structural limitations, like slow transactions, high fees, and absent programmability, without sacrificing BTC’s trust model.
The post Ethereum Price Prediction: Golden Triangle Since 2017 To Send ETH Parabolic appeared first on Cryptonews.
Whale activity around the TRUMP memecoin has intensified in the lead-up to a high-profile luncheon for top holders at Mar-a-Lago, even as the token’s price retraces from a March spike. On-chain data tracked by analytics firms shows several large transfers and new stash increases among the largest wallets, underscoring the ongoing tension between demand from retail participants and the concentration of supply among a handful of holders.
blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain highlighted the latest moves, including a whale who withdrew 105,754 OFFICIAL TRUMP (TRUMP) from Binance to augment a stash of about 1.13 million TRUMP — roughly $3.2 million at current prices — reported on Sunday. Earlier in the week, another large holder pulled 850,488 TRUMP from Bybit. On Solscan, a different wallet increased its TRUMP balance to more than 368,000 after an exit from BitMart, while a fourth wallet boosted holdings to above one million TRUMP following a Bybit withdrawal. These movements come as the top holders are slated for a private luncheon at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on April 25, with the event billed as featuring the former president as keynote speaker and a private reception for the top 29 holders.
Critics have argued that the event blurs political power with fundraising and personal gain, a concern echoed by lawmakers who have proposed measures aimed at curbing profits from memecoins tied to political figures. The White House has not commented on the memecoin’s fundraising optics, but the policy debate around memecoins remains a constant background theme in coverage of this asset class.
TRUMP price drift and what it implies for holders
The token’s price has cooled considerably since its March surge tied to the luncheon announcement. TRUMP traded near $2.80 on Monday, down more than 33% from its March peak of about $4.35. Data from CoinGecko shows the retracement, even as on-chain activity suggests ongoing accumulation among the largest holders.
Analyst commentary from Dominick John at Zeus Research framed the move this way: the price decline appears driven by retail selling against a backdrop of thin liquidity, which makes it easier for modest selling pressure to push prices lower. He also noted that the insider supply overhang means even small distributions from concentrated wallets can absorb new bids, dampening upside momentum for the token.
CoinCarp’s data reinforces the sense of pronounced concentration: the platform lists 642,882 TRUMP holders, with more than 91% of the supply held by the top 10 wallets and over 97% held by the top 100 wallets. In other words, the distribution of supply remains highly centralized, a factor that can both stabilize and cap upside depending on how those wallets choose to act in any given moment.
Past milestones, present dynamics, and potential catalysts
Trump’s first “crypto gala” dinner in May 2025 marked a previous burst in TRUMP’s price, with the token peaking around $15.59 roughly a month before the event and then retreating in the run-up. In the months since, the price path has been markedly less pronounced, though traders and analysts have pointed to potential catalysts that could rekindle momentum. John at Zeus Research suggests that a broader market backdrop paired with event-driven announcements could help establish a usable floor for the token and stir reflexive upside among participants.
“One catalyst to watch is the potential for event-driven launches, such as a proposed Trump Billionaire Game, which could generate social buzz and translate into short-term upside momentum,” John said. He cautioned that the same concentration of supply could moderate gains if the large holders decide to distribute, even in the face of favorable headlines.
Looking ahead, the upcoming luncheon and any related corporate or political announcements could act as a sentiment lever for the TRUMP token. If institutional interest begins to show in early accumulation or if broader memecoin activity heats up around the same time, a floor could form, enabling a more resilient bounce. But observers caution that absent a broader rebalancing of the supply base, gains may remain predominantly tied to the whims of the top holders rather than a healthy, broad-based retail demand story.
From a market structure perspective, the potential for new, high-profile launches tied to Trump’s brand in the crypto space could add a novel driver for short-term upside. Still, investors should contend with a highly concentrated holder base and liquidity that can tighten quickly during pullbacks, a dynamic that has underscored past price fluctuations.
Beyond price, regulatory scrutiny continues to loom. Democratic lawmakers have signaled an intent to curb profits from memecoins associated with political figures, a thread that could influence both participation and sentiment in the space over the medium term. As policymakers weigh proposals, traders and builders will be watching for any clarity on how such tokens should be treated under securities or commodity frameworks and whether targeted restrictions could alter the economics of large-scale memecoin holdings.
The TRUMP token’s appeal appears to rest as much on social momentum and media visibility as on fundamentals. The luncheon at Mar-a-Lago, the album of on-chain movements by large wallets, and the narrative around political branding in crypto all contribute to a multifaceted story that transcends a single price point. For readers, the key takeaway is to watch how the top holders’ decisions, new event-driven catalysts, and regulatory signals intersect to shape the token’s trajectory in the near term.
In practice, the evolving mix of on-chain activity and market sentiment suggests that the next few weeks could be telling for TRUMP. If the pool of actively trading retail investors expands or if a credible new catalyst surfaces, the token could test a new range. If, however, the concentration among the top wallets remains a dominant feature, upside may be limited unless a decisive large-holder move triggers broader participation.
As always, readers should stay tuned to on-chain trackers and exchange flow summaries for the latest movements, while watching for any official commentary on the event’s political optics and potential regulatory implications that could influence investor appetite for memecoins tied to public figures.
XRP price has remained in a consolidation phase for the past two weeks as investors remain in a risk-off mood, weighed by the uncertainty of when ongoing geopolitical tensions ease.
Summary
- XRP price remains range-bound between $1.25 and $1.40 for over two weeks, down nearly 16% from its March high as risk-off sentiment persists.
- Rising exchange inflows and $6 billion in whale selling since October signal continued selling pressure, while futures open interest remains subdued.
- Bearish technicals point to a potential drop toward $1.12, though some analysts see a long-term breakout that could drive a major upside move.
According to data from crypto.news, XRP (XRP) price has been trading within the $1.25 to $1.40 range for more than two weeks. Trading at $1.33 at press time, the 4th largest crypto asset by market cap has fallen nearly 16% from its March high.
XRP price crashed shortly after the U.S. SEC and CFTC jointly classified XRP as a digital commodity on March 17, ending years of legal uncertainty from the SEC lawsuit and shifting primary oversight to the CFTC.
Despite the bullish news, once it surfaced, many investors sold the news to lock in profits, which created very strong selling pressure on the XRP token.
Third-party data shows whales have been systematically selling their holdings since October last year. These whales have dumped an estimated $6 billion worth of XRP since then, as they used every price bounce as an opportunity to exit their positions.
The token’s price has also been suppressed by the tension in the Middle East, which has lowered investor risk appetite and impacted the broader crypto market.
It continues to remain at risk of more downside as investors continue to move their XRP holdings to exchanges. Data from CoinGlass shows that nearly $160 million worth of XRP has been moved to exchanges over the past two days. If these investors were to sell their coins, it could trigger a deeper correction.
This comes as the open interest in the XRP futures market has been stalling around $2 to $3 billion for more than a month now, significantly lower than the $9 billion level recorded in October last year, a sign that derivatives traders have lost interest in the token.
The daily XRP chart suggests that the token could be set for more downside in the short term. Notably, the 20-day SMA has formed a bearish crossover with the 50-day SMA, a sign that momentum is turning bearish.
XRP price has also slipped below the last line of defense at $1.43, which represents the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement level drawn from the Jan. 6 high to the Feb. 5 low.
Adding to this, the supertrend indicator has flipped red, and the RSI has dropped below the neutral threshold. Hence, XRP price stands at risk of dropping to the Feb. 5 low of $1.12, with the breach of this support potentially further accelerating the slide towards the $1.00 psychological level.
Despite the bearish outlook presented by the XRP chart in the short term, some analysts maintain a bullish perspective over a longer time frame.
In a recent X post by analyst Ali Martinez, he expects the XRP token to rebound by over 500% over the coming months if it successfully breaks out of a descending triangle pattern that has been developing on the monthly timeframe for nearly nine years. See below:
Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.
Crypto hacks are nothing new, but cases where attackers take big risks and walk away with peanuts aren’t common. That rare scenario played out on Sunday.
An attacker exploited a vulnerability in Hyperbridge’s cross-chain gateway that connects different blockchains, minting 1 billion Polkadot tokens ($1.19 billion) on Ethereum and dumping them for approximately $237,000 worth of ether.
The exploit adds to a growing list of bridge vulnerabilities in 2026. Last month saw a $270 million Drift Protocol drain on Solana, while a social engineering attack, rather than a code exploit, similarly involved compromised infrastructure.
The Sunday exploit targeted the bridge contract, not Polkadot’s core network. Polkadot’s native token DOT was unaffected. The vulnerability sat in how Hyperbridge’s EthereumHost contract validates incoming cross-chain messages before passing them to the TokenGateway.
Bridges, which help move coins from one blockchain to another, remain the weakest link in cross-chain architecture because they hold admin-level control over token contracts on destination chains, meaning a single validation failure can grant an attacker the ability to mint unlimited supply.
Here’s how attack unfolded
On-chain traces show that the attacker submitted a forged message via dispatchIncoming, which was routed to TokenGateway.onAccept.
The request receipts check, which should have verified the message against a valid cross-chain state commitment from Polkadot, stored an all-zeros commitment value, suggesting the proof validation was either absent or circumventable for this specific call path. The gateway processed the message as legitimate.
The accepted message executed changeAdmin on the bridged Polkadot token contract, transferring admin rights to the attacker’s address. With admin control, the attacker minted 1 billion tokens in a single transaction and routed them through Odos Router V3 into a Uniswap V4 DOT-ETH pool, extracting roughly 108.2 ETH across what appears to be multiple swaps at slightly different prices.
Liquidity worked against the attacker
Weak liquidity/depth, or the market’s ability to absorb large orders at stable prices, is usually a major issue for whales. But, in this case, it worked against the attacker, capping its profit.
The bridged DOT pool on Ethereum held limited depth, meaning 1 billion tokens overwhelmed the available liquidity and the attacker received a fraction of a cent per token.
On a deeper pool or a higher-value bridged asset, the same vulnerability would have produced significantly larger losses. DOT trades just under $1.20 as of Asian morning hours on Monday.
CertiK flagged the exploit, confirming the attack vector was the Hyperbridge gateway contract and that the attacker profited approximately $237,000 from minting and selling the bridged tokens.
Hyperbridge has not publicly commented on the exploit or disclosed whether other bridged token contracts using the same gateway are vulnerable to the same forged-message attack vector.
For decades, the internet has been a giant messaging system. Data moves. Requests route. Packets find their way across invisible rails.
Now something strange is happening: money is starting to behave the same way.
Not metaphorically. Literally structurally.
We’re watching decentralized finance evolve into a parallel internet layer—one that doesn’t just use the web, but mirrors its architecture.
And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
The Internet Was Built for Data. DeFi Is Rebuilding It for Value.
Traditional finance looks nothing like the internet.
It’s slow. Centralized. Permissioned. Every transfer is a bureaucratic event dressed up as a transaction.
But DeFi flips the model.
On networks like Ethereum, value becomes natively digital, programmable, and composable. It doesn’t “move” through institutions—it routes through protocols.
That’s the key shift:
The internet moved information. DeFi moves capital.
And once capital becomes “packetized,” everything changes.
Financial Routing Protocols Are Replacing Banks
In the traditional web, routers decide how packets travel.
In DeFi, protocols decide how money flows.
Decentralized exchanges like Uniswap act like liquidity routers. Lending markets behave like bandwidth allocation systems. Yield strategies resemble automated traffic optimization.
There’s no single bank deciding your path.
Instead, there’s a constantly updating network of smart contracts negotiating where your capital goes next.
It’s not finance anymore.
It’s routing logic.
Capital Becomes Packets
This is the mental model shift most people miss.
In Web2:
- Data = packets
- Infrastructure = servers + routers
- Optimization = latency, bandwidth
In DeFi:
- Capital = packets
- Infrastructure = liquidity pools + chains
- Optimization = yield, risk, execution speed
Your money stops being static.
It starts behaving like a traveling signal—split, recombined, rerouted, and optimized in real time.
Even concepts like “portfolio” start to feel outdated. You don’t hold assets—you route exposure.
Wallets Are No Longer Accounts. They’re Nodes.
A wallet used to mean: your account at a bank.
In DeFi, a wallet is something else entirely.
It is a node.
On ecosystems like Solana or Ethereum, a wallet doesn’t just store value—it participates in a live financial mesh:
- signing transactions
- interacting with protocols
- staking capital into networks
- bridging across chains
- voting in governance systems
Each wallet becomes a small financial server in a global, permissionless machine.
The implication is uncomfortable:
You are no longer a customer. You are infrastructure.
DeFi as a Network Layer, Not an App Layer
Most people still think DeFi is “apps on the internet.”
That’s outdated.
The better analogy is the OSI layers:
- Internet = data transport layer
- Web2 = application layer
- DeFi = value transport layer
It sits underneath applications, quietly handling how value moves between systems.
You don’t “use DeFi” in the same way you don’t “use TCP/IP.”
You build on it. You route through it. You depend on it without thinking about it.
That’s what a real infrastructure layer looks like.
The Rise of Autonomous Financial Traffic
Once value becomes programmable and composable, something weird emerges:
Self-optimizing money flow.
Strategies already exist that:
- Rebalance across yield markets automatically
- Bridge assets based on gas costs
- Route swaps through optimal liquidity paths
- Stack protocols like financial Lego
The system starts behaving less like a market and more like an adaptive network.
And unlike traditional finance, there’s no central optimizer.
The network optimizes itself.
Sometimes efficiently. Sometimes chaotically. Always irreversibly.
The Uncomfortable Truth
If this trajectory continues, DeFi won’t just disrupt finance.
It will redefine what “financial systems” even mean.
Banks won’t disappear overnight. But they may slowly become irrelevant at the protocol level—like fax machines in an API world.
And the real shift isn’t technological.
It’s conceptual:
Money is becoming native internet traffic.
Not stored. Not processed manually. Not moved through institutions.
Routed.
Closing Thought
We spent 30 years building the internet for information.
Now we’re rebuilding it for value.
And once capital flows like data, the boundary between “internet” and “financial system” stops making sense.
At that point, there is no web and no banking system.
There’s just a single, unified network.
And DeFi is already wiring it together.
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