Crypto World
Bitcoin Dips to $60k as TRM Labs Joins Crypto Unicorn Club
Crypto markets endured a brutal week as liquidity worries resurfaced in the wake of a high-profile Federal Reserve nomination. Investors watched US liquidity signals tighten while Bitcoin ETFs experienced notable outflows, contributing to choppy price action across the sector. The period also featured a string of high-profile financing moves and notable risk events that underscored the fragility of liquidity and risk appetite in crypto markets. Bitcoin and other large assets began to show resilience only after a brief slide, with traders assessing how policy shifts could shape funding conditions in the months ahead.
Key takeaways
- Bitcoin ETFs saw three consecutive days of outflows totaling about $431 million, underscoring persistent liquidity concerns even as spot prices fluctuated and regained ground.
- The crypto market’s largest price swing this week came as BTC traded near the $60,000 neighborhood before reclaiming the $64,000 level, highlighting a delicate balance between selling pressure and support at key levels.
- TRM Labs closed a $70 million Series C, valuing the blockchain intelligence firm at $1 billion and signaling continued investor confidence in on-chain analytics as a bulwark against AI-augmented cybercrime.
- Avalanche’s on-chain tokenization activity surged in Q4, with real-world asset tokenization rising to more than $1.3 billion in TVL and daily momentum aided by BlackRock’s BUIDL fund and other institutional partnerships.
- Jupiter secured a $35 million strategic investment from ParaFi Capital, marking the first time Solana-based Jupiter accepted outside capital while expanding beyond swaps into perpetuals, lending and stablecoins.
Tickers mentioned: $BTC, $AVAX, $JUP, $SOL, $ZEC
Sentiment: Bearish
Price impact: Negative. The week’s liquidity concerns and continued selloffs pressured prices, with intraday volatility driven by ETF outflows and leveraged-liquidation activity.
Trading idea (Not Financial Advice): Hold. The near-term setup suggests sensitivity to macro signals and policy cues, but liquidity adaptations by major players could offer selective opportunities in risk-managed positions.
Market context: The period reflected broader crypto-market liquidity dynamics, policy expectations around the Federal Reserve, and ongoing flows into and out of crypto-related products that influence price trajectories and risk appetite.
Why it matters
The week highlighted how macro policy choices and liquidity conditions remain core to crypto pricing. The nomination of Kevin Warsh to head the Federal Reserve has sparked debate about whether policy will tilt toward stabilizing liquidity flows or sustaining tight funding conditions. Traders closely watched whether the nomination would translate into a more cautious stance on rate reductions and balance-sheet expansion, potentially placing continued pressure on risk assets, including digital currencies and DeFi platforms.
Meanwhile, institutional interest in on-chain analytics and risk-management tools continued to rise. TRM Labs’ unicorn status after a $70 million Series C underscores the market’s belief that blockchain intelligence and anti-fraud capabilities will be central to enterprise risk management as digital asset ecosystems grow in scale and complexity. The round, led by Blockchain Capital with participation from Goldman Sachs and others, signals ongoing appetite among traditional financial players to integrate crypto-native risk controls into broader financial operations.
On the product and network side, tokenization within Avalanche continued to gain momentum, a trend amplified by the involvement of traditional finance players. The platform’s growth in tokenizing real-world assets, combined with the launch of BlackRock’s BUIDL fund and the S&P Dow Jones partnership with Dinari, demonstrates how tokenized money markets, loans and indexes are becoming more central to institutional experimentation. The quarter’s numbers—an increase of tokenized real-world asset value by hundreds of percent year over year—underscore a shift from speculation toward utility in tokenized finance at scale.
In parallel, Jupiter’s infusion of outside capital marked a turning point for a Solana-based protocol that has long driven on-chain trading and liquidity aggregation. The ParaFi-led investment, coupled with the company’s expansion into on-chain perpetuals, lending and stablecoins, reinforces the trend of traditional funds seeking strategic exposure to fully on-chain ecosystems that promise deeper liquidity and more resilient product suites. The market also watched for the token’s performance, with Jupiter’s native token price rising in response to the news.
Still, the week wasn’t without turbulence. The Solana ecosystem saw a significant breach in treasury management on one DeFi platform, and other episodes highlighted the ongoing cybersecurity and operational risks that confront decentralized finance as activity scales. While some platforms have moved toward more centralized governance or governance-sharing arrangements, the overarching arc remains: innovation is accelerating, but risk controls must keep pace to sustain long-term confidence.
In aggregate, the DeFi universe ended the week with a mixed risk lens. While several projects advanced tokenization and institutional collaboration, broader market momentum remained tethered to policy signals and the health of traditional liquidity channels. The week’s data points—ranging from ETF withdrawals to multi-billion-dollar liquidation events—reflect a crypto market in transition: not only growing in sophistication but also increasingly sensitive to macro policy and systemic liquidity dynamics.
Avalanche tokenization hits Q4 high as BlackRock’s BUIDL expands onchain
Blockchain network Avalanche demonstrated notable institutional traction in tokenizing traditional assets during the fourth quarter. Total value locked (TVL) in tokenized real-world assets on Avalanche rose 68.6% quarter over quarter and nearly 950% year over year, surpassing $1.3 billion, according to Messari’s state-of-Avalanche Q4 2025 report. The surge was driven in part by the November launch of BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), alongside broader deployments in tokenized money markets and loans.
The momentum was helped by strategic collaborations—Fortune 500 fintech FIS teamed with Avalanche-based Intain to bring tokenized loans to market, enabling securitization of billions of dollars in credit activity. The S&P Dow Jones Digital Markets 50 Index, launched in partnership with Dinari on Avalanche, tracks a cross-section of crypto-linked stocks and tokens and underscores the ongoing push to tie traditional benchmarks to on-chain exposure. The combination of these partnerships has supported a notable expansion of tokenized assets on the platform, contributing to a broader middleware layer that bridges real-world value with blockchain rails.
Traditional finance institutions are increasingly comfortable experimenting with tokenization, and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s more constructive stance toward crypto products has further lowered the regulatory headwinds facing such projects. This backdrop helps explain why on-chain asset issuance and tokenized funding mechanisms have gained traction on Avalanche, with real-world assets expanding beyond conventional crypto collateral and into more diversified financial instruments.
ParaFi Capital makes $35M investment in Solana-based Jupiter
Jupiter, a Solana-based on-chain trading and liquidity-aggregation protocol, announced a $35 million strategic investment led by ParaFi Capital. The deal marks the first time Jupiter has accepted external capital after years of bootstrapped growth. The investment included token purchases at market prices with no discount and an extended lockup period, settled entirely in Jupiter’s JupUSD stablecoin. The terms also included warrants allowing ParaFi to acquire additional tokens at higher prices, aligning long-term incentives with Jupiter’s growth trajectory.
The capital infusion comes as Jupiter broadens its product suite. After delivering a beta on-chain prediction market with Kalshi, the project rolled out JupUSD, a Solana-native stablecoin designed for on-chain settlement. Jupiter’s trading volume has surpassed $1 trillion in the past year, reflecting a rapid acceleration of liquidity and on-chain efficiency on Solana. The company has since expanded beyond swaps to perpetuals and lending, signaling a broader push to become an all-in-one on-chain liquidity hub.
Jupiter’s native token (JUP) responded to the news, rising roughly 9% over the prior 24 hours, underscoring investor appetite for Solana-native ecosystems that couple high throughput with diversified on-chain products. This momentum reflects a broader trend of cross-platform collaboration, where on-chain trading, governance, and liquidity provisioning are increasingly integrated with real-world asset workflows and institutional-grade risk controls.
Aave winds down Avara, phases out Family wallet in DeFi refocus
Aave Labs announced a strategic refocusing by winding down its umbrella brand Avara, which encompassed projects including the Family wallet and Lens, as the group doubles down on core DeFi initiatives. Stani Kulechov, Aave’s founder and CEO, noted that Avara is no longer required as the company concentrates on delivering broad DeFi access to users, with onboarding millions of users requiring purpose-built experiences rather than generic wallet interfaces.
The move aligns with Aave’s broader strategy to reallocate resources toward its flagship lending protocol and other core DeFi products. As governance and ecosystem partnerships evolve, projects like Lens have seen stewardship shifts to other collaborations, enabling Aave to focus on what it terms “DeFi for everyone.” The decision underscores the ongoing recalibration within the market as crypto firms chase product-market fit at scale and navigate regulatory expectations alongside user growth.
Kulechov indicated that the total effort within the team remains focused on unifying engineering and design toward a singular mission: bringing DeFi to a broad audience. The development trajectory suggests continued emphasis on user-friendly, accessible financial primitives and streamlined onboarding processes rather than sprawling, multi-brand architectures.
What to watch next
- Next batch of ETF outflow data and liquidity indicators to gauge whether funding conditions stabilize or deteriorate.
- Federal Reserve policy signals and potential implications for risk assets as the Warsh nomination progresses through confirmation and policy debate.
- Continued institutional participation in tokenization and on-chain finance, including Avalanche’s RWAs and partnerships with traditional finance players.
- Jupiter’s ongoing product expansion and ParaFi’s involvement in governance and token strategies.
Sources & verification
- Data on Bitcoin ETF outflows and price movements from Farside Investors and Cointelegraph coverage.
- Record of the Jan. 31 liquidation event reported by CoinGlass and related market data.
- TRM Labs’ Series C funding round and unicorn status as announced in its press release.
- Messari’s State of Avalanche Q4 2025 report, detailing RWAs and TVL growth.
- ParaFi Capital’s $35 million investment in Jupiter and the terms of the deal.
Strategy, the world’s largest publicly traded Bitcoin holder, has held the 11.5% dividend rate on its perpetual preferred stock, Stretch (STRC). This marks the first time the product has not seen a dividend increase since the product launched in July 2025.
STRC debuted in July 2025 with a 9% dividend and has since undergone seven dividend increases. The company was able to maintain the current rate after the volume weighted average price (VWAP) for the month reached $99.95, keeping the shares close enough to their $100 par value.
Strategy positions STRC as a short duration, high yield savings alternative. The perpetual preferred stock pays monthly cash distributions, with the dividend rate adjusted each month to support trading near par and limit price volatility.
During Tuesday’s session, STRC held close to par for most of the day. The company is estimated to have purchased over 1,000 BTC, and it took 12 days for STRC to recover back to par following the ex dividend date. It is likely the shares will continue trading near par over the next two weeks, leading up to the April 14 ex dividend date.
Meanwhile, Strive (ASST), the bitcoin treasury asset manager, saw its own perpetual preferred product, SATA, reach $100 par for the first time. This enabled the company to issue shares through its at the market (ATM) program to fund additional bitcoin purchases. SATA currently offers a dividend rate of 12.7%.
Announced at EthCC in Cannes, the upgrade enables institution-specific borrowing environments, structured credit products, and RWA-backed lending within a unified liquidity system.
Crypto World
Australia passes crypto regulation requiring exchanges to obtain financial services licenses
Australia passed legislation on Wednesday, creating its first comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets that requires crypto exchanges and custody providers to obtain financial services licenses.
The Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025 cleared both houses on April 1, bringing firms that hold digital assets on behalf of customers into the existing Australian Financial Services Licence regime.
Australia’s bill creates two new regulated categories under the Corporations Act: digital asset platforms, which hold crypto on behalf of users, and tokenized custody platforms, which hold real-world assets and issue a corresponding digital token.
Operators of both must obtain an Australian Financial Services License from ASIC, bringing them under the same core rules as brokers or fund managers, including requirements to safeguard client assets, provide standardized disclosures, avoid misleading conduct, and maintain dispute resolution and compensation systems.
Instead of regulating crypto itself, the law targets the companies in the middle that control customer funds, aiming to reduce risks like commingling, insolvency, and misuse of assets that have caused losses in past crypto failures.
Research from the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Center and industry groups estimates Australia could generate as much as A$24 billion annually from tokenized markets, payments, and digital assets, roughly 1% of GDP. Under the previous regulatory path, the country was on track to capture just A$1 Billion of that by 2030.
A Kraken spokesperson said the law provides a “top-down signal” that Australia is serious about digital assets, adding that clearer rules would give firms confidence to invest and expand locally.
Kate Cooper, CEO of OKX Australia and co-chair of the Digital Economy Council of Australia, called the bill a “pivotal moment,” saying it establishes a foundation for institutional participation and long-term capital allocation.
Almonty’s tungsten mine in Sangdong, South Korea, in March 2026.
Almonty
BEIJING — The Iran war is squeezing a global commodities market already pressured by China’s export controls and stockpiling efforts.
Prices of three niche elements — tungsten, sulfur and helium — have climbed sharply in recent weeks.
While none of the commodities are traded as widely as oil, the surge indicates how ripple effects from the Middle East conflict could end up restricting production of the semiconductors that power artificial intelligence advances.
Tungsten, a metal nearly as hard as a diamond, creates the electrical connection in the core of a semiconductor chip. Sulfuric acid, a byproduct of sulfur, cleans chip wafers. Helium enables smooth production of semiconductors since the gas prevents unwanted chemical reactions in the manufacturing process.
Those are just some of the ways in which the three elements have become critical for modern manufacturing, including for defense.
Beijing started to ramp up its control over the critical supplies even before the Iran war started on Feb. 28, partly as tensions with the U.S. escalated over the last few years.
China started restricting tungsten exports just over a year ago, and in December called for tighter limits on sulfuric acid exports. Helium, a gas that’s difficult to store, saw the volume of Chinese imports rise by 15.7% in 2025, after a nearly 65% surge in 2024, according to Wind Information.
The Iran war and the ensuing constraints on the Strait of Hormuz, a critical Middle East shipping route for energy and chemicals, has tipped some oversupply situations into undersupply, while exacerbating existing shortages.
Prices of the three commodities have jumped in some cases by more than oil. The widely used fossil fuel has climbed by more than 50% in March, putting Brent on track for a record month.
“While the Chinese supply chain is being viewed as more resilient than many peers, the risk of disruption in chemicals as raw materials for manufacturers in selected segments is higher than expected based on the feedback,” Goldman Sachs analysts said in a report late last week, citing nearly 40 commodity-related meetings and site visits in China.
Tungsten
Tungsten hit a record high of over $3,000 late last week, marking a surge of well over 50% for the month and more than tripling in price since late December. That’s based on the industry benchmark called “ammonium para tungstate (APT)” in metric ton units, or MTU, from Fastmarket, as quoted by tungsten miner Almonty.
Almonty officially reopened a large tungsten mine in Sangdong, South Korea, earlier this month, and plans to start producing some tungsten this year at a project in the U.S. state of Montana.
The company’s CEO Lewis Black told CNBC that defense sector demand for tungsten has been “extremely strong” since the beginning of last year, but that there’s been no notable change despite the Iran war.
“There’s no material to stockpile. That’s probably the biggest change,” he said.
Sulfur
The price of sulfuric acid in Africa is now at least 30% higher than it was prior to the war, and is still rising, the Goldman Sachs analysts said, citing a local Chinese miner in Africa.
Other assessments point to a milder rise in prices.
China sulfur prices, including cost and freight, climbed by about 13% from early March to $621 per tonne as of March 26, according to S&P Global Platts.
“A 2-3 month effective blockade would likely become a severe supply shock, especially as freight/insurance stay elevated and Middle East-origin cargoes become harder to execute,” Pan Yuya, lead analyst for sulfur and phosphate raw materials at S&P Global Energy, and Isaac Zhao, senior principal analyst, China fertilizers at S&P Global Energy, said in a March 20 note.
The S&P analysts said that around 56% of China’s sulfur imports came from the Middle East in 2025.
“Even prior to the Middle East conflict, sulfur prices were rising sharply as the market tightened. With sulfur prices now at fresh record highs, the ‘super squeeze’ in this rather obscure commodity in supply warrants further examination,” HSBC analysts said in a March 16 report.
Helium
Helium prices have roughly doubled since the Iran war began, according to Fitch Ratings.
As most trading occurs through long-term private contracts between industrial gas suppliers and manufacturers, it is difficult to pinpoint industry-wide prices, said Shelley Jang, Fitch’s director of Asia-Pacific corporate ratings.
Iranian missile attacks this month crippled a key industrial center in Qatar, which produces about one-third of the world’s helium.
That implies helium supply won’t be restored anytime soon, pointed out Christopher Ecclestone, principal and mining strategist at Hallgarten & Company.
In one indication of further market tightness, prices of helium in China’s Henan province have reversed a downturn this year to climb from a Feb. 28 low of 545 yuan ($78.85) a bottle to 600 yuan ($86.81), according to Wind Information.
Subscribe now
Shortages caused by the Iran war are the latest supply chain disruption to rock global markets, which faced similar shocks from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the Covid-19 pandemic. That’s pushed companies to diversify, and countries such as China to ramp up stockpiling plans.
“Access to supplies of certain physical materials where production and processing is concentrated in China will become more frequent topics of negotiations with Beijing,” Rhodium Group said in a March 24 report.
Limited price transparency also means the shortage could be worse than available numbers suggest.
Tungsten and helium prices have been surging, “but you don’t have anyone on the buy side saying, ‘oh my goodness, we don’t have enough product,’” Ecclestone said. “Defense contractors should have warehouses of tungsten, but they don’t.”
“The world has got lazy. It thinks life is like a supermarket, the product is a pack of cornflakes or a few tons of sulfuric acid,” he said. “The supermarket of commodities has had a few of the aisles chopped down.”
The ex-Blackstone team wants to move beyond crypto-collateralized loans and into ‘real economy credit’ as the tokenized RWA sector continues to grow.
Bitcoin has declined by about 50% this market cycle, far less than in previous cycles, Fidelity Digital Assets said, adding this trend could continue over time.
Bitcoin’s post-all-time-high drawdowns have historically been steep, at about 80% to 90%, but this cycle has been about 50%, Fidelity Digital Assets research analyst Zack Wainwright said Tuesday.
One can see the “diminishing returns” that have developed from cycle to cycle when looking at Bitcoin’s price performance from the perspective of the previous all-time high, he said.
“Each cycle has been less dramatic to the upside than the previous,” he said. “Downside risk has been less dramatic in 2026, the current cycle, as well,” he added.
Bitcoin’s price hit its current cycle low of just over $60,000 on Feb. 6, a decline of 52% from its Oct. 6 all-time high of about $126,000, according to TradingView. It is currently down 46% from its peak six months ago.
The previous cycle saw a much larger decline of 77%, from the 2021 all-time high of $69,000 to a bear market low just below $16,000 in November 2022.
Bitcoin may bottom in late September
Fidelity’s assessment that this Bitcoin cycle is notably shallower than prior cycles “indicates a maturing market with reduced volatility and stronger institutional confidence,” Nick Ruck, director of LVRG Research, told Cointelegraph on Wednesday.
“This shift signals that Bitcoin is changing from a speculative asset toward a more stable store of value, potentially paving the way for greater adoption in the future.”
Related: Bitcoin’s $10K range expected to hold until spot traders show up: Data
Meanwhile, Alphractal founder Joao Wedson observed Tuesday that Bitcoin’s top occurred 534 days after the last halving, a shorter span than in the previous cycle.
This “decaying pattern” across cycles suggests the historical bottom may occur between 912 and 922 days after the halving, which “points to a bottom in late September or early October 2026,” he said.
BTC is below key daily moving averages
Bitcoin remains below the key 50-day and 200-day exponential moving averages, two long-term trend indicators.
It is hovering at the 200-week EMA, around $68,000, which has served as a key level of support during previous market downturns.
Magazine: Nobody knows if quantum secure cryptography will even work
Consumers browse Huawei phones in a shopping mall in Yantai, Shandong Province, China on March 8, 2026.
Cfoto | Future Publishing | Getty Images
Huawei’s push to develop its own artificial intelligence chip has yet to drive the double-digit revenue gains of its peers, as Chinese companies strive to narrow the gap with the U.S. on AI.
Cloud computing revenue from external customers fell by 3.5% in 2025 to 32.16 billion yuan ($4.6 billion), Huawei said. The company is the second-largest cloud provider in mainland China.
While overall cloud revenue including internal customers rose by 4.8% to 72.8 billion yuan, the main ICT infrastructure segment reported revenue growth that slowed to 2.6%, down from 4.9% in 2024.
That’s the segment that would include Huawei’s self-developed Ascend AI chip solutions, meant to rival Nvidia. Huawei’s total ICT revenue for 2025 was 375.01 billion yuan.
The U.S. has restricted Chinese companies’ access to the most advanced Nvidia chips, while Beijing has urged tech self sufficiency at home.
Huawei’s decline in cloud revenue to external customers comes as ByteDance has rapidly grown its AI cloud business in China in the last several months, albeit from a small base.
The TikTok owner is reportedly ramping up access to high-end Nvidia chips in a partnership deal with a planned Malaysia data center. ByteDance and Alibaba also plan to place orders of Huawei’s new AI chip, Reuters reported last week, citing sources. ByteDance declined to comment. The two other Chinese companies did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.
U.S.-developed AI tools are generally considered the most capable in the world, although some Chinese models have shown an edge in video generation. Not all U.S. AI models are officially accessible in mainland China.
Huawei’s modest cloud growth figures come amid rapid industry expansion worldwide and slower economic growth in China.
Globally, spending on cloud infrastructure services rose by 29% in the fourth quarter in a sixth-straight quarter of market expansion of more than 20%, according to Omdia. The firm predicts 27% cloud growth in 2026.
Earlier this month, Alibaba, the largest cloud computing company by market share in mainland China, reported a 36% increase in segment revenue to 43.28 billion yuan in 2025. Tencent said increased cloud service revenues domestically and internationally helped drive a 22% year-on-year increase in business services revenue in 2025.
Local promotions this month in China for AI tool OpenClaw have also encouraged many locals to download the agent and pay for related cloud and AI model services. China’s consumer spending has remained tepid since the pandemic.
Consumer revenue slows
Subscribe now
Huawei smartphones ranked first in China last year by shipments, up by 1.7%, according to Counterpoint. But the Chinese company lost ground to Apple toward the end of 2025 after the iPhone 17’s release.
For 2025 overall, the telecommunication giant reported revenue of 880.9 billion yuan, up 2%, on net profit of 68 billion, up around 8% from a year ago.
The company spent a record 192.3 billion yuan in research and development, or 21.8% of revenue.
“In 2025, Huawei’s overall performance remained steady,” Sabrina Meng, Huawei’s rotating chairwoman, said in a brief statement, which also expressed gratitude to customers, partners and employees.
The intelligent automotive solutions unit saw revenue of 45.02 billion yuan, with growth slowing to 72% year-on-year, down from a whopping 474.4% in 2024, as the autos business captured an initial surge in electric vehicles. Huawei partners with several automobile manufacturers for in-car software and driver-assist technology.
Bitcoin held gains above $68,000 as investors leaned into news that the US and Iran were ideating ways to end the war. Will markets hold their newfound bullishness?
Bitcoin (BTC) briefly jumped to $68,589, and US stock markets rallied as investors reacted to US President Donald Trump’s statements on considering options for ending the US and Israel-Iran war. Separate, unconfirmed comments attributed to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also suggested that Iran may be looking for ways to end the war.
On Tuesday, reporting from The Wall Street Journal said that President Trump told his aides that he could consider ending the war in Iran, with the Straight of Hormuz remaining partially closed, but an official statement has not been given.
Unconfirmed reports also suggest that Iran’s president is looking for a way to exit the conflict with certain assurances being made by the US and Israel. Regardless of the accuracy of the statements from either president, the DOW gained more than 1,125 points, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq gained 2.91% and 3.83%, respectively.
Despite the strong performance seen across markets, Cointelegraph reported that crypto traders are skeptical of Bitcoin holding its current gains. Analysts suggested that a daily close above the 50-day moving average and $68,879 are key to establishing an early trend change and potentially clearing overhead short liquidity, which could trigger a liquidation-driven rally to $82,000.
Related: Bitcoin hits $68K but BTC futures, macro data show traders remain bearish
A lack of confidence is the current culprit
Beyond US macroeconomic conditions and the forecasted longer-term negative impact of the US and Israel-Iran war on energy, goods and services costs, the weakness of spot demand in the Bitcoin market continues to cap most price breakouts.
As shown in the chart below, open interest in the Bitcoin futures market, along with spot demand have remained relatively flat since the Feb. 6 sell-off below $60,000. This suggests that a majority of the price action is driven by news headlines, equities and perpetual futures markets, as the absence of investors making sustained directional bets in each market (futures and spot) leaves BTC price range-bound.
Earlier reporting from Cointelegraph also highlighted short-term traders holding positions below their cost basis ($85,800) and stablecoin inflows to crypto exchanges near a two-year low, further evidence that traders remain extremely cautious and are electing not to take strong directional bets in the market.
This article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and is intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or recommendations. All investments and trades carry risk; readers are encouraged to conduct independent research before making any decisions. Cointelegraph makes no guarantees regarding the accuracy or completeness of the information presented, including forward-looking statements, and will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from reliance on this content.
Key takeaways:
-
Solana outperforms Ethereum in high-revenue DApps, providing a fundamental cushion against recent price drops.
-
Rising Ethereum Layer-2 dominance challenges SOL as traders monitor the critical $80 support level for a retest.
Solana’s native token, SOL (SOL), faced an 11% correction following a rejection at $93 on last Wednesday. SOL has lagged the broader cryptocurrency market over the past week, testing the $80 support on multiple occasions. Solana network fees have also declined over the past two months, leading traders to fear a potential retest of the $75 level.
The total value locked (TVL) on Solana stood at $6.3 billion, though the gap remains wide compared to Ethereum’s $54.1 billion. However, Solana amassed 80% more network fees than its main competitor over the last 30 days. This difference is largely due to Ethereum’s incentives for layer-2 rollups, which utilize temporary data blobs to lower costs.
Network fees on Solana dropped to $18.5 million in March, a 42% decrease from January’s $30 million level. Most of this decline stems from lower activity in decentralized exchange (DEX) volumes. Despite maintaining leadership in absolute terms, Solana DEX volumes plummeted to $55.5 billion, their lowest levels since September 2024, according to DefiLlama data.
In comparison, Ethereum DEX volumes totaled $41 billion in March, down 23% from two months prior. More importantly, when aggregating Ethereum layer-2 blockchains like Base, Arbitrum, Polygon, and Optimism, Ethereum’s DEX market share jumped to 42% in March from 33% in January. Solana’s dominance is gradually being challenged, which partially explains SOL’s current bearish momentum.
Solana DApps revenue could solidify SOL’s $80 support level
While DEX volumes on Solana are declining, no other network matches its number of DApps earning $1 million or more in 30 days. This data serves as a strong incentive for developers to join Solana, creating opportunities for user returns through protocols like Pump, Helium Network and ORE Protocol. Since protocol revenues drive investor attention, a healthy ecosystem remains extremely important for SOL’s upside.
Related: Solana lands Mastercard, Western Union on new dev platform
Solana leads the pack with 13 DApps ranking $1 million or more in revenue over the past 30 days. As a comparison, the runner-up Ethereum had 11 DApps, while BNB Chain and Base totaled 4 DApps each with $1 million or higher in monthly revenue. Thus, there is little evidence that the SOL price is bound to retest $75 solely because of lower network fees driven by weak DEX volumes.
DEX activity is a major driver of network fees, but the sustainability of protocols within the Solana ecosystem demonstrates that SOL is far from abandoned by investors.
This article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and is intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or recommendations. All investments and trades carry risk; readers are encouraged to conduct independent research before making any decisions. Cointelegraph makes no guarantees regarding the accuracy or completeness of the information presented, including forward-looking statements, and will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from reliance on this content.
Bitfarms (BITF) shares climbed 6.6% on Tuesday despite reporting a widened $284.5 million net loss for 2025, driven by a decline in Bitcoin prices and a high cost of revenue, with the company advancing its pivot to AI and high-performance computing.
The company’s full-year results statement on Tuesday showed a 72% year-on-year increase in revenue to $229 million. This was outweighed by $248 million in cost of revenue, leading to a gross loss.
General and administrative expenses also increased year over year, while the change in fair value of digital assets led to a $50.5 million loss in 2025 compared with a gain of $26 million in 2024. This was partially offset by a $28.2 million realized gain on the sale of digital assets.
The results show the difficulty that some Bitcoin miners have faced in turning a profit. Bitcoin mining profitability margins have slimmed for miners as Bitcoin has fallen 46% from its high in October, while Bitcoin difficulty — a measure of how difficult it is to mine a block — has increased 58.5% since the last halving event in May 2024.
In the earnings call, Bitfarms CEO Ben Gagnon said it made the “bold decision to walk away” from its Bitcoin mining business in November and has built a new business powering HPC and AI data centers:
“No half-measures, no compromises, and in time, no Bitcoin. We built a new company,” he said, adding that Bitfarms expects to rebrand to Keel Infrastructure on Wednesday and has been given shareholder approval to move its legal base from Canada to the US.
The filing shows Bitfarms currently still holds approximately $161 million in unencumbered Bitcoin.
In the statement, Gagnon added: “Everything we built in 2025 — the sites, the team, the balance sheet — was in service of one thesis: that HPC/AI’s exponential growth requires top-tier infrastructure, and we intend to build to meet that demand.”
Related: MARA sells $1.1B in Bitcoin to buy back debt at 9% discount
BITF shares closed Tuesday trading hours up 6.64% to 2.73 Canadian dollars ($1.96), Google Finance data shows.
Bitfarms said its focus with HPC and AI is to power hyperscalers and neoclouds for the next wave of AI applications.
“We are not here to compete with hyperscalers or Neoclouds. We are here to enable them. Our focus is providing the critical and largely invisible foundation that will allow the world’s most advanced AI platforms to deploy on time and scale without interruption.”
It is in the process of advancing a 2.2 gigawatt digital infrastructure development pipeline across North America to deliver on that goal.
Bitfarms is one of several Bitcoin miners that have expanded or pivoted into AI in search of higher-margin opportunities in HPC and AI.
Iris Energy is scaling AI cloud services with Nvidia GPUs, while Cipher Mining has secured a long-term AI hosting deal with AI cloud platform Fluidstack. Riot Platforms and MARA Holdings have also expanded into AI and HPC.
Magazine: Bitcoin may face hard fork over any attempt to freeze Satoshi’s coins
‘Project Hail Mary’ box office success shows Amazon MGM can deliver
Strategy’s STRC maintains dividend at 11.5% after steady increases
Get JLo’s Designer Mesh Ballet Flats Look for $41 on Amazon
-
News Videos6 days agoParliament publishes latest register of MPs’ financial interests
-
Tech6 days agoIntercom’s new post-trained Fin Apex 1.0 beats GPT-5.4 and Claude Sonnet 4.6 at customer service resolutions
-
NewsBeat5 days agoThe Story hosts event on Durham’s historic registers
-
Business6 days agoInstagram, YouTube Found Responsible for Teen’s Mental Health Struggle in Historic Ruling
-
Sports4 days agoSweet Sixteen Game Thread: Tide vs Michigan
-
NewsBeat7 days agoTesco is selling new Cadbury Dairy Milk bar and people can’t wait to try it
-
Entertainment3 days agoLana Del Rey Celebrates Her Husband’s 51st Birthday In New Post
-
Entertainment2 days ago
Fans slam 'heartbreaking' Barbie Dream Fest convention debacle with 'cardboard cutout' experience
-
Crypto World21 hours ago
Dems press CFTC, ethics board on prediction-market insider trades
-
Sports17 hours agoTallest college basketball player ever, standing at 7-foot-9, entering transfer portal
-
Fashion7 days agoHow to Style Spring Like WeWoreWhat: Easy Outfit Ideas for 2026
-
Entertainment6 days agoHBO’s Harry Potter Series Will Definitely Fail For One Big Reason, And It’s Not J.K. Rowling Or Snape
-
Tech2 days agoThe Pixel 10a doesn’t have a camera bump, and it’s great
-
Fashion6 days agoEn Vogue in Brown Leather and Tailored Neutrals by Atelier Savoir, Styled by J Bolin
-
Crypto World1 day agoU.S. rule change may open trillions in 401(k) funds to crypto
-
Fashion6 days agoWhat Are Your Favorite T-Shirts for the Weekend?
-
Fashion5 days agoWeekly News Update, 3.27.26 – Corporette.com
-
Politics2 days agoShould Trump Be Scared Strait?
-
Sports1 day agoWomen’s hockey camp eyes fitness boost, tactics ahead of WC 2026 campaign | Other Sports News
-
Sports6 days agoLewis Hall hopes to miss another summer of village cricket due to World Cup call
You must be logged in to post a comment Login