Crypto World
Bitcoin Drops Below $80K, But New Buyers are Entering the Market
Bitcoin price has dropped below $80,000 for the first time since April 2025. Yet, its performance has still outpaced gold. While BTC dropped alongside broader risk assets, the losses were notably smaller than those seen in precious metals.
This relative strength drew attention from new market participants. Many investors viewed the pullback as an opportunity to accumulate Bitcoin at discounted levels.
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Bitcoin Drops below $80K, But Beats Gold
Gold faced a sharp sell-off as the week came to a close. Between Thursday and Friday, the precious metal plunged nearly 10%. During the same period, Bitcoin declined by about 5.6%. This contrast highlights shifting investor preferences during market stress.
Although gold is traditionally seen as an inflation hedge, Bitcoin has shown greater resilience in the short term. The smaller drawdown suggests stronger demand support for BTC.
Investor behavior reflects this shift, as capital appears to favor Bitcoin over gold during recent volatility.
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On-chain data reinforces this trend. Bitcoin’s network recorded a surge in new addresses over the past 24 hours. Approximately 335,772 new addresses were created, marking a two-month high. This was the largest daily increase since November 2025.
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The spike occurred as the Bitcoin price dipped toward $81,000. New participants likely viewed the decline as a favorable entry point.
Fresh address growth often signals expanding adoption and renewed interest. These inflows can strengthen demand and support price stability during corrections.
BTC Price Dip Could Extend
Bitcoin is trading near $78,000 at the time of writing. Recently, BTC broke down from a broadening ascending wedge. This bearish pattern projected a 12.6% decline, targeting the $75,850 region.
The sell-off intensified after Bitcoin lost the $82,503 support level. That breakdown confirmed short-term bearish momentum. However, reclaiming this level could shift sentiment. Improving on-chain metrics and rising address growth increase the chances of stabilization.
A stronger recovery would require Bitcoin to reclaim $87,210 as support. Achieving this would signal renewed buyer confidence and help BTC recover recent losses. If the downtrend persists, downside risk remains.
Failure to hold current levels could send Bitcoin toward $78,763. Losing that support could open the door to $75,895, invalidating the bullish outlook.
Bitcoin slips to $72.3k as the Strait of Hormuz conflict spikes oil, U.S. inflation runs hot, and traders slash Fed cut bets, pressuring crypto and stocks.
Summary
- Strait of Hormuz closure sends oil above $100, adding fresh inflation pressure before it even hits official data.
- Hot U.S. PPI print forces traders to reprice 2026 Fed cuts, pushing equity futures and Bitcoin lower in a correlated risk-off move.
- Elevated energy prices, sticky core inflation and an entrenched Gulf conflict leave the near-term path for crypto and other risk assets highly uncertain.
Cryptocurrency markets came under sharp pressure on Wednesday as two converging macro forces — an escalating military conflict centered on the Strait of Hormuz and a worse-than-expected U.S. inflation print — sent Bitcoin tumbling to approximately $72,300, a 24-hour decline of roughly 2%. Ethereum, Solana, and XRP each fell close to 3%, dragging the broader digital asset market into a broad risk-off retreat that also hit equity futures.
The geopolitical backdrop has been deteriorating since late February, when U.S. and Israeli forces launched coordinated strikes on Iran — killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — triggering retaliatory missile campaigns across Gulf states and an effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. As of mid-March, tanker traffic through the strait had dropped by approximately 70%, with over 150 vessels anchored outside the chokepoint. The IRGC has since confirmed more than 21 attacks on merchant ships, and Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has vowed to maintain the blockade, with the IRGC navy pledging to deliver “the harshest blows” to enforce it.
The disruption of the Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly 15% of global oil supply transits — has sent energy prices soaring. On Wednesday, Brent crude broke above $104 per barrel, rising 3.22% intraday, while WTI crossed $97 per barrel. The spike compounds an already difficult inflation environment.
Data released Wednesday morning by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the Producer Price Index rose 0.7% month-on-month in February, more than double the consensus forecast of 0.3%. Core PPI — which strips out food and energy — climbed 0.5% MoM against an expected 0.3%, and rose 3.9% year-on-year. Critically, these figures do not yet reflect the surge in oil prices triggered by the Hormuz closure, meaning the inflationary pipeline is likely to worsen in coming months.
The report follows a February CPI reading that held steady at 2.4% year-on-year, but with core PCE — the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge — estimated at approximately 3.1%, well above the central bank’s 2% target. Capital Economics noted ahead of Wednesday’s PPI release that preliminary estimates already pointed to a “much firmer rise in the core PCE deflator.”
For markets, the implications are stark. Traders have now materially reduced bets on Federal Reserve rate cuts in 2026, and S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures widened their declines to 0.5% following the PPI release. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) climbed 1.22 points to 23.59, reflecting rising investor anxiety ahead of the Fed’s rate decision later this week.
Bitcoin, which had been testing resistance near $74,000 in recent sessions, proved unable to hold those levels against the twin headwinds. The asset’s correlation with risk assets such as equities has reasserted itself sharply, undermining near-term narratives around its use as an inflation hedge. The Fed’s policy meeting and Chair Powell’s anticipated remarks on growth risks and price stability will now be closely watched for any signal that could shift the current trajectory.
With oil prices elevated, inflation proving stickier than models anticipated, and a military conflict showing no signs of de-escalation, the path of least resistance for risk assets — crypto included — remains uncertain at best.
The Algorand Foundation, the organization behind the Algorand layer-1 blockchain, said it had made the “difficult decision” to reduce its headcount by 25% on Wednesday, blaming the crypto slump and wider uncertainty.
“This decision was not taken lightly and is in response to the uncertain global macro environment as well as the broader downturn in crypto markets,” the Algorand Foundation said in an X post.
The Algorand Foundation said the affected employees were “best-in-class contributors” and described the decision as “incredibly tough,” adding that it would support staff through the transition.
“We believe that we now have a more sustainable alignment of Algorand Foundation resources with the protocol’s long-term business, technology, and ecosystem priorities,” the foundation added.
Algorand Foundation is gearing up for a big year ahead
The staff cuts come as the Algorand Foundation prepares for several milestones for the year ahead, including the next major release of its developer toolkit AlgoKit, the launch of the user-friendly Rocca Wallet, the development of a more robust commercial toolkit, and a focus on post-quantum security.
The Algorand Foundation said in its roadmap progress report in December 2025 that it made “significant progress” toward greater decentralization, having increased Algorand’s (ALGO) online stake from approximately 1 billion to 2 billion ALGO in just over a year.
The crypto industry has a history of cutting staff during market downturns. Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $71,067 — 44% below its October all-time high of $126,000 — after falling as low as $60,000 on Feb. 6, according to CoinMarketCap.
Related: SEC Chair explains why NFTs fall outside of securities laws
Bullish CEO Tom Farley recently predicted that the crypto sector could see more projects acquired by larger firms in the coming months, potentially leading to redundancies, layoffs, and internal restructuring.
Meanwhile, on Monday, blockchain data provider Messari announced a series of layoffs while its CEO, Eric Turner, stepped down to make way for the company’s “next phase” as an AI-first company.
During the 2022 bear market, Coinbase reduced its workforce by around 18% as Bitcoin hit two-year lows near $21,000. Around the same time, Gemini, the trading platform founded by the Winklevoss twins, reportedly cut 10% of its staff amid the broader crypto slump.
More layoffs could follow if history repeats, with veteran trader Peter Brandt predicting the crypto market may not reach its bottom until the third quarter of this year.
Magazine: Big Questions: Can Bitcoin save you from the dreaded Cantillon Effect?
Fold, the Bitcoin-focused payments and financial services firm, delivered an 8% sequential revenue gain in Q4, reaching $9 million as it added roughly 2,000 customers and expanded an array of products designed to weave Bitcoin rewards into everyday spending. The company also rolled out its Fold Bitcoin Rewards Credit Card, a Visa– and Stripe-enabled offering that promises Bitcoin-backed cashback to users and points toward broader consumer adoption of crypto-native rewards.
During Fold’s Q4 and 2025 full-year earnings call, CEO Will Reeves framed the results within a longer-term outlook: “Bitcoin rewards will overtake the airline miles as the preferred consumer reward in the US.” He emphasized that for this vision to translate into mass adoption, the card programs must scale to millions of cardholders and be supported by stronger risk and fraud controls before the model can really “open the floodgates.”
Fold’s earnings also underscore the competitive landscape in crypto rewards. With rivals including Coinbase, Gemini, Swan Bitcoin and River Financial already piloting Bitcoin-backed card programs in the US, Fold is betting on scale and product breadth to capture a larger share of a nascent but rapidly evolving market.
Nevertheless, the quarterly improvement did not erase a tough year on the metrics side. Fold reported a 3% year-over-year decline in transaction volume to $215 million, and an operating loss of $6 million for the period. Those figures contributed to a full-year 2025 net loss of $69.6 million, according to Fold’s financial statements. The company said the results reflect ongoing investments to build out a Bitcoin-native financial services ecosystem across multiple product lines, including consumer and enterprise offerings.
In a nod to its evolving capital structure, Reeves noted that Fold had extinguished two outstanding convertible debt instruments, describing the move as removing a structural overhang and directing financing toward growth initiatives rather than debt management. He outlined a plan for 2026 built around customer acquisition, engagement, cross-sell, and retention—the core levers the company believes will scale its Bitcoin-focused platform.
Beyond consumer products, Fold has been building a broader ecosystem around Bitcoin payrolls, bonuses, and corporate financial programs through Fold for Business. One notable partner cited by Fold is Steak ’n Shake, which has explored paying employees in Bitcoin and offering Bitcoin-based bonuses as part of its compensation mix. This line of effort reflects Fold’s strategy to embed Bitcoin more deeply into corporate payroll and benefits workflows, broadening the utility of the token beyond speculative holding into everyday financial operations.
On the balance sheet side, Fold has pursued a strategy of maintaining a Bitcoin treasury as a strategic asset. Yet the company has been reducing its holdings, with its treasury down to 827 BTC as of March 17, from 1,527 BTC at the end of last year. The reduction mirrors a broader trend of concentrated crypto treasuries being deployed for operating needs or risk management, and it adds a layer of complexity for investors watching Fold’s capital efficiency and liquidity alongside its growth ambitions.
Key takeaways
- Q4 revenue rises 8% to $9 million as Fold adds about 2,000 customers and expands Bitcoin-linked products, including a newly launched Bitcoin Rewards Credit Card.
- CEO Will Reeves frames Bitcoin rewards as a potential US consumer reward leader, contingent on scaling to millions of cardholders and tightening risk controls.
- Strategic shifts accompany growth: Fold extinguishes two convertible debt instruments to reduce financial overhang and focuses 2026 on scaling customer engagement and cross-sell opportunities.
- Financials show a divide between growth investments and bottom-line pressure: 2025 saw a 3% YoY drop in transaction volume to $215 million and a net loss of $69.6 million, despite revenue gains.
Fold’s expansion into Bitcoin rewards and enterprise tooling
With the Fold Bitcoin Rewards Credit Card now live, the company is aiming to convert consumer spending into Bitcoin accrual at a scale that could rival existing reward ecosystems. The card’s integration with Visa and Stripe signals an attempt to remove friction for mainstream users who want crypto rewards alongside familiar payment rails. Reeves stressed that a successful rollout hinges on risk and fraud controls that can withstand mass adoption, hinting at a compliance-first approach as a prerequisite to broader consumer rollout.
Fold’s product suite has grown beyond consumer cards. Fold for Business is designed to bring Bitcoin into payrolls, bonuses, and corporate programs, signaling a push to embed Bitcoin rewards into business workflows. Partnerships such as Steak ’n Shake illustrate a real-world test bed for how crypto incentives can translate into employee compensation and consumer engagement, a pattern other operators are watching closely as a potential model for corporate crypto compensation programs.
The competitive backdrop adds urgency. Fold sits among a growing cadre of platforms experimenting with Bitcoin-friendly cards and rewards structures, as consumer interest in crypto-backed perks persists even as the macro environment remains uncertain. The broader market’s willingness to embrace Bitcoin rewards will hinge on the reliability of issuers’ risk controls, the efficacy of KYC/AML processes, and merchants’ willingness to participate in crypto-native cashback arrangements.
Financials in focus: growth, losses, and a restructured balance sheet
On the surface, Fold’s Q4 and full-year results underline a company investing aggressively to build a broader, Bitcoin-native financial services stack. Revenue rose by 8% in the quarter, aided by new customer acquisitions and product expansion. Yet the year delivered pressure on the top line’s profitability. The company reported a 3% YoY decline in transaction volume to $215 million and an operating loss of $6 million for the period, contributing to a full-year net loss of $69.6 million for 2025.
Corporate leadership framed these numbers as the cost of building a platform tuned for scale. The extinguishment of two convertible debt instruments was presented as a turning point, eliminating a structural overhang and steering capital toward operating growth rather than financing costs. In Reeves’ words, the pathway to 2026 centers on “scaling what we’ve built across customer acquisition, engagement, cross-sell, and retention.”
From an investor relations perspective, the balance between growth investments and financial discipline remains a watch item. Fold’s ability to translate product expansion into durable, cross-sell-driven revenue will be critical, particularly as it expands into enterprise services and payroll-related offerings that could yield higher-margin revenue streams if customer adoption aligns with retention targets.
Bitcoin treasury dynamics and market reception
One notable tension in Fold’s narrative is its shrinking Bitcoin treasury. The firm’s holdings declined to 827 BTC by March 17, from 1,527 BTC at year-end, a move that has implications for both liquidity and crypto exposure management. For a company whose value proposition centers on Bitcoin-native financial services, treasury management will remain a focal point for investors who monitor balance sheet discipline alongside growth metrics.
Fold’s stock has experienced significant volatility in 2026. Data from Google Finance shows FLD down 59% year-to-date and 83.8% over the last 12 months. The company reported an after-hours surge of about 13% following earnings, only to retreat and trade around $1.07 in the subsequent session, underscoring the market’s sensitivity to both operational updates and the broader crypto funding environment.
Against this backdrop, Fold’s emphasis on Bitcoin as both an asset and a core enabler of product strategy resonates with a broader market narrative: if consumer demand for crypto rewards can be monetized at scale, a few high-quality, risk-managed programs could begin to shift mainstream consumer behavior toward crypto-augmented spending. Yet the path remains contingent on execution, risk controls, and the pace at which enterprise and consumer adoption outstrip ongoing losses.
Broader implications for crypto rewards and the consumer fintech landscape
Fold’s quarter signals a broader industry testing ground: can Bitcoin-powered rewards move from a niche product to a mainstream consumer feature? Reeves’ assertion that Bitcoin rewards could overtake airline miles points to a potential realignment of reward economics, but it requires durable merchant participation, transparent risk management, and predictable redemption dynamics. The presence of established players in the space suggests that competition will intensify, compelling Fold to demonstrate superior value through cross-sell, retention, and merchant partnerships.
Regulatory and macro factors will also shape the trajectory. As crypto-native financial services mature, issuers will need to navigate evolving oversight around consumer protections, data security, and anti-fraud controls. Fold’s emphasis on building a compliant, scalable backbone could position it favorably if it can align product milestones with rigorous risk management, especially as it expands Fold for Business and enterprise-facing offerings that bring Bitcoin into everyday corporate workflows.
In this evolving landscape, investors will be watching not only the headline revenue gains but also the quality of growth: how quickly Fold can transform user acquisition into durable engagement, how efficiently it can monetize via cross-sell across product lines, and whether treasury management can support a sustainable capital structure during an era of rapid product experimentation in crypto rewards.
For readers, the coming months will reveal how a Bitcoin-native financial services ecosystem can translate ambition into measurable scale. Watch for quarterly updates on customer growth, card activation and spend, enterprise adoption of Fold for Business, and any further refinements to risk and fraud controls that could unlock broader consumer uptake.
What remains uncertain is how quickly the market will normalize around crypto-native rewards as a mainstream consumer feature and how Fold’s strategic pivots translate into profitability. If the company can demonstrate that its product suite yields meaningful cross-sell momentum and improved capital efficiency in 2026, the roadmap may start to look less like a bet on early adopter enthusiasm and more like a blueprint for a durable, Bitcoin-centered fintech platform.
Looking ahead, Fold’s path will hinge on its ability to scale its card program, strengthen risk frameworks, and convert enterprise engagements into recurring revenue while maintaining prudent treasury management. The coming quarters should reveal whether the “Bitcoin-native” advantage can translate into durable, broad-based adoption or remain a defining but contested niche in the crypto rewards landscape.
Nasdaq has been given the regulatory green light to offer some tokenized stocks, which will trade alongside traditional securities on its exchange.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday approved Nasdaq’s pilot proposal to support the trading of tokenized versions of stocks and other securities.
Nasdaq first filed its proposal in September that sought to allow trades on high-volume stocks in either a traditional or tokenized form on the same exchange in a pilot with the key market infrastructure firm, Depository Trust Company.
The tokenized stocks would trade alongside their traditional counterparts on the same order book, at the same price, with the same ticker and identifying number and carry the same rights.
Tokenization, where an asset is represented on a blockchain, has seen a recent boom as major financial firms have tested the technology to shrink settlement times and experiment with longer trading hours.
Eligible participants can trade top tokenized stocks
According to the SEC’s approval filing, only “eligible participants” are to take part in the tokenization pilot and can choose whether to trade a traditional or tokenized stock.
The options for tokenized stock are limited to securities that trade in the Russell 1000 Index, which tracks the 1,000 largest publicly-traded companies in the US by market capitalization, along with exchange-traded funds tracking the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 indices.
The SEC noted the Nasdaq’s proposal received feedback with concerns around market surveillance and diverging prices, which it said was later allayed by an amendment laying out more details.
Related: SEC’s ‘Crypto Mom’ calls for simpler disclosure rules, flags tokenization debate
The approval comes after the Nasdaq announced earlier this month that it had partnered with crypto exchange Kraken to allow its clients to move securities from its infrastructure to tokenized versions that can be used on blockchains and to allow public companies to create and issue their own tokenized shares.
New York Stock Exchange owner the Intercontinental Exchange has also set its sights on tokenization, and invested in crypto exchange OKX in early March to launch tokenized stocks.
SEC Chair Paul Atkins said on Tuesday that the agency would soon be seeking public comment on a range of crypto-related exemptions, including a “fundraising exemption” to allow some securities involving crypto to raise a set amount in any 12-month period while being exempted from registering under securities laws.
Magazine: Can Robinhood or Kraken’s tokenized stocks ever be truly decentralized?
Stripe and Paradigm launch Tempo’s mainnet and the Machine Payment Protocol, targeting high-speed, stablecoin-based payments for AI agents and global enterprises.
Summary
- Stripe- and Paradigm-incubated Tempo launches its payments-focused Layer 1 mainnet with no native gas token, settling fees in major stablecoins instead.
- The new Machine Payment Protocol aims to standardize machine-to-machine and AI agent payments, positioning Tempo as settlement rail for an “AI-native” economy.
- Tempo targets cross-border payments and B2B flows with ISO 20022 compliance, EVM compatibility, and early interest from firms like Klarna, Visa, Nubank, and Shopify.
After months of anticipation following a public testnet deployment in December 2025, Tempo — the payments-focused Layer 1 blockchain incubated by payments giant Stripe and crypto venture firm Paradigm — officially launched its mainnet on Wednesday. The announcement, made via official channels, was accompanied by the simultaneous release of the Machine Payment Protocol (MPP), an open standard for autonomous machine-to-machine transactions co-developed by Stripe and Tempo. The dual launch marks one of the most significant entries of a traditional fintech heavyweight into blockchain infrastructure to date.
Tempo has been positioned from inception as a purpose-built alternative to general-purpose chains like Ethereum or Solana, targeting the specific demands of high-frequency, real-world payments. According to Paradigm’s own documentation, the chain is designed to process tens of thousands of transactions per second with sub-second deterministic finality — performance comparable to, or exceeding, traditional card networks. Unlike most blockchains, Tempo does not require a native token to pay gas fees; instead, users can settle transaction costs in any major stablecoin via an integrated AMM, using the TIP-20 standard. No token is being issued at launch, with the team citing the need for greater regulatory clarity before any such move.
The MPP’s release is arguably the more forward-looking element of Wednesday’s announcement. Developed jointly with Stripe, the protocol establishes an open standard for payments between machines — software agents, AI systems, and automated processes — without requiring human intermediaries. As AI agents increasingly execute real-world commercial tasks autonomously, proponents argue that a dedicated payment rail becomes essential infrastructure. Tempo’s architecture was explicitly designed with this use case in mind, with Stripe’s CEO previously describing the chain as a “decentralized, internet-scale SWIFT” for next-generation settlement.
The practical scope of Tempo’s ambitions is substantial. Stripe processed $1.9 trillion in total payment volume in 2025, a 34% year-on-year increase, while global stablecoin volumes doubled over the same period to $400 billion, with 60% now attributable to B2B activity. Tempo targets the $190 trillion annual cross-border payment market, where traditional correspondent banking can impose settlement delays of one to three days and unpredictable fees. The chain’s ISO 20022 compliance — the international financial messaging standard used by banks — is designed to allow enterprises to integrate with existing reconciliation systems without wholesale infrastructure overhauls.
Early ecosystem commitments have been notable. Klarna announced plans to launch a stablecoin on Tempo’s mainnet, while Visa, Nubank, and Shopify were cited among early adopters during the testnet phase. Developers can build on Tempo through public RPC endpoints, with the chain’s EVM compatibility lowering the barrier for teams already familiar with Ethereum tooling.
The mainnet launch arrives at a moment of acute market turbulence, with crypto and risk assets broadly under pressure from geopolitical tensions and resurgent inflation. Yet for Tempo, the timing may be immaterial — its proposition is structural rather than speculative, betting that the next wave of blockchain adoption will be driven not by token appreciation, but by settlement infrastructure that actually works at scale.
PI sellers return in force and threaten to reverse most of the recent gains.
PI Network (PI) Price Predictions: Analysis
Key support levels: $0.15
Key resistance levels: $0.20, $0.28
PI Turns Bearish
With the bullish momentum gone, sellers have returned and have been extremely aggressive, pushing the price under 20 cents this week. Since the recent top at around 30 cents, the price has dropped by over 40%!
The spike above the 28-cent resistance was short-lived and turned into a bull trap since the price failed to hold there and quickly reversed course. This was a key weakness signal that encouraged sellers to push harder and the price gave in soon after.
Sell Volume Spiked
During the recent rally, the sell volume spiked, which was a key reversal signal. Since then, the price has been making lower highs and lower lows. The most likely support level to stop this downtrend is at 15 cents.
It is critical for PI bulls to defend the $0.15 support, as any failure there would erase all recent gains and even open the way for new lows later on. In the near future, this support is likely to be tested. Wait for that moment to gain insights into where PI will be headed next.
Daily MACD Turned Bearish
Another key signal that momentum was shifting bearish was seen on the daily MACD, which turned negative last Sunday. Since then, the downtrend has intensified, and there are no signs that it will stop anytime soon.
Keep a close eye on the support at 15 cents for any possible reversal. An early signal would be if the daily MACD histogram stops making lower lows. That would indicate sellers are becoming exhausted, and buyers have an opportunity to return.
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[PRESS RELEASE – George Town, British Virgin Islands, March 18th, 2026]
Aster, a trading ecosystem backed by YZi Labs, today announced a major expansion of its collaboration with World Liberty Financial (WLFI).
The collaboration introduces USD1-denominated perpetual contracts and new trading incentives, including WLFI token rewards and reduced fees on USD1 pairs, while also allowing users to earn additional rewards on their holdings.
The integration is intended to support USD1 liquidity on the platform, laying the groundwork for Aster Chain, the project’s newly-launched Layer 1 blockchain.
Building a Diverse Foundation for Aster Chain
Adding USD1 as collateral and USD1-denominated perpetual markets reduce Aster’s reliance on any single stablecoin, giving users greater flexibility as the Aster Chain launches.
WLFI’s global community helps support Aster’s efforts to expand access to USD1 markets within DeFi.
“Aster Chain’s success depends on the depth of its underlying liquidity,” said Leonard, CEO at Aster. “By bringing USD1 into our core trading engine during this phase, we’re building the trading foundation for the Aster Chain launch. Our 0-bps maker fees are designed to encourage participation in USD1 markets on Aster as the mainnet launch.”
“Perpetual markets are where a significant portion of trading volume lives. Aster listing USD1 perps pairs and matching USDT collateral ratios means traders can use USD1 in a manner similar to any major stablecoin. That’s the bar we set: functional parity, rather than positioning USD1 a secondary option.” said Zak Folkman, Co-founder & COO of World Liberty Financial.
Establishing the USD1 Trading Hub
Aster supports USD1-denominated perpetual contracts, launching with BTC, ETH, and SOL pairs, with an additional 10+ pairs planned in the coming weeks.
To encourage market participation, Aster is offering zero-bps maker fees and a competitive 0.5-bps taker fee. USD1 is also supported as a core margin asset and collateral, with a collateral ratio on par with USDT – allowing traders to maximize capital efficiency.
Rewards for Early Adopters
This partnership introduces several incentives as part of Aster Chain’s mainnet launch:
- USD1 Perp Trading Rewards: Up to 2.5 million WLFI tokens distributed monthly through the USD1 perpetual trading incentive program based on trading activity, with rewards distributed weekly. WLFI reserves all rights regarding program interpretation and distribution.
- USD1 Holding Incentives: Users holding USD1 on Aster may be eligible to participate in platform incentive programs.
- Reduced Trading Fees: Zero maker fees and 0.5-bps taker fees on all USD1 pairs, a significant reduction compared to USDT pairs.*
Aster will also launch tracking tools including integrated Points Program entry points across web and mobile, allowing users to monitor their progress and participation in early Aster Chain market activity.
*Aster’s standard taker fee on USDT pairs is 4 bps. USD1 taker fee is 0.5 bps, representing an approximate 87.5% reduction. Maker fees on USD1 pairs are 0 bps. All fees are set by Aster and subject to change. See Aster’s fee schedule at Aster fee page for current rates.
About Aster
Aster is a privacy-first onchain trading platform backed by YZi Labs, featuring innovations like Hidden Orders to shield user trading activity. It offers perpetual contracts across crypto, stocks and commodities, as well as crypto spot trading, and is powered by Aster Chain, a Layer 1 blockchain built to power the future of decentralized finance.
Users can learn more about Aster on the official website or follow Aster on X.
About World Liberty Financial (WLFI)
World Liberty Financial (WLFI) operates at the intersection of traditional financial infrastructure with blockchain innovation, creating accessible, transparent, and scalable solutions for a new era of digital finance. This documentation is intended for developers, integrators, researchers, and community members seeking to understand the World Liberty Financial ecosystem.
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Uniswap price risks a drop to $3.3 in the coming sessions if it confirms a break below a key trendline support on charts.
Summary
- Uniswap price fell to $3.85 after repeated rejection at $4.20, with a potential drop to $3.30 if key trendline support breaks.
- Network activity weakened, with TVL falling to $3.31 billion and weekly fees dropping sharply, signaling reduced usage.
- Bearish momentum builds as futures open interest declines and indicators turn negative, while a rebound above $4.10 could revive bullish structure.
According to data from crypto.news, Uniswap (UNI) price fell 3.8% on Wednesday, March 18, to $3.85 at the time of writing. The token fell after a series of failed attempts by bulls to break past $4.20, a resistance level that held firm at least three times this week.
Beyond the price action, Uniswap has been struggling with a significant slump in network activity. Data from DeFiLlama shows that the total value locked on the platform has plummeted to $3.31 billion, which is significantly below the $6.3 billion record set in August last year.
At the same time, the weekly fees generated by the DeFi protocol on the network have shrunk to nearly one-fourth of the levels recorded in October.
Demand in its futures market has also dropped, leading to a visible cooling of investor sentiment. According to data from CoinGlass, the open interest in Uniswap futures has dropped 5.8% over the past 24 hours.
The altcoin also tanked as investors turned cautious ahead of the Federal Reserve rate decision scheduled for later today. At press time, the broader crypto market had dropped 1.8% to $2.56 trillion, while Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and other major coins also printed red.
On the daily chart, the Uniswap price is on the cusp of breaking below an ascending trendline that has been acting as a dynamic support for the token since early February this year.
A break below this trendline support could lead bears to push for lower prices, potentially triggering a drop to the $3.3 support area where bulls previously managed to stage a recovery.
Technical indicators seem to support such a bearish outlook as they show bears gaining momentum. Notably, the Supertrend indicator has flashed red while the MACD lines are moving closer toward a bearish crossover, suggesting that the path of least resistance is currently to the downside.
However, a more nuanced outlook comes from the fact that the ascending trendline forms a part of an ascending triangle pattern on the chart with a horizontal resistance at $4.1. If Uniswap price manages to rebound above this level, it could confirm the bullish pattern and potentially end the current correction by sparking a fresh rally toward previous highs.
Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.
Ethereum Foundation deploys 3,400 more ETH into Morpho vaults, cementing its shift toward active, on-chain DeFi treasury management instead of selling ETH to fund operations.
Summary
- The Foundation allocated 3,400 ETH (about $7.6M) to Morpho Vaults, including 1,000 ETH to Vaults V2, as part of an expanding DeFi treasury program.
- Since early 2025, it has funneled tens of thousands of ETH plus stablecoins into Morpho, Compound and Spark to earn yield while backing Ethereum-aligned, open-source protocols.
- The latest move signals confidence in Ethereum’s DeFi stack even as ETH trades near $2,239, with Morpho’s TVL near $5.8B and growing RWA exposure.
The Ethereum (ETH) Foundation announced Wednesday via its official X account that it has deployed an additional 3,400 ETH to Morpho Vaults, with 1,000 ETH directed specifically into Morpho Vaults V2. At current prices, the deployment represents approximately $7.6 million — but its significance extends well beyond the dollar figure. It marks the latest installment in an accelerating institutional pivot by the world’s most prominent blockchain foundation toward active, yield-bearing DeFi treasury management.
The move is not without precedent. In October 2025, the Foundation had already deployed 2,400 ETH and approximately $6 million in stablecoins into Morpho yield vaults, citing the protocol’s “commitment to Free/Libre Open Source Software principles” and its release of both Morpho Vault V2 and Morpho Blue V1 under open GPL 2.0 licenses. That deployment was itself part of a broader strategic overhaul initiated earlier in 2025, when the Foundation committed an initial tranche of up to 50,000 ETH to various decentralized finance platforms — including Compound and Spark (the lending arm of the Sky/MakerDAO ecosystem) — in a deliberate shift away from the previous practice of periodically selling ETH to fund operations.
The rationale is both financial and philosophical. According to data from Arkham Intelligence, the Ethereum Foundation holds total assets exceeding $820 million, of which approximately $735 million is denominated in ETH. Rather than leave that capital idle or convert it to fiat, the Foundation has positioned Morpho as a core pillar of a responsible liquidity management approach — using DeFi tooling to generate yield while simultaneously reinforcing the open-source infrastructure it has long championed.
Morpho itself has grown substantially into this role. The protocol scaled from 67,000 users to over 1.4 million users across 2025, with deposits rising from $5 billion to $13 billion and active loans reaching $4.5 billion by year-end. Total real-world asset (RWA) deposits on the platform grew from near zero at the start of 2025 to $400 million by the end of Q3. Morpho Vaults V2, which launched in November 2025, introduced an expanded curator model designed to give asset managers and institutions greater flexibility in structuring on-chain lending strategies.
Wednesday’s allocation to Vaults V2 is particularly notable. The newer architecture enables more sophisticated curation, compliance integration, and programmable liquidity conditions — features that align with the Foundation’s need to manage a large, institutionally sensitive treasury. With Morpho’s total value locked reported around $5.8 billion as of early March 2026, the protocol sits among the most battle-tested lending infrastructures in DeFi.
The deployment also carries a signalling dimension. As Ethereum faces ongoing questions about its competitive positioning against faster, cheaper chains, the Foundation deploying material ETH into its own ecosystem’s DeFi stack is a statement of confidence — one that comes at a moment of broader market stress, with ETH trading around $2,239, down 3.49% on the day. The message, whether intentional or not, is clear: the foundation is not just building Ethereum, it is putting its own balance sheet to work within it.
PlayNance, a unified on-chain infrastructure specifically engineered to power the entire world of gaming, betting, and prediction, has launched its highly anticipated native cryptocurrency, GCOIN.
This represents a massive milestone when it comes to the expansion of its Web3 entertainment ecosystem.
GCOIN Deposits at MEXC Now Live, 200K Holders Already
GCOIN will start trading on one of the most popular altcoin-oriented exchanges in the industry – MEXC, and deposits are already open. Speaking on the matter was the CEO of PlayNance, Pini Peter, who said:
“Today marks a defining moment for Playnance. […] We identified early the opportunity to bring real scale into Web3 entertainment, and we’re building one of the leading ecosystems to support it. With GCOIN now live, we’re opening the door to what comes next – a new wave of users, new models, and a much larger shift in how entertainment moves on-chain. This is just the beginning.”
The coin has already attracted over 200,000 holders, with the presale selling over 14 billion tokens.
It’s worth noting that the project’s entire ecosystem has built its token model around rewards, linking the value distribution directly to platform activity rather than relying on fixed emissions.
Playnance already hosts more than 10,000 on-chain games and processes more than 2 million on-chain transactions per day, which reflects a strong user engagement, as well as growing adoption across the entire network.
GCOIN: Powering an Impressive Ecosystem
GCOIN represents the utility token that powers the economic execution across the protocol’s ecosystem. It’s used as a unit for value movement and settlement, and it incentivizes distribution across the PlayBlock layer-3 solution and applications powered by Playnance.
By design, it is intended for high-frequency and real-time use.
That said, the team has also highlighted principles of wallet-based ownership and execution. This means that users hold the cryptocurrency directly in their wallets. Balances and state changes are written on-chain for complete transparency, while users can also verify all network activity through the explorer.
In terms of functionality, GCOIN is designed as a shared utility layer across all applications on Playnance.
This means:
- One wallet balance per user
- One token standard across the ecosystem
- No user-side bridging to move value between supported applications
- Gasless user experience
It’s also worth noting that the team recently launched GCOIN staking, providing yet another mechanism for users to earn rewards simply by staking their tokens. Naturally, the longer the staking period, the larger the reward. This model has proven to attract considerable interest, with more than 250 million tokens staked within hours.
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