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Bitcoin Exchange Outflows Signal Holder Conviction Amid Hormuz Crisis

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Bitcoin Exchange Outflows Signal Holder Conviction Amid Hormuz Crisis


Bitcoin outflows from exchanges continued during the Hormuz crisis, signaling holders are moving coins into cold storage rather than selling.

Bitcoin (BTC) held near $70,000 on March 6 after a geopolitical shock tied to tensions around the Strait of Hormuz pushed energy prices higher and triggered risk-off behavior across global markets.

Despite the turbulence, blockchain data shows BTC continuing to leave exchanges, suggesting many holders are not preparing to sell.

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Energy Shock Rattles Markets

Analyst GugaOnChain linked the latest volatility to disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz, a major energy shipping route, which remains effectively closed amid the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

The market watcher noted that Brent crude traded near $85 and West Texas Intermediate around $81 as the situation pushed up fuel costs, including a $0.27 increase in U.S. gasoline prices during the week.

According to the same analysis, the shock drained liquidity across global markets and led to outflows of just under $228 million from Bitcoin exchange-traded funds on March 5. However, exchange flow data showed an unusual divergence. Using a seven-day moving average, Bitcoin’s net exchange flows remained negative, meaning more coins were leaving exchanges than entering them. Daily data showed withdrawals of 500 BTC, while the weekly total reached about 6,500 BTC, leaving trading venues.

According to GugaOnChain, such movements often signal that investors are transferring holdings into cold storage, which reduces the supply immediately available for sale.

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“Given the notable on-chain resilience, the directive is to adopt a tactical defensive stance, maximizing cash now and awaiting confirmation of a reversal in institutional flows before raising exposure again,” the analyst advised.

Trading Activity Intensifies on Major Exchanges

While coins are leaving exchanges overall, trading activity inside platforms has accelerated. Data shared by Arab Chain on March 6 showed Bitcoin turnover on Binance reaching about 425,000 BTC over the past 30 days, one of the highest readings since December.

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Binance’s Bitcoin reserves currently stand near 660,000 BTC, and compared with the 30-day turnover figure, the liquidity ratio sits around 0.64, meaning about 64% of those reserves have been traded or transferred during the period.

That pattern suggests the same coins are changing hands repeatedly within a short time frame, which reflects increased speculative activity and stronger liquidity circulation within the market.

Bitcoin has fallen from a monthly peak attained earlier in the week, with price data from CoinGecko showing the asset trading just under $71,000 at the time of writing, down about 2% in the last 24 hours but still up close to 5% over seven days.

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At the moment, the flagship cryptocurrency is sitting between renewed institutional demand and global macro pressure. Exchange withdrawals imply that many holders are waiting rather than rushing to exit positions, even as traders remain active inside the market.

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AI Model Finds 22 Firefox Vulnerabilities in Two Weeks

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Nexo Partners with Bakkt for US Crypto Exchange and Yield Programs

TLDR:

  • Claude Opus 4.6 found 22 Firefox bugs in 2 weeks, 14 flagged high-severity by Mozilla researchers.
  • The 14 high-severity finds equal nearly a fifth of all such Firefox bugs Mozilla fixed in 2025.
  • Claude succeeded in building working exploits in only 2 of several hundred automated attempts.
  • Anthropic spent roughly $4,000 in API credits testing Claude’s exploit development capabilities.

Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 identified 22 security vulnerabilities inside Firefox in just two weeks. Fourteen of those bugs were classified as high-severity by Mozilla. That figure represents nearly a fifth of all high-severity Firefox flaws remediated throughout 2025. 

The findings emerged from a structured research partnership between Anthropic and Mozilla.

Claude AI Uncovers High-Severity Firefox Bugs at Record Speed

The collaboration began as an internal model evaluation.

Anthropic wanted a harder benchmark after Claude Opus 4.5 nearly solved CyberGym, a known security reproduction test. Engineers built a dataset of prior Firefox CVEs and tested whether the model could reproduce them.

Claude Opus 4.6 replicated a high percentage of those historical vulnerabilities. That raised a concern: some CVEs may already have existed in Claude’s training data. 

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Anthropic then redirected the effort toward finding entirely new bugs in the current Firefox release.

Within twenty minutes of beginning exploration, Claude flagged a Use After Free vulnerability inside Firefox’s JavaScript engine. Three separate Anthropic researchers validated the bug independently. 

A bug report, alongside a Claude-authored patch, was filed in Mozilla’s Bugzilla tracker.

By the time that first report was submitted, Claude had already produced fifty additional crashing inputs. Anthropic ultimately scanned nearly 6,000 C++ files and submitted 112 unique reports to Mozilla. Most fixes shipped to users in Firefox 148.0.

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Firefox 148 Ships Fixes as AI Exploit Research Raises New Alarms

Mozilla triaged the bulk submissions and encouraged Anthropic to send all findings without manual validation. That approach accelerated the pipeline significantly. Mozilla researchers have since begun testing Claude internally for their own security workflows.

Anthropic also tested whether Claude could move beyond discovery into active exploitation. 

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Researchers gave Claude access to the reported vulnerabilities and asked it to build working exploits. The goal was to demonstrate a real attack by reading and writing a local file on a target system.

Across several hundred attempts, spending roughly $4,000 in API credits, Claude succeeded in only two cases. 

According to Anthropic’s published findings, the model is substantially better at finding bugs than exploiting them. The cost gap between discovery and exploitation runs at least an order of magnitude.

The exploits that did work required a test environment stripped of standard browser security features. Firefox’s sandbox protections were not present. 

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Anthropic noted that sandbox-escaping vulnerabilities do exist and that Claude’s output represents one component of a broader exploit chain.

Anthropic urged software developers to accelerate secure coding practices. The company also outlined a “task verifier” method, where AI agents check their own fixes against both vulnerability recurrence and regression tests. 

Mozilla’s transparent triage process helped shape that approach throughout the research.

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Flow Network Incident Resolved as HTX Restores Full FLOW Services

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Nexo Partners with Bakkt for US Crypto Exchange and Yield Programs

TLDR:

  • HTX confirms all FLOW assets remained intact during the Flow network incident and verification process
  • Flow developers patched the vulnerability responsible for abnormal transactions on December 27
  • HTX restored FLOW trading, deposits, and withdrawals after verifying network stability
  • Exchange removed its January notice following Flow’s detailed post-incident security report

Flow blockchain’s December security incident has reached a full resolution after coordination between the network and major exchange HTX. 

The update confirms the vulnerability responsible for abnormal transactions has been patched and network operations restored. HTX also verified that all user-held FLOW tokens on its platform remain intact. 

Trading, deposits, and withdrawals for the token have resumed normal operations.

Flow Network Incident Resolved as HTX Confirms Normal Operations

The Flow ecosystem shared an update confirming that the issue reported on December 27 has been fully resolved. The incident involved abnormal transactions triggered by a technical vulnerability on the network.

HTX activated internal emergency procedures once it detected the event. The exchange maintained communication with Flow ecosystem partners while monitoring the situation.

The latest update indicates that developers patched the vulnerability and restored normal network activity. The Flow team also identified and addressed abnormal minted assets during the review process.

Flow stated that ecosystem services have stabilized after the corrective actions. Network operations now function normally across supported platforms.

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HTX verified user asset balances during the investigation period. The exchange reported that all FLOW tokens held by customers remain fully validated.

HTX Restores FLOW Trading, Deposits, and Withdrawals

HTX confirmed that FLOW trading resumed after reviewing the network’s recovery. Deposits and withdrawals for the token now operate without restrictions.

The exchange initially issued a notice about the incident on January 13. That notice questioned the security status of the Flow network at the time.

HTX later removed the notice after reviewing the Flow Foundation’s post-incident report. According to HTX, the report provided detailed explanations addressing earlier concerns.

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The exchange stated that the new information clarified how developers handled the vulnerability. It also confirmed that the response restored stability across the network.

Flow Foundation acknowledged the collaboration between both organizations during the investigation period. The foundation stated it expects continued cooperation with HTX moving forward.

HTX reiterated that user asset security remains its top priority. The exchange said it will continue monitoring supported networks and working with ecosystem partners.

The update confirms the incident no longer affects current operations. FLOW trading infrastructure across HTX now runs under normal conditions.

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BTC slips below $68,000 as dollar posts steepest weekly gain

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Bitcoin fails to sustain breakout momentum as rate hikes beckon: Crypto Markets Today

Bitcoin fell to $67,960 by Saturday morning, down 3.4% over the past 24 hours and retreating sharply from the past week’s high. The move fits what has become a recurring script in recent months, with late-week selling dragging prices toward the lower end of the range heading into Saturday.

Majors took the harder hit again. Ether dropped 4.4% to $1,974, solana fell 4% to $84.31, dogecoin lost 2.9% to $0.09, and BNB slid 2.6% to $627. XRP fell 2.2% to $1.37.

The weekly picture tells a more nuanced story though. Bitcoin is still up 3.6% over seven days. Ether has gained 2.6%. BNB added 2.1%. The mid-week surge absorbed the war shock and then some, even if Friday’s pullback took the shine off.

Meanwhile, the dollar posted its steepest weekly gain in a year, strengthening as markets priced in higher energy costs, stickier inflation, and a Fed that has even less room to cut rates. That’s a direct headwind for bitcoin and every other asset denominated against the dollar.

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“As tensions escalated in the Middle East last week, investors moved quickly to the safety of the U.S. dollar, which strengthened as markets began pricing in higher energy prices and reignited inflation fears, potentially delaying Federal Reserve rate cuts,” said Björn Schmidtke, CEO of Aurelion, in an email to CoinDesk.

The on-chain data paints a fragile picture beneath the surface. Glassnode data shows 43% of bitcoin’s total market supply is now sitting at a loss. That’s a significant overhang.

As bitcoin recovers, those underwater holders have an incentive to sell into any rally to break even, creating persistent resistance on the way up. It’s one reason the push to $74,000 on Thursday couldn’t hold. Every bounce toward higher prices runs into supply from people who’ve been waiting months to get out.

One bright spot came from stablecoin flows. Messari recorded a 415% jump in net stablecoin inflows to $1.7 billion over the week, with daily transfers up nearly 10%. That’s potentially dry powder waiting to be deployed, and it suggests retail isn’t entirely absent despite the fear-heavy sentiment. Whether that capital rotates into bitcoin or waits for lower prices is the question.

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The war continues to set the tempo. The U.S.-Iran conflict showed no signs of resolution this week. Oil remains elevated. The Strait of Hormuz is still disrupted. And the macro backdrop of strong dollar, sticky inflation, and delayed rate cuts is the worst combination for risk assets.

Bitcoin’s week looked impressive in headlines, touching $74,000 mid-week, but the round trip from $68,000 to $74,000 and back to $68,000 is just another lap of the range.

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Bitcoin Dip May Not Be Over As Retail Ramps Up Buying: Santiment

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Cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin Price, Adoption

Retail investors have been scooping up Bitcoin after it slipped below $70,000, but whale activity suggests the price could still head lower if past patterns repeat, according to crypto sentiment platform Santiment.

“The moment Bitcoin hit $74k, these key stakeholders began taking profit,” Santiment said in a report on Friday.

Santiment explained that whales — those holding between 10 and 10,000 Bitcoin (BTC) — “accumulated heavily” between Feb. 23 and Mar. 3, when Bitcoin was trading between $62,900 and $69,600.

Cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin Price, Adoption
Whales (green line) have been selling, while retail investors (red line) have been buying more Bitcoin. Source: Santiment

Since Wednesday, when Bitcoin climbed past $70,000 and touched $74,000, the cohort has offloaded around 66% of their recent purchases, Santiment said. Meanwhile, retail investors — those holding below 0.01 Bitcoin — have been increasing their positions.

Correction may not be over yet, says Santiment

“When retail buys while whales sell, it typically signals that the correction is not yet over,” Santiment said. Bitcoin is trading at $67,984 at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap.

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Bitcoin’s price decline led the Crypto Fear & Greed Index to fall 6 points, pushing it further into “Extreme Fear” territory with a score of 12 on Saturday.

MN Trading Capital founder Michael van de Poppe shared a similar outlook, saying a further decline is possible. “If Bitcoin doesn’t find support in this $67-68K region, then we’re likely going to retest the lows for liquidity before bouncing back upwards,” van de Poppe said in an X post on Friday.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs post largest outflow day in three weeks

The decline coincided with US-based spot Bitcoin ETFs posting their largest outflow day since Feb. 12, with a total of $348.9 million in net outflows across the 11 ETF products, according to Farside data.

Related: Trump’s National Cyber Strategy pledges to support crypto and blockchain

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Bitcoin’s price fell as low as $60,000 on Feb. 6 during its downtrend from the October all-time high of $126,000 before showing a modest recovery. Economist Timothy Peterson suggests this level could be the floor for the time being.

“This valuation level has always marked a bottom for Bitcoin. About 99.5% chance it stays above $60k,” Peterson said in an X post, referring to the Bitcoin Price to Metcalfe Value chart.

Magazine: The debate over Bitcoin’s four-year cycle is over: Benjamin Cowen