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BTC showing safe-haven signs, holding up as stocks tumble on macro fears

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BTC showing safe-haven signs, holding up as stocks tumble on macro fears

Safe-haven asset?

The action is volatile, but bitcoin for the moment is continuing to hold just above the $70,000 even as other risk assets sell off across the board.

Helping to send stocks lower, crude oil prices are up more than 10% and nearing $100 per barrel amid concerns about the Hormuz Strait — a key shipping route for oil tankers.

“Stopping Iran is of more concern to me than oil prices,” said President Trump on Thursday. Meanwhile, in his first public statement since being appointed Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei said the Strait of Hormuz should remain closed.

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“It’s becoming clear to everyone that the Strait is far from under control and potentially impossible to control without severe concessions to Iran, boots on the ground, or huge military risks,” said Quinn Thompson, founder of Lekker Capital. “Things get dicey from here and when backs are up against the wall, volatility increases.”

Nearing the noon hour on the east coast, the Nasdaq is near session lows, down 1.6% and S&P 500 is off 1.2%.

Wiped from the front pages thanks to Iran, but still of major concern are continuing worries about a collapse in private credit. Morgan Stanley (MS) was the latest in a growing series of financial giants to cap redemptions — this one at its $8 billion North Haven Private Income Fund. Shares of Morgan Stanley were down 4% on Thursday, leading declines in the financial sector. JPMorgan, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo were lower by closer to 3%.

In private equity, KKR, Apollo Global, and Ares Management were all sporting 3% to 4% declines.

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Gold, meanwhile, was down 0.6% and the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield was higher by three basis points to 4.23%.

Oil drives markets

Oil has become the main driver of crypto prices, according to CoinShares’ head of research, James Butterfill. “The dominant variable in global asset pricing is no longer the labour market. It is oil — and the geopolitical crisis underpinning it,” he said in a note. He argued that the government’s most recent U.S. payroll report, which missed expectations, would’ve normally pushed markets to price in faster rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, but the reaction was muted as investors instead focused on rising energy costs tied to the conflict in the Middle East.

Despite the pullback on Thursday, bitcoin has remained relatively resilient despite rising geopolitical tensions and broader market uncertainty, holding near the $70,000 level even as investors reassess global risks.

The reason could be that large investors are increasingly seeking more than simple exposure to bitcoin’s price, according to Dom Harz, co-founder of layer-2 blockchain BOB. “Institutions want more than exposure to bitcoin and are increasingly looking for the infrastructure designed to unlock Bitcoin’s financial utility,” he wrote in a note, pointing to growing interest in bitcoin-based financial applications that could allow users to spend, save and earn using the network.

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XRP Price Prediction: Can These 6 Ongoing Developments Save Ripple

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XRP is trading at $1.31, up by 0.9% in the last 24 hours, but price prediction still remains bearish for Ripple coin.

XRP is trading at $1.31, up by 0.9% in the last 24 hours, but price prediction still remains bearish for Ripple coin. Down nearly 30% year-to-date from a $1.88 open, the token is fighting to hold key support while the broader market registers extreme fear. What most traders haven’t priced in yet: a significant engineering overhaul quietly underway inside the XRP Ledger’s core repository.

Denis Angell, an XRPL core developer, outlined six active workstreams on April 2 that are reshaping the ledger’s foundational infrastructure, telemetry, nomenclature, type safety, refactoring, logging, and documentation.

“I’ve never been more excited for the XRP Ledger core development than I am now,” Angell posted, describing the effort as tedious but critical.

The work targets backend reliability and developer experience rather than user-facing features, a distinction that matters for long-term network competitiveness.

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Whether these upgrades translate into price recovery depends entirely on market timing.

Discover: The best crypto to diversify your portfolio with

XRP Price Prediction: $1.40 Before the Next Wave of Selling?

XRP’s current level of $1.31 places it uncomfortably below both major moving averages. The 50-day SMA sits at $1.40–$1.42, acting as immediate overhead resistance. The 200-day SMA at $2.04–$2.07 represents a full recovery target that feels distant given current momentum.

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XRP is trading at $1.31, up by 0.9% in the last 24 hours, but price prediction still remains bearish for Ripple coin.
XRP USD, TradingView

Support is clustered at $1.27–$1.29. That zone is thin. A clean break below it opens a more significant leg down with limited structural floors until the $1.10 range. The Fear and Greed Index reading Fear confirms capitulation sentiment, which historically precedes either a sharp reversal or a final flush.

Analyst consensus points to $2.04 as a potential recovery level by September 2026, achievable, but requiring sustained buying pressure that simply isn’t visible in current volume data.

Discover: The best pre-launch token sales

Bitcoin Hyper Targets Early-Mover Upside as XRP Tests Critical Support

XRP’s -29.6% year-to-date performance raises a legitimate question: at a $1.31 price point and a multi-billion-dollar market cap, how much asymmetric upside actually remains? For traders comfortable with the risk profile of early-stage assets, the calculus looks different at the infrastructure layer.

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Bitcoin Hyper ($HYPER) is positioning itself as a genuinely novel infrastructure play, the first Bitcoin Layer 2 integrating the Solana Virtual Machine, delivering sub-second finality and low-cost smart contract execution while anchored to Bitcoin’s security model.

The presale has raised $32 million at a current price of just $0.013678, with healthy staking rewards available for early participants. The Decentralized Canonical Bridge enables native BTC transfers into the ecosystem, addressing Bitcoin’s longstanding programmability gap without sacrificing its trust layer.

More detail on Bitcoin Hyper is available here.

The post XRP Price Prediction: Can These 6 Ongoing Developments Save Ripple appeared first on Cryptonews.

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Riot Platforms Offloads 3,778 BTC Worth Over $250M

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Brian Armstrong's Bold Prediction: AI Agents Will Soon Dominate Global Financial

TLDR

  • Riot Platforms sold 3,778 Bitcoin for more than $250 million during the first quarter of 2025.
  • The company reduced its total Bitcoin holdings to 15,680 BTC after the sale.
  • Riot Platforms achieved an average selling price of over $76,000 per Bitcoin.
  • The firm has now sold Bitcoin in consecutive quarters after raising nearly $200 million late last year.
  • CEO Jason Les said earlier that sales were intended to fund ongoing growth and operations.

Riot Platforms sold more than $250 million in Bitcoin during the first quarter of 2025. The company confirmed it sold 3,778 BTC at an average price above $76,000. As a result, the firm reduced its total holdings to 15,680 BTC by the end of March.

Riot Platforms Cuts Bitcoin Holdings as Sales Extend Into Second Quarter

Riot Platforms reported that it sold 3,778 Bitcoin during the first quarter of 2025. The company achieved an average sale price above $76,000 per coin. Consequently, it reduced its Bitcoin reserves to 15,680 BTC at quarter’s end. The remaining holdings now carry a market value near $1.04 billion. Bitcoin traded at $66,844 at the time of valuation.

The Colorado-based miner has now sold Bitcoin in consecutive quarters. During November and December, it generated nearly $200 million from Bitcoin sales. The company has not yet disclosed detailed allocation plans for the recent proceeds. A company representative did not respond to a request for comment. However, earlier in 2025, CEO Jason Les addressed the purpose of prior sales.

Les stated that earlier Bitcoin sales aimed to “fund ongoing growth and operations.” He connected those operations to expanding infrastructure and computing capacity. The company outlined these objectives in its latest strategic business update. Riot Platforms has focused on increasing its data center capabilities. It also continues to adjust its capital structure through asset sales.

Riot Platforms Shifts Strategy Toward Data Center Development

Riot Platforms confirmed that it intends to expand beyond traditional Bitcoin mining. The firm stated that it plans to unlock its nearly two-gigawatt power portfolio. It aims to deploy that capacity for high-demand data center infrastructure. Les said, “2025 marked a watershed year for Riot.” He added that the company has transformed its future trajectory.

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The company explained that it previously used most of its power portfolio for Bitcoin mining. Now, it seeks to reallocate that capacity toward data center development. Riot Platforms stated that its long-term goal is “to fully utilize our power portfolio for data center development.” This shift aligns with ongoing operational restructuring. The firm continues to balance mining output with infrastructure planning.

An activist investor, Starboard Value, urged the company to accelerate its transition strategy. Starboard Value stated that the opportunity could add as much as $21 billion to Riot’s valuation. The investor called for a “renewed sense of urgency” in pursuing this plan. Meanwhile, shares of RIOT closed up 2.47% on Thursday. The stock recently traded at $12.86.

Over the past six months, RIOT shares have fallen more than 33%. During the same period, Bitcoin has declined 47% from its all-time high of $126,080. The company continues to report updates through formal filings and public statements. Riot Platforms has not announced further Bitcoin sales beyond the first quarter.

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Kalshi Onboards Ex-Democratic Strategist amid Legal Troubles

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Law, United States, Policy, Kalshi, Prediction Markets

Stephanie Cutter will join the prediction markets company as a policy adviser, having previously worked in Democratic lawmakers’ campaigns.

Predictions market platform Kalshi announced that a former staffer of US President Barack Obama had joined the company as a policy adviser.

In a Thursday notice, Kalshi said Stephanie Cutter would join the prediction markets company from Precision Strategies, a communications firm she co-founded in 2013. Kalshi said the addition of Cutter came as the company planned to “deepen its relationships in DC and across the country.”

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Law, United States, Policy, Kalshi, Prediction Markets
Source: Stephanie Cutter

According to Kalshi co-founder and CEO Tarek Mansour, Cutter’s experience allowed her to “get [the] message to the right people,” highlighting her background in government and politics. The predictions market already has staff with ties to the US government, including the appointment of the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., as a strategic adviser in January 2025, the week before his father took office.

In the last year, Kalshi has come under scrutiny from many US state-level authorities, who have filed lawsuits against the platform and other companies offering event contracts on prediction markets for sports, alleging that they constituted illegal bets.

Under Trump nominee Michael Selig, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has claimed that the agency has the “exclusive jurisdiction” to oversee such markets, filing lawsuits against state gaming regulators.

Related: Polymarket expands into equities and commodities with Pyth price feeds

Lawsuits and proposed legislation

Many Democrats in US Congress have also called for scrutiny into prediction markets after what they called “suspicious trades” related to the country’s invasion of Iran. Although Kalshi and Polymarket announced plans in March to implement guardrails to prevent accounts from using insider information, some lawmakers introduced legislation that could ban politicians from engaging in such bets on prediction markets.

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As of Friday, none of the bills proposed in Congress had been signed into law, and it was unclear what the outcome would be for many of the state-level lawsuits.

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