Crypto World
CME Bitcoin futures slump as basis trade unwinds and Wall Street steps back
CME Bitcoin futures open interest has fallen to a 14‑month low as the once‑crowded basis trade collapses, compressing yields and pushing leveraged institutions out.
Summary
- CME Bitcoin futures average daily open interest fell below $8B in March and to about $7.2B in early April, the lowest since February 2024.
- March volume slid to $163B, nearly half January 2025’s peak, as the spot‑ETF plus short‑futures basis trade unwound and leveraged funds exited.
- With annualized basis near 5% versus ~4.5% risk‑free rates, funding costs and counterparty risk have erased arbitrage appeal at CME.
CME Bitcoin futures activity has fallen to its weakest level in more than a year as the once‑crowded basis trade unwinds and leveraged institutions pull back. Average daily open interest dropped below $8 billion in March 2026 and slid to about $7.2 billion in early April, marking a new low since February 2024 and extending a five‑month decline. Monthly trading volume on CME fell to $163 billion in March, almost half the peak seen in January 2025, underscoring how quickly institutional demand has cooled.
At the center of the shift is the cash‑and‑carry structure that dominated Wall Street’s crypto exposure after U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs launched. For much of 2024 and 2025, funds bought spot ETFs while shorting CME futures to capture a relatively low‑risk yield from the spread between futures and spot. “The CME Bitcoin futures basis is primarily driven by price momentum and market sentiment,” CF Benchmarks wrote in a 2025 analysis, noting that aggressive rallies tended to push futures into rich contango and make basis trades highly attractive.
That regime has broken down as Bitcoin has retreated from highs near $120,000 to below $70,000, compressing the annualized basis to around 5% — barely above a roughly 4.5% U.S. risk‑free rate. With funding costs and counterparty risk taken into account, “a near‑flat basis reduces the incentive for basis trades that rely on futures premia to generate low‑risk carry,” derivatives commentary from MEXC noted in February, describing CME’s structure as close to neutral. In some stress episodes, the CME‑to‑spot basis has even turned negative, a sign of “aggressive hedging or the unwind of cash‑and‑carry structures when risk appetite fades,” according to Padalan Capital’s observations cited in the same report.
The result is a sharp drop in the very type of activity CME was built to attract. Total Bitcoin futures open interest across venues remains sizable — over $43 billion as of early March, according to derivatives trackers — but liquidity is increasingly concentrated offshore or in perpetual swaps, while regulated CME contracts lose share. A Binance research note in January captured the turning point bluntly: “The era of arbitrage is over; Wall Street withdraws from Bitcoin basis,” after CME open interest fell below major offshore exchanges for the first time.
For Bitcoin (BTC), the implications are mixed. A lower, flatter CME basis suggests less leveraged carry and more spot‑driven price action, which can make the market structurally healthier but also more sensitive to directional flows. For CME, the open question is whether new use cases — such as more nuanced hedging by spot ETF issuers — can replace the vanished basis trade, or whether regulated futures will remain a shrinking island in a derivatives complex increasingly dominated by 24/7 offshore products.
Crypto World
ServiceNow (NOW) Stock Plunges Nearly 8% Amid Geopolitical Chaos and AI Disruption Concerns
Key Takeaways
- ServiceNow (NOW) shares plummeted approximately 7.86% on Friday, April 10, 2026, settling near $89.81.
- Renewed Middle East conflict following a ceasefire breakdown sparked widespread market anxiety and contributed to the decline.
- Anthropic unveiled Managed Agents, fully autonomous AI tools capable of handling complex workflows, sparking concerns over traditional SaaS model obsolescence.
- Famed short seller Michael Burry briefly posted (then removed) commentary suggesting Anthropic poses a competitive threat to Palantir, amplifying SaaS sector concerns.
- Year-to-date, NOW has declined 38.3% and currently trades 56% beneath its 52-week peak of approximately $211.
ServiceNow (NOW) faced a brutal trading session Friday, with shares collapsing nearly 8% to close around $89.81 as twin headwinds slammed the enterprise software provider in an already shaky market environment.
SaaS investors endured a particularly punishing day across the board.
The initial pressure originated from geopolitical developments. News emerged of a ceasefire violation in the Middle East, sparking renewed investor anxiety and triggering broad risk-off sentiment. This stood in stark contrast to the situation just ten days prior, when NOW had rallied 6.2% following President Trump’s comments about constructive diplomatic engagement with Iran. Friday’s session wiped away most of those gains.
The second blow struck more directly at ServiceNow’s core business model. Anthropic rolled out Managed Agents, a new class of autonomous artificial intelligence systems designed to execute sophisticated, multi-stage workflows independently. Market participants viewed this development as potentially disruptive to conventional SaaS platforms that rely on human operators to manage business processes.
Burry’s Brief Commentary Intensifies Selling Pressure
Michael Burry, the prominent investor famous for prescient contrarian positions, briefly published and subsequently removed a social media statement asserting that Anthropic was “eating Palantir’s lunch.” Though fleeting, the remark highlighted growing investor concerns about established SaaS companies’ exposure to emerging AI-native competitors and added momentum to Friday’s downturn.
While Burry’s quickly-deleted commentary offered no new hard data about ServiceNow’s operations, it resonated in an already nervous trading environment.
NOW shares have now surrendered 38.3% of their value year-to-date. Trading at $89.81, the stock languishes more than 56% below its 52-week high of $211.48 achieved in mid-2025. An investor who purchased $1,000 of NOW stock five years ago would currently hold approximately $858 in value.
The stock has experienced 11 single-day moves exceeding 5% over the past twelve months, indicating Friday’s sharp decline, while severe, fits within recent volatility patterns.
Fundamental Performance Remains Robust
Despite the stock’s punishing performance this year, ServiceNow’s core business metrics continue showing strength. The company reported full-year 2025 revenue of $13.3 billion, representing 21% growth versus the prior year. Subscription revenue, which provides stable recurring cash flows, contributed $12.9 billion to that figure.
ServiceNow closed 2025 with $28.2 billion in remaining performance obligations—a forward-looking indicator of committed future revenue—reflecting 27% year-over-year expansion.
The company has also taken proactive steps to counter the AI competitive threat. ServiceNow has established partnerships with both Anthropic and OpenAI, and earlier this year completed the acquisition of Moveworks, an AI agent technology provider serving major enterprises including Toyota and Unilever. That acquisition’s technology has been integrated into Autonomous Workforce, a product introduced in February that ServiceNow claims can autonomously handle 90% of routine IT support requests.
Shares last changed hands at $89.81, having touched a session low of $88.66.
Update April 10, 2026, 10 am UTC: This article has been updated to add more details from the announcement.
Hong Kong has issued its first stablecoin issuer licenses, approving Anchorpoint Financial and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation under a new regulatory framework overseen by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA).
The HKMA announced the initial batch of licensees on Friday, marking the first approvals under its stablecoin regime.
Anchorpoint Financial is the stablecoin joint venture formed by Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong), Animoca Brands and Hong Kong Telecommunications. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited is HSBC’s Hong Kong-based banking entity and one of the city’s three note-issuing banks.
The first approvals highlight Hong Kong’s cautious approach, with regulators appearing to favor bank-linked and institution-backed issuers in the regime’s opening phase.
The announcement comes after weeks of unconfirmed reports about potential licensees and a missed March timeline, marking a cautious start to Hong Kong’s stablecoin licensing rollout. HKMA Chief Executive Eddie Yue said in February that a very small number of issuers would be licensed in March, a timetable the HKMA ultimately missed before granting the first approvals.
Hong Kong’s stablecoin regime took effect on Aug. 1, 2025, and requires issuers of fiat-referenced stablecoins to obtain an HKMA licence and meet rules covering reserve backing, redemption, governance and Anti-Money Laundering controls.
Hong Kong rolls out stablecoin regime after delays
The stablecoin regime also gives the HKMA power to investigate violations and take enforcement action, including fines, suspensions and license revocations.
Yue said the new regime gives stablecoin issuers a regulated framework to operate in Hong Kong while requiring safeguards around user protection and risk management.
The licensed issuers are expected to launch their operations in the coming months, according to the HKMA.
Related: Hong Kong, Shanghai authorities to test blockchain for cargo trade data
On April 1, the HKMA said it was actively advancing the licensing process after missing its earlier March timeline.
Earlier media reports also pointed to possible frontrunners. On March 13, HSBC and a Standard Chartered-backed venture were tipped as likely recipients, but the regulator had not confirmed any names at the time.
Cointelegraph reached out to the HKMA for more information, but had not received a response by publication.
Magazine: Asia Express: Phantom Bitcoin checks, China tracks tax on blockchain
BEIJING — China’s ties with countries such as Iran and Russia have raised expectations of a bigger diplomatic role, but Beijing remains focused on protecting its own domestic interests, including global exports.
That stance underpins Beijing’s circumspect acknowledgment of reports that it pushed Iran toward this week’s temporary ceasefire. A New York Times report cited three Iranian officials as saying China played a role, while AFP cited U.S. President Donald Trump.
China has made “active efforts” to end the conflict, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning said Wednesday, when asked by the press about the reports. She emphasized that Foreign Minister Wang Yi had made 26 phone calls to representatives of countries including Russia, Saudi Arabia, Germany and Iran since the U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran began on Feb. 28.
But Beijing stopped short of confirming direct mediation.
China called for an “immediate stop” to military operations after U.S.-Israel strikes against Iran in late February. When asked on March 3 about Iran’s counterattacks, China’s Foreign Ministry did not mention Tehran specifically, urging instead for “all parties” to prevent the conflict from spreading.
“What Beijing did is not really about direct intermediation,” said Zongyuan Zoe Liu, a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“What Beijing did is, more precisely, broker[ed], facilitated the ceasefire,” she said Friday on CNBC’s “The China Connection. “From that perspective there’s nothing [that has] changed with regards to Beijing’s foreign policy. It does not mean Beijing is becoming more active.”
Instead, she noted Beijing is concerned about the risk of a global downturn from the war that would hurt its export-oriented economy.
Net exports contributed to about one-third of China’s GDP last year, despite heightened U.S. tariffs, leaving its economy exposed to disruptions in global trade.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva warned Thursday that global growth would slow even if the ceasefire holds, citing lingering uncertainty around the Strait of Hormuz.
The strait handles about one-fifth of global oil supply, connecting the Persian Gulf on the coast of Saudi Arabia with the rest of the world. While China is the primary buyer of Iranian oil and relies on the waterway for just under half of its seaborne oil imports, that represents just 6.6% of China’s total energy consumption.
Still, China faces “immense pressure due to rapidly rising energy costs, and hopes the Strait of Hormuz will be reopened soon,” said Hai Zhao, a director of international political studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a state-affiliated think tank.
As of January, Beijing held enough crude stockpiles to meet demand for three to four months, according to estimates. Data show that Iran has been sending oil through the strait to China since the war began.
However, gasoline prices in China jumped 11% in March from the prior month, and authorities have raised the official domestic gasoline prices twice in six weeks, by a total of 1,580 yuan per metric ton, or about 60 cents per U.S. gallon. The average price in the U.S. has gone up by more than $1 per gallon during that time.
Higher energy costs are also squeezing factory margins, adding to price pressures across China’s manufacturing sector.
Globally traded Brent crude futures remained below $100 a barrel on Friday, despite limited signs of a recovery in shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Recent Iran attacks on a crucial Saudi pipeline have also slashed the kingdom’s oil output, Saudi Arabia’s state news agency said Thursday.
The backdrop
China’s diplomatic positioning builds on its role in restoring diplomatic ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia three years ago, ending three decades of animosity. The move was notable given U.S. interests in the Middle East, while elevating China’s profile in the region.
That history means Beijing can play the role of mediator once both sides are willing to reduce conflict, Zhao said.
But he noted that China lacks the capability or inclination to pressure either side into negotiating. Instead, China’s support gives Pakistan’s mediation efforts more heft, he said.
Pakistan, which shares borders with China and Iran, is set to host Iranian and U.S. leaders in Islamabad this weekend for ceasefire talks. The extent of Beijing’s involvement with the summit remains unclear.
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“We support the mediation efforts by countries including Pakistan,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao said this week. She noted Beijing has called on all parties to end hostilities as soon as possible, for regional peace. “China has made active effort to this end.”
In late March, China and Pakistan published a plan for “restoring peace and stability” in the Middle East, including a ceasefire, peace talks and the restoration of normal passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.
Pakistan abstained from voting on a UN Security Council resolution this week that would have encouraged countries to coordinate their defensive efforts in order to reopen the strait. Veto-wielding Security Council members China and Russia objected and planned to issue an alternative resolution.
Iran has made clear that ships must obtain its permission to pass through the strait, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., said Thursday in a social media post. “The Strait of Hormuz is not open. Access is being restricted, conditioned and controlled.”
Before the war, Iran had occasionally harassed, attacked or seized vessels transiting the strait as tensions with the U.S. escalated.
“China welcomes any chance to present itself as a constructive, responsible power while the Trump administration is seen as the source of the instability,” CFR’s Liu said.
But she warned that the broader geopolitical dynamics remain unchanged.
“The underlying structural tension between Beijing’s dependence on a rules-based global order and Washington’s growing willingness to disrupt that order remains entirely unresolved,” she said.
“That is the story worth tracking beyond the immediate ceasefire.”
— CNBC’s Asriel Chua contributed to this report.
Japan’s cabinet has approved a draft amendment that would classify cryptocurrencies as financial products, marking a shift in how the country regulates the sector.
The proposal brings crypto assets under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, a framework used for stocks and other securities, Nikkei reported. If passed during the current parliament session, the law could take effect as early as fiscal 2027.
Until now, Japan has treated crypto mainly as a payment tool under the Payment Services Act. That approach focused on custody, anti-money laundering checks and exchange registration. The new rules would ban insider trading and require issuers to publish annual disclosures.
Penalties would also rise. Operating without registration could bring up to 10 years in prison, up from three, and fines could increase to 10 million yen ($62,800). The Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission would gain broader authority to police the market.
In a press conference, Minister for Financial Services Satsuki Katayama said the move will “expand the supply of growth capital in response to changes in the financial and capital markets, ensuring market fairness, transparency, and the protection of investors.”
Bitcoin treasury firm Nakamoto (NAKA) is resorting to a familiar Wall Street playbook as it looks to lift its beating-down share price and stay on Nasdaq.
The company is seeking approval for a “reverse stock split” that would combine shares at a ratio to be set between 1-for-20 and 1-for-50, according to a preliminary proxy filing (Schedule 14A), as it has seen a collapse in its share price to around $0.22. Prices are down roughly 99% from its May 2025 peak.
A reverse stock split reduces the number of shares outstanding while increasing the share price proportionally, for example turning 20 shares at $0.20 into one share at $4. While it does not change the company’s underlying value, it is commonly used to regain compliance with Nasdaq’s $1 minimum bid requirement and avoid delisting. Nasdaq mandates listed companies to maintain a minimum bid price of $1 per share, and firms that fail to ensure that within a specific period risk being delisted.
Nakamoto recently sold about 5% of its bitcoin holdings, leaving it with 5,058 BTC, pointing to ongoing liquidity management.
Other bitcoin treasury firms have taken similar steps, including Strive Asset Management earlier this year. Most DAT shares have taken a beating in recent months, tracking the collapse in BTC’s spot price to roughly $70,000 from over $126,000 in October.
Alongside the reverse split, the company, in a Form S-3 filing, registered more than 400 million shares for potential resale by existing investors. This does not raise new capital, but creates a large overhang that could weigh on the stock.
The company also has a shelf registration allowing up to roughly $7 billion in future securities issuance. This is separate from an at the market (ATM) program of up to approximately $5 billion, which would allow it to sell newly issued shares directly into the market over time.
Flare published a governance proposal on Thursday that would make it one of the first layer-1 blockchains to capture maximal extractable value (MEV) at the protocol level rather than letting it flow to the small number of specialized actors who profit from transaction ordering across virtually every major chain.
MEV is the revenue that block builders extract by reordering, inserting or censoring transactions within a block. On most blockchains, this value flows to external searchers and builders who effectively impose a hidden tax on ordinary users through front-running, sandwich attacks and arbitrage.
External estimates put annual MEV revenues at tens of millions on networks like Arbitrum, upwards of $500 million on Ethereum, and as much as $1 billion on Solana. Flare’s three-stage proposal would route the revenue into the protocol’s own token economics.
In the first stage, block building moves from individual validators to a designated builder, initially run by the Flare Entity, with a fallback to the current model if the builder is unavailable. In the second, block building moves into Flare Confidential Compute, making the process publicly auditable. The third stage merges the builder and proposer into a single entity, shifting existing validators to a verification role.
The proposal also creates FIRE, the Flare Income Reinvestment Entity to collect revenue from multiple protocol sources including attestation fees, FAsset and Smart Account fees, confidential compute fees and the captured MEV. FIRE’s primary mandate is reducing FLR token supply through open-market buybacks and burns.
Several changes would take effect immediately after approval. Annual FLR inflation would drop to 3% from 5%, with the hard cap cut to 3 billion tokens per year from 5 billion. A 20-fold increase to the base gas fee, from 60 gwei to 1,200 gwei, would raise estimated annual FLR burn from roughly 7.5 million to 300 million at current transaction volumes. Even after the increase, a standard Flare transaction would cost a fraction of a cent.
Flare has deep roots in the XRP ecosystem, having distributed its initial token supply through an airdrop to XRP holders in 2023. Its FAssets system, which has produced over 150 million FXRP, is designed to bring smart contract functionality to assets on blockchains like XRPL that do not natively support it.
The network reports over $160 million in total value locked as of late March 2026, with more than 887,000 active addresses.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will publish the March Consumer Price Index (CPI) data on Friday. The report is expected to show a jump in inflation, driven by the upsurge seen in crude Oil prices after the United States (US) and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran.
The monthly CPI is forecast to rise 0.9%, following the 0.3% increase recorded in March, while the annual reading is seen climbing to its highest level since May 2024 at 3.3%, from 2.4% in February. Core CPI figures, which exclude volatile food and energy prices, are expected to come in at 0.3% and 2.7%, on a monthly and yearly basis, respectively.
Since the beginning of the conflict in the Middle East on February 28, the barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is up about 40%, even after the sharp decline seen following the announcement of a two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran earlier this week. In March, WTI gained nearly 50%, rising from about $67 per barrel to settle near $100 by the end of the month.
Previewing the inflation data, “the recent surge in crude prices will be the main factor behind the 0.9% m/m jump in the CPI. The Y/Y rate will leap close to 1pp to 3.3% in March, a two-year-high,” said TD Securities analysts.
“Core inflation will stay shielded from the oil shock for now, rising 0.27% m/m. We look for tariff pass-through to continue playing a role by lifting goods prices. Supercore inflation likely stayed firm at 0.3%,” they added.
What to Expect in the Next CPI Data Report?
CPI figures for March will reflect the impact of high oil prices on inflation, which shouldn’t be surprising. Even if the annual CPI inflation rises 3.3% in March, as forecast, investors could see that as a temporary increase in case they remain confident that Oil prices will come down significantly, with a permanent truce in the Middle East allowing the Strait of Hormuz to remain open.
However, the growing uncertainty about the sustainability of a ceasefire and Iran’s condition to retain control of the strait in a peace agreement complicates the picture and raises doubts about a steady pullback in Oil prices. Hence, the developments in the Middle East are likely to shape inflation expectations, rather than the March CPI reading itself.
The Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) March meeting showed that a number of policymakers are already pushing back the timing of potential rate cuts, reflecting lingering concerns that inflation could prove more persistent than expected.
In fact, a large majority flagged the risk that price pressures could stay elevated for longer, particularly if higher Oil prices feed through more broadly.
“Provided that underlying inflation excluding energy remains contained, the Fed can afford to look through the oil-price shock and refrain from raising rates amid a mixed US labor market backdrop,” BBH analysts said.
How Could the US Consumer Price Index Report Affect Eur/USD?
Markets currently see about a 75% chance of the Fed leaving the policy rate unchanged at 3.5%-3.75% by the end of the year, compared to a 17% probability seen on March 9, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
A stronger-than-forecast monthly CPI print for March might not be able to influence the market pricing of the Fed’s interest-rate outlook in a significant way.
However, if a hot inflation print is combined with a re-escalation of the conflict in the Middle East and growing expectations about the naval activity in the Strait of Hormuz not going back to its pre-war state anytime soon, investors could reassess the probability of a Fed hike in response to persistent inflation. In this scenario, the US Dollar (USD) could gather strength and force EUR/USD to turn south.
Conversely, the USD could remain under bearish pressure – and allow EUR/USD to extend its rebound – in case crude Oil prices continue to come down in a steady way, regardless of the March CPI figures.
In summary, March inflation prints are unlikely to trigger a significant market reaction, while market focus remains on the US-Iran crisis and its impact on Oil prices.
Eren Sengezer, FXStreet European Session Lead Analyst, shares a brief technical outlook for EUR/USD.
“EUR/USD’s near-term technical outlook points to a bullish tilt. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) indicator on the daily chart climbed above 50 for the first time since the beginning of the US-Iran war and the pair broke above the two-month-old descending trend line.”
“The Fibonacci 50% retracement level of the February-April trend aligns as the next resistance level at 1.1730 ahead of 1.1800 (Fibonacci 61.8% retracement) and 1.1900 (Fibonacci 78.6% retracement). On the downside, the immediate support is located at 1.1650 (Fibonacci 38.2% retracement). In case this support fails, technical sellers could show interest, opening the door for an extended slide toward 1.1560 (Fibonacci 23.6% retracement) and 1.1500 (static level, round level).”
The post US CPI Inflation Set to Jump in March, Putting an End to Gradual Two-Year Decline appeared first on BeInCrypto.
MiCA introduced a unified European crypto market framework with one license valid across 27 countries. Large exchanges like Binance, Kraken, and Coinbase have successfully obtained MiCA licenses for all 27 EU countries.
For smaller companies, however, MiCA is proving to be a different kind of challenge. The regulation functions as a quality filter, but interpretations differ: some argue it removes bad actors, while others contend it disproportionately affects companies without deep capital reserves.
The True Cost of Compliance
The cost breakdown reveals significant barriers to entry. Minimum licensing and compliance costs for crypto startups range from €250,000 to €500,000 for licensing alone, with additional expenses including compliance officer salaries (€80,000–€150,000 annually) and legal fees (€50,000–€200,000). Stablecoin issuers must also maintain a reserve capital of €5 million.
The impact varies considerably by company profile. Venture-backed exchanges treat these costs as manageable business expenses. Bootstrapped startups and small teams encounter substantially higher operational friction. The cumulative cost structure establishes a de facto market entry threshold that advantages capitalized players and disadvantages smaller entrants.
Holger Kuhlmann, speaking at the BeInCrypto expert council, articulated the operational pressure directly:
“A lot of companies are under pressure because they either do not have enough staff to handle the new rules properly or they need to hire more people and that quickly becomes expensive. Many companies have to make a decision between accepting more bureaucracy or taking on the cost and risk of relocation.”
This choice Kuhlmann describes is playing out across Europe. Industry data shows over 40% of crypto exchanges reported difficulty meeting MiCA’s reporting requirements specifically because of high compliance costs. At least 25% of exchanges that applied for MiCA licensing faced delays or rejections over incomplete AML documentation or other paperwork issues.
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The Bureaucracy or Relocation Choice
For many smaller firms, relocation increasingly means Vienna. Austria’s Financial Market Authority offers licensing timelines under six months, significantly faster than German timelines. For companies that cannot afford to wait or to hire additional compliance staff, moving becomes the pragmatic economic choice despite the costs of relocation.
Germany’s strict interpretation of MiCA amplifies this pressure considerably. While most EU countries kept the full 18-month transition window that MiCA allowed, Germany shortened its deadline to just 12 months. Less time to prepare means higher costs, more pressure on limited resources, and more companies reaching the conclusion that relocation is preferable to compliance within the German framework.
This pattern has real consequences. Germany’s crypto hub status, as detailed in related analysis on the crypto hub question, depends partly on retaining startup ecosystems. Yet the compliance burden is precisely what pushes those startups elsewhere.
Winners and Losers Under MiCA
The data reveals a stark divide. MiCA-compliant businesses saw a 45% increase in institutional investments compared to non-compliant platforms. Large exchanges with existing institutional relationships, capital reserves, and compliance infrastructure have used MiCA as a moat against smaller competitors.
Binance, Kraken, and Coinbase secured MiCA licenses for all 27 EU countries. For them, MiCA functions as intended: it unified the market and removed uncertainty. The regulation brought legitimacy and enabled them to deepen institutional relationships.
Chris Pliessnig, whose firm Tirox navigated the MiCA transition for multiple clients, acknowledged both sides of the impact: “It opened up the product offering, the service offering, and it brought it to a new level.” That elevation happened—but only for companies with sufficient resources to reach the new level.
The Structural Shift
Germany granted over 30 MiCA licenses, but most went to traditional banks entering crypto for the first time. The startups that once made Berlin and Frankfurt attractive crypto destinations are licensing elsewhere, often in Vienna. The effect is a hollowing out of the startup ecosystem that originally built Germany’s reputation for innovation in digital assets.
One expert observed that Germany risks losing its status as a crypto hub not because of MiCA itself, but because of how strictly it applies the rules. The regulation is uniform across the EU, but enforcement strictness is not.
The Path Forward Remains Unclear
Smaller companies must navigate three constrained options: absorb compliance costs while accepting thinner margins and slower growth, relocate to Vienna or Lisbon and forgo existing customer relationships and German market access, or exit the market entirely.
This outcome diverges substantially from MiCA’s regulatory design intent. Experts interviewed for this analysis agreed that rather than creating market unification, the regulation has produced market consolidation favoring large, well-capitalized players. The barrier to entry for smaller competitors is now substantially higher. Some experts characterize this as necessary quality control; others view it as an unintended regulatory burden. The relocation patterns, however, indicate that companies themselves have already decided.
The post Why Smaller Crypto Companies Are Struggling Under MICA appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Hong Kong granted its first two stablecoin issuer licenses to HSBC and Anchorpoint Financial, a Standard Chartered-led consortium that includes Animoca Brands on Friday.
The approvals by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the territory’s central bank, mark the first batch under the Stablecoins Ordinance, which took effect in August 2025.
“We look forward to the issuers launching business according to their plans, exploring growth opportunities while properly managing risks,” HKMA chief executive Eddie Yue said in an announcement on Friday.
“We hope their promotion of regulated stablecoins will address pain points in financial and economic activities, create values for both individuals and businesses, and support the healthy development of digital assets in Hong Kong.”
The HKMA assessed 36 applications and had signaled that the initial round would be limited. Financial Secretary Paul Chan said in his February budget address that only “a small number” would be approved, with the regulator prioritizing risk management, reserve quality, and anti-money-laundering controls.
The decision to license the city’s note-issuing banks first appears to be deliberate. HSBC and Standard Chartered are two of only three commercial banks authorized to print Hong Kong dollar banknotes, a system that dates to 1846, when private banks began issuing currency backed by silver deposits in the absence of a colonial central bank.
Today, each note-issuing bank deposits U.S. dollars with the government’s Exchange Fund at the fixed rate of HK$7.80 per dollar and receives Certificates of Indebtedness in return, against which it prints banknotes.
Yue drew the parallel in a December 2023 blog post.
Pre-1935 banknotes issued by commercial banks in exchange for deposited silver were a form of “private money,” Yue wrote, and stablecoins function as their blockchain-based equivalent — tokens with stable value that can serve as a medium of exchange on-chain.
A strict identity regime
The licenses come with one of the world’s strictest KYC frameworks for digital money.
Under the HKMA’s AML guidelines, licensed stablecoins can only be transferred to wallets whose owners have been identity-verified. The travel rule applies to transfers above HK$8,000 (~$1,000).
In practice, this means HKD stablecoins will likely embed compliance checks into their smart contracts, restricting transfers to wallets listed in an on-chain white list. That makes them structurally different from freely transferable tokens like USDT or USDC.
A HKD CBDC takes a back seat
The bank-led stablecoin model also reflects the HKMA’s decision to deprioritize its central bank digital currency for retail use, as an 11-group pilot program completed in October found the retail case was weak.
CBDCs have historically been a big theme at Hong Kong Fintech Week. Last year, there was barely a mention. Instead, stablecoins were the hot topic.
Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters said at the time Hong Kong’s push into stablecoins and tokenized deposits could “lay the foundation for a new era of digital trade settlement,” positioning them as a new medium for cross-border commerce.
Whether the market agrees remains to be seen.
Stablecoins are a roughly $310 billion asset class, and USD-denominated tokens dominate nearly all of it.
Data from CoinGecko shows that the largest stablecoins by market cap are dollar-pegged, with no euro-or yen-pegged tokens breaking into the top ranks.
Hong Kong is betting that regulated, bank-issued HKD stablecoins can carve out a role in regional trade settlement, issued by the same institutions, under the same constraints, on new rails.
The question is whether a non-dollar stablecoin, however tightly regulated, can build the network effects needed to compete.
XRP price today sits near $1.34, barely changed over 30 days, down just 2.5%. Yet a shift in who holds XRP (XRP) supply suggests the freeze may not last much longer.
On-chain data reveals the token’s least convinced holders have exited while two whale cohorts added 130 million tokens. With price compressed inside a falling channel, XRP technical analysis points to a convergence that could finally force a direction.
A Falling Channel Keeps Price Frozen Below Key Resistance
XRP price has traded inside a falling channel on the 8-hour chart since its March 17 peak near $1.60. Every attempt to escape since then has failed at the same ceiling.
The most recent rejection came on April 7 and 8. XRP reclaimed the 20-period and 50-period Exponential Moving Averages (EMA), trend indicators that weight recent price moves more heavily. However, the 100-period EMA rejected the advance cleanly.
That level carries weight. Around March 15, XRP reclaimed the 100 EMA and it triggered another 11% rally to the $1.60 high. The same EMA now aligns with the channel’s upper trendline, creating a double XRP resistance wall.
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BeInCrypto recently covered a similar setup in Zcash. The token broke above its own falling channel and surged higher. XRP price prediction models suggest a comparable move is possible if this resistance falls.
Yet an EMA alone does not confirm buyer conviction. The answer lies in who is accumulating and who is walking away.
Weakest Holders Walk Out as XRP Whale Accumulation Builds
Glassnode data shows that speculative money is draining from XRP. The 1-day to 1-week HODL Waves cohort tracks the share of supply held by the newest holders. It peaked at 1.45% on April 4. That reading has since collapsed to 0.684%.
More than half of this short-term supply exited in under a week. In isolation, that looks bearish. Yet these are the holders who typically sell into every bounce and kill rallies before they start. Their exit may actually be clearing the noise.
Meanwhile, XRP whale accumulation has picked up from two separate cohorts. Santiment data shows the 1 billion-plus XRP cohort grew from 25.80 billion to 25.83 billion tokens since April 6. The 10 million to 100 million cohort followed a day later, rising from 11.31 billion to 11.41 billion. Together, both groups added roughly 130 million XRP, and only after the speculative traders started selling.
However, the buying remains gradual. A Glassnode cost basis heatmap reveals roughly 420 million XRP sitting in a supply cluster directly overhead, between $1.37 and $1.38.
If that cluster’s holders begin selling into strength, whale buying alone may not crack through. The price chart reveals exactly where that wall sits.
XRP Price Levels That Decide Whether the Freeze Breaks
The 8-hour Fibonacci chart maps the convergence zone. The immediate levels are $1.35 ($1.349 to be precise) and $1.36. Reclaiming and holding both would be the first sign of life.
However, $1.38 is where the freeze lives or dies. The 100-period EMA, the channel’s upper trendline, and the 420 million XRP supply cluster all converge at that level. A clean close above $1.380 would confirm the XRP breakout. It would clear the channel, the EMA, and the supply wall simultaneously. Targets then open at $1.43, $1.51, and the March 17 high of $1.60.
Yet failure to reclaim $1.35 would keep XRP price frozen inside the channel. In that scenario, $1.32 becomes the next XRP support level at risk. A deeper breakdown exposes $1.28 ($1.279 to be exact), where buyer interest has previously held.
The 30-day freeze has compressed volatility to a breaking point. A close above $1.38 favors the whale thesis and opens a path toward $1.60. A rejection sends XRP back toward $1.28 and turns the freeze into a deeper slide.
The post XRP Price Frozen for a Month? A 130 Million Whale Move May Finally Crack It appeared first on BeInCrypto.
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