Crypto World
MARA Takes Controlling Stake in French AI Data Center Operator Exaion
MARA Holdings has completed the purchase of a majority stake in French computing infrastructure operator Exaion, deepening its push into artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud services.
The deal, first agreed in August 2025 with EDF Pulse Ventures, gives MARA France a 64% stake in Exaion after required regulatory approvals were secured, the Bitcoin miner said in a Friday announcement. French energy giant EDF will remain a minority shareholder and continue as a customer of the business.
The investment also creates a broader alliance. NJJ Capital, the investment vehicle of telecom entrepreneur Xavier Niel, will acquire a 10% stake in MARA France as part of a partnership with MARA.
Governance of Exaion will reflect the new ownership structure. The company’s board will include three representatives from MARA, three from EDF Pulse Ventures and one from NJJ, alongside Exaion’s chief executive and co-founder. Niel and MARA CEO Fred Thiel will both hold seats on the board.
Related: Bitcoin miners chase 30 GW AI capacity to offset hashprice pressure
Bitcoin miners pivot to AI amid pressure
Bitcoin mining companies are increasingly turning to AI and data center computing as pressure on mining economics grows. After the 2024 halving cut block rewards and rising network difficulty squeezed margins, several publicly traded miners began adopting a hybrid model, keeping mining as a source of cash flow while building steadier revenue from AI cloud and high-performance computing services.
HIVE Digital Technologies is one example of the shift. The company reported strong results even during weaker Bitcoin prices, supported by expanding AI operations. CoreWeave has also moved from crypto mining to become a major AI infrastructure provider after GPU mining demand fell.
Other firms, including TeraWulf, Hut 8, IREN and MARA, are also repurposing mining facilities and energy capacity into AI data centers.
In November last year, CleanSpark announced plans to raise roughly $1.13 billion in net proceeds, up to $1.28 billion if additional notes are purchased, through a $1.15 billion senior convertible note offering to fund expansion of its Bitcoin mining and data center operations.
Related: Crypto miner Bitdeer tanks 17% after $300M debt offering
Bitcoin mining difficulty jumps 15%
Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty rose about 15% to 144.4 trillion on Friday, reversing an 11% drop earlier in the month, the steepest decline since China’s 2021 mining ban. The earlier fall followed severe winter storms across the United States that disrupted power grids and temporarily forced many miners offline, sharply reducing hash rate.
While the higher difficulty reinforces Bitcoin’s security, it also raises the computing effort needed to mine new blocks, adding further margin pressure on operators already dealing with rising costs.
Magazine: Bitcoin may take 7 years to upgrade to post-quantum — BIP-360 co-author
Crypto World
BlackRock Is Paying $350,000 for Crypto Executives: Is Wall Street Digital Asset Takeover Just Getting Started?
Leading Wall Street firms BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup are actively posting crypto jobs, not for experimental blockchain labs, but for permanent digital asset desks running live revenue operations. This is a structural build, not a pilot program.
The numbers confirm the scale. Crypto companies listed 5,154 open positions in early 2025, a 40%+ rise from late 2023.
BlackRock alone posted a New York Managing Director role for crypto at $270,000–$350,000. Goldman Sachs has disclosed $2 billion in crypto exposure. The ETF approval wasn’t a catalyst – it was the starting gun.
Key Takeaways:
- ETF Catalyst: Bitcoin ETF inflow recovery has forced Wall Street to staff permanent middle-office, trading, and compliance functions – roles that didn’t exist inside these firms two years ago.
- Named Institutions: BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup all carry active crypto job listings; JPMorgan posted a Lead Software Engineer for blockchain infrastructure.
- Role Categories: Current demand centers on institutional trading, fund accounting, ETF market-making, digital asset compliance, and tokenization engineering – not R&D or innovation labs.
- Compensation Signal: BlackRock’s Managing Director crypto role is listed at $270,000–$350,000; global crypto salaries rose 18% year-over-year into 2025, with North America offering the highest base pay.
- Geographic Expansion: New York remains the primary hub, but Singapore crypto job listings surged 158% – signaling the institutional build is global, not domestic.
- What to Watch: Whether TradFi retention packages can outcompete token incentives from crypto-native firms – that tension determines how fast these desks actually scale.
Discover: The best crypto to diversify your portfolio with
What the Shift Actually Signals – and Why This Cycle Is Different From 2021
The last time Wall Street rushed into crypto jobs was 2021. That wave was driven by retail speculation, NFT hype, and internal pressure to appear innovative.
The 2022 FTX collapse and subsequent market crash wiped out more than 70% of crypto jobs globally – and most of those TradFi crypto units quietly dissolved with them.
This cycle is structurally different. The demand driver is regulated product infrastructure: spot Bitcoin ETFs, Ethereum ETFs, and the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs).
BlackRock’s IBIT has generated historic AUM growth, and that volume demands middle-office expansion – reconciliation, fund accounting, reporting – roles that are operational, not experimental.
Sam Wellalage, founder of recruitment agency WorkInCrypto, put it plainly: “When I speak with CEOs from TradFi who are now building digital assets, they consistently say the same thing: Crypto will ultimately be integrated into TradFi, not exist separately.” That framing matters – integration implies permanent headcount, not rotating project teams.
The regulatory environment has accelerated the timeline. The Trump administration’s pro-crypto posture – light-touch regulation, an explicit goal of making the US the crypto capital of the world – has given compliance and legal teams the green light to build rather than wait. Regulatory clarity at the federal level is precisely what makes a permanent digital asset division viable inside a bank that answers to the SEC.
Wellalage flagged the skills threshold that will define the 2026 hiring class: “Institutional recruitment in 2026 will be about finding digital asset leaders who can operate at the intersection of capital, markets, and regulation – not just crypto enthusiasm.” That distinction – capital plus markets plus regulation, not enthusiasm – is what separates this buildout from the 2021 experiment.
Discover: The best pre-launch token sales
TradFi vs Crypto Desk: The Role Map
The talent pipeline runs in both directions, but the dominant flow right now is TradFi into institutional digital assets – and the role categories are specific. ETF market makers, crypto derivatives traders, digital asset compliance officers, tokenization engineers, and custody operations specialists are the positions drawing the most competitive offers.
BlackRock is staffing for senior portfolio and product roles that sit directly on top of IBIT’s operational infrastructure.
— Coin Bureau (@coinbureau) March 30, 2026
NEW: BLACKROCK ADDS $350K HEAD DIGITAL ASSETS ROLE
BlackRock is recruiting a Managing Director of Digital Assets in NYC to lead its crypto, stablecoin, and tokenization strategy, reinforcing that crypto is now a core priority for Wall Street. pic.twitter.com/wCrEsxxknR
Goldman Sachs – which reported a significant uptick in clients trading crypto derivatives – is building on its existing trading desk capabilities. Citigroup posted a VP-level backend engineer for digital finance. JPMorgan, which launched its Onyx blockchain platform for tokenized assets in 2021, is now hiring lead engineers to scale that infrastructure rather than prototype it.
The skills that transfer cleanly from TradFi: fixed income structuring, derivatives risk management, fund accounting, regulatory compliance, and institutional sales. The skills that must be learned on the job: on-chain settlement mechanics, wallet custody architecture, tokenomics, and DeFi protocol risk – areas where crypto-native firms like Coinbase, Galaxy, and Grayscale still hold a decisive edge.
That edge is also a competitive threat. Platforms building permanent digital asset divisions – including exchange operators now operating under formal regulatory licenses – are drawing from the same talent pool as the bulge-bracket banks. The retention math favors whoever can offer the better blend of institutional prestige and upside exposure.
Compensation is already being used as a differentiator. Global crypto salaries rose 18% year-over-year into 2025. North America leads on base pay; Asia leads on growth rate, fueled in part by token grants. Singapore’s crypto job listings surged 158%, reflecting how aggressively regional hubs are competing for the same senior institutional profiles that New York firms are targeting.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 22% demand growth for blockchain developers by 2026 – outpacing average tech roles by a wide margin. With institutional adoption locking in through regulated ETFs and RWA platforms, that demand curve isn’t softening.
Discover: The Best Crypto Presales Live Right Now
The post BlackRock Is Paying $350,000 for Crypto Executives: Is Wall Street Digital Asset Takeover Just Getting Started? appeared first on Cryptonews.
Bitcoin remains pinned near the $66,500 area as buyers push to extend a recovery, but a chorus of bears continues to defend the line. The price action has traders watching a potential bullish pattern on the daily chart, with a clear test above the moving averages needed to propel a further advance. If bulls fail to sustain above the level, traders fear a slide back toward the mid-to-lower $60,000s, threatening the current setup and inviting renewed selling pressure.
On-chain and sentiment signals add nuance to the tape. CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost highlights that roughly 8.2 million BTC are currently in loss, a level that echoes the undervaluation seen during the prior bear market when losses topped around 10.6 million BTC. For some market observers, that provides a familiar framing: price recovery may be slow, but capitulation dynamics remain supportive of a longer-term bottom formation.
Yet not all technical voices agree on where the floor lies. Aksel Kibar, a Chartered Market Technician, warned that if the developing bearish pattern breaks down, BTC could slip to around $52,500, underscoring that the chart remains delicate and vulnerable to further downside unless fresh buyers step in.
Key voices shaping the narrative
Market pundits remain divided on how to interpret the current setup. Bloomberg Intelligence senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone has floated a bear-case scenario in which BTC could plunge toward the $10,000 level, a stark reminder that macro shocks and risk-off sentiment can quickly reshape risk assets. In a contrasting stance, ARK Invest chief executive Cathie Wood told CNBC that she does not anticipate an 85%–95% collapse from Bitcoin’s all-time highs, suggesting that the downside may be more bounded than some headlines imply.
Bitcoin price outlook
From a purely technical vantage, BTC’s next move hinges on how it interacts with key support and resistance rails. The daily chart shows price bouncing off major moving averages but facing persistent selling pressure near the $66,500 threshold. If the price closes decisively below the moving averages and the support zone around $60,000–$62,500, the chart pattern around the ascending triangle could be invalidated, potentially accelerating a pullback as speculative longs unwind.
Conversely, a sustained close above the moving averages would mark a bullish inflection, opening the path toward $72,000 and then toward $76,000. A breakout beyond $76,000 would relieve near-term resistance and could push BTC toward the $84,000 region, aligning with the pattern’s completion mechanics and fueling renewed enthusiasm among bulls.
Ether price outlook
Ether has failed to clear the $2,200 resistance, indicating that sellers remain resolute at the level. The chart shows flat moving averages and RSI hovering near the middle, suggesting a balanced tug-of-war with little clear advantage for either side. Traders expect the ETH/USD pair to oscillate roughly between $1,916 and $2,200 in the near term.
To tilt the balance in favor of buyers, ETH would need to sustain a move above $2,200, which could open the way to $2,400 and then $2,600. On the downside, a close below $1,916 would threaten a deeper pullback toward $1,750, where a more meaningful support cluster could form.
Altcoin snapshot: mixed signals across the top names
The broader cohort of high-capaltcoins reflects a landscape of competing forces, with several names hovering near critical levels that could determine the near-term trajectory.
BNB has turned down from resistance near the moving averages and sits near a solid $570 support. The path of least resistance appears downward while the 20-day exponential moving average hovers around $620 and RSI remains near oversold territory. A break of $570 could open the door to a potential slide toward $500, while a bounce above the moving averages might keep price in a range roughly between $570 and $687 for a few days more.
XRP is testing support near $1.27 after failing to sustain the bounce from the 20-day EMA around $1.36. A breakdown below $1.27 could invite a fall toward the February low near $1.11, with the lower bound of a descending-channel pattern offering another potential touchpoint near $1.00. A move above the moving averages could renew the drive toward $1.61 and the descending-channel resistance.
Solana has found itself pressed within a $76–$95 zone, with bulls likely to defend $76. A break below that level would raise the risk of a broader retreat toward $67 or even $50, while a renewed push above the moving averages could extend range-bound action and a back-and-forth rhythm in the near term.
Dogecoin is caught between the moving averages and a key $0.09 support, flagging a potential range expansion in the short term. A daily close below $0.09 would intensify selling pressure and could pull DOGE toward the $0.08 area, with a deeper drop toward $0.06 possible if bears take control. A close above the moving averages would set the stage for a run toward $0.10 and possibly $0.12.
Hyperliquid (HYPE) has been attempting a bounce off the 50-day simple moving average near $34.16, but the immediate challenge is a weakening momentum as the 20-day EMA around $37.10 turns down and the RSI retreats. A break below the 50-day SMA could pull the price toward the $29.42 level, while a move above the 20-day EMA would keep bulls in the driver’s seat and potentially push toward $41.59 and then $43.76.
Cardano’s ADA remains capped below the $0.25 resistance while holding above $0.23. The 20-day EMA sits around $0.25, and RSI remains bearish, suggesting further downside risk if the price breaks below $0.23 toward the $0.22 region and then the $0.18 support. A sustained move above the moving averages could re-activate a rally toward the downtrend line acting as a major hurdle for bulls to conquer.
Bitcoin Cash has slipped to around $443, a critical support, with bulls needing to defend this level. Any bounce faces selling pressures near the moving averages, while a breakdown could form a bearish head-and-shoulders pattern that targets the $375 zone. Conversely, a close above $486 could re-ignite upside toward the $520–$540 area.
Chainlink has traded in a tight band between roughly $8 and $10, signaling a balance of supply and demand. If buyers push above the moving averages, LINK could challenge $10, with a close above that level opening the door to roughly $10.94 and then $11.61. A break below $8 would raise the risk of a drop toward the $7.15 and $6 zones as bears gain traction.
What to watch next
In a market where multiple signals coexist, traders will be watching not only price action but also shifts in on-chain activity and macro risk sentiment. The immediate question is whether BTC can convincingly clear the moving-average hurdle and sustain a breakout, or whether the $60,000–$62,500 zone becomes a more durable magnet for prices. For Ether and the broader altcoin cohort, the next few sessions could determine whether the current ranges compress further or give way to more pronounced breakouts in either direction.
Readers should stay attuned to on-chain metrics that signal capitulation or accumulation, such as BTC’s loss exposure and the behavior of long-term holders, as well as any new insights from major market voices that can reinterpret risk appetite in the weeks ahead.
As these dynamics unfold, the path forward remains highly conditional on how price interacts with key technical levels, how macro risk sentiment evolves, and whether fresh capital returns to defend critical supports or pushes prices toward new milestones.
Key Highlights
- Reed Hastings, Netflix’s co-founder and board chair, offloaded $40.1M worth of NFLX shares on April 1, 2026
- The transaction involved 393,950 shares executed at prices spanning $95.02 to $96.66 per share
- Simultaneously, Hastings exercised stock options for 420,550 shares priced at merely $9.44 apiece
- Earlier in March, Hastings liquidated approximately $39M in Netflix stock, bringing his 2026 total to over $79M
- Wall Street maintains confidence with 41 analysts rating NFLX a Strong Buy and targeting $113.97 per share
On April 1, 2026, Reed Hastings—the visionary co-founder and current board chair of Netflix (NFLX)—executed a substantial stock divestiture worth $40.1 million. The transaction encompassed 393,950 shares distributed across several trades, with individual share prices fluctuating between $95.02 and $96.66.
Records filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) confirm the shares were sold through open market transactions.
Concurrent with this divestiture, Hastings leveraged pre-existing stock options to purchase 420,550 NFLX shares at the remarkably low exercise price of $9.44 per share, representing a total outlay of roughly $3.97 million. Additionally, he obtained 654 shares through Non-Qualified Stock Options at $95.55 per share.
This marks a continuing pattern. Earlier on March 2, Hastings divested 410,000 Netflix shares, generating approximately $39 million in proceeds. Combined, his equity liquidations in 2026 have already surpassed $79 million within just one month’s timeframe.
These stock sales follow Netflix’s strategic withdrawal from its ambitious $82 billion acquisition attempt of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). After an extended competitive bidding process that included Paramount Skydance (PSKY) as a contender, Netflix ultimately abandoned its WBD takeover pursuit.
In the wake of that decision, Netflix implemented subscription price increases throughout its U.S. market.
Subscription Price Adjustments Catch Wall Street’s Eye
The ad-supported Standard subscription tier now carries an $8.99 monthly price tag. The ad-free Standard option has increased to $19.99, while the Premium tier has risen to $26.99 monthly.
Analysts from Needham project these pricing adjustments could generate approximately $1.7 billion in additional revenue, potentially accelerating North American growth metrics by roughly 300 basis points throughout fiscal 2026.
Major financial institutions including BofA Securities, Bernstein, and Needham have maintained bullish stances on the streaming giant, establishing price targets of $125, $115, and $120 respectively.
NFL Programming Expansion on the Horizon
Netflix is currently negotiating to double its NFL game package from two to four games annually. The streaming platform is pursuing additional time slots, including a Thanksgiving Eve broadcast and an internationally-based matchup.
These negotiations unfold as Netflix nears the conclusion of its three-year Christmas Day game agreement, which commanded approximately $75 million per game.
Citizens Bank recently launched coverage on NFLX with a Market Perform designation, acknowledging Netflix’s standing as the world’s second-largest streaming service provider.
Current analyst consensus reveals 41 Wall Street professionals covering NFLX maintain a Strong Buy recommendation—comprising 30 Buy ratings and 11 Hold ratings published within the preceding three months. The consensus price target stands at $113.97, suggesting potential upside of approximately 16% from present trading levels.
Opinion by: Ido Sofer, founder and CEO at Sodot.
The crypto industry is normally well ahead of its game when it comes to pure innovation and functionality, but security is a different matter.
For years, custody risk in crypto was defined by a single fear: the theft of private keys. The industry responded by hardening storage with cold storage, air-gapped systems, MPC and other methods. It then recognized that protecting only the keys is not enough, introducing transaction security and policies to prevent malicious transactions that steal funds, although the keys remain safe. Both of these remain a serious threat, but focusing solely on private keys obscures a deeper shift.
Custody itself has expanded far beyond private keys.
“Custody” once meant protecting private keys. That definition no longer reflects reality. Custody has evolved into a complex, automated system that operates different kinds of transactions, across multiple venues, custodians, vendors and internal systems. Modern trading firms operate across exchanges, staking platforms, liquidity venues and infrastructure providers, each with API keys, validator keys, deployment credentials and system-level secrets that can move capital directly or indirectly.
Many of these credentials are stored in secret managers that, by design, return the full key to any authenticated process. Convenient, yes, but structurally fragile. If the execution environment is compromised, either by an external attacker, an employee that was threatened or a malicious dependency, the full key is compromised. Custody risk has expanded beyond dormant on-chain keys into a live execution layer, where capital moves in milliseconds and exposure happens in real time.
The evolution of custody security
Custody security evolved in stages. First, the industry secured private keys in storage. It then moved beyond storage, embedding policy and multi-party controls to govern how those keys were used in execution. The next step is inevitable: apply the same zero-exposure and policy-driven discipline to every key and credential. In modern crypto operations, API keys, deployment credentials and execution secrets carry significant risk. Extending private key best practices across this broader surface is no longer optional; it is the defining challenge of execution risk.
In recent years, the execution risk has emerged as the single biggest vector for large-scale exploits. Cybercriminals are bypassing onchain security mechanisms in favor of the soft underbelly, namely the API keys, server credentials and other off-chain secrets needed to facilitate trading, code deployment, staking and custodial actions. Recent major breaches, including the Bybit hack, started with an off-chain hack and compromised credentials, which later led to on-chain loss of funds.
How big is the execution risk?
It’s big and structural. Asset managers, trading firms, custodians and payment companies connect to dozens of CEXs, DEXs, liquidity providers and other vendors simultaneously. Each integration introduces its own credentials, access controls and operational dependencies. Managing these spans across development, ops, trading, risk and security teams, which creates complexity that compounds over time.
Securing these operations is a never-ending struggle. Maintaining consistent security policies and multi-vendor access is a massive headache that’s largely manual, resulting in inevitable security gaps and configuration drift.
Related: Bitcoin is infrastructure, not digital gold
Execution risk is not inherent toautomation. It is a byproduct of how trading systems have historically been designed. In many centralized exchange environments, API keys and operational credentials are placed directly inside trading infrastructure to eliminate latency. For market makers and trading firms, speed is not a feature, it is the business model. Even marginal delay affects revenue.
Over time, full-key availability inside live systems became normalized as the simplest way to achieve high-performance execution. Credentials sit in a constant state of readiness so transactions can be authorized instantly. The issue is not that capital moves quickly. It is that unilateral authority is embedded inside operational infrastructure. And when authority is concentrated where execution happens, it becomes the most predictable attack vector.
Existing controls fall short
Existing tools fall far short of what’s required, considering the complexity of modern execution environments.
While crypto exchanges, custodians and over-the-counter trading desks certainly employ robust security policies for specific operations, it’s incredibly difficult for them to synchronize those controls across such a fragmented ecosystem. In fact, it’s almost impossible to maintain consistent governance across forty-odd exchanges for any length of time. Since it’s done manually, in silo, errors are inevitable, and a single mistake can put millions of dollars in value at risk.
There’s also the counterparty risk to consider. Exchanges and custodians may have their own vulnerabilities in the shape of bugs, misconfigured infrastructure and inconsistent policy enforcement mechanisms. If a trading firm’s internal security code requires geofencing, but one of the exchanges it’s connected to has a buggy implementation of that control, it creates a risk at the point of execution.
The risk is intolerable
The lesson the industry learned from private key security is clear: eliminate full key exposure and enforce strict policy controls around usage. Those principles must now extend beyond on-chain private keys to every credential capable of authorizing value movement.
The solution is not simply better secret storage. Secret managers were built for convenience; they return the full key to any authenticated process. In live execution environments, that model distributes authority to multiple components of the system at the very moment capital is in motion.
What is required is zero key exposure architecture systems where no single machine or employee ever holds unilateral control, combined with enforceable, context-aware policies governing how credentials are used. Multi-party computation (MPC) is one way to implement this model, but the principle is broader — expand private-key security best practices across the entire crypto execution layer.
Opinion by: Ido Sofer, founder and CEO at Sodot.
This opinion article presents the author’s expert view, and it may not reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. This content has undergone editorial review to ensure clarity and relevance. Cointelegraph remains committed to transparent reporting and upholding the highest standards of journalism. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research before taking any actions related to the company.
What does it take to get corporations into digital assets? According to Brad Garlinghouse, the formula is surprisingly simple.
The Ripple CEO just broke down the “secret sauce” behind Ripple Treasury. It’s an enterprise treasury management platform that lets businesses view and manage both fiat and digital assets (including XRP and RLUSD stablecoins) in a single, unified dashboard.
The Two-Ingredient Formula
Garlinghouse laid it out clearly. No complicated onboarding, no new systems to learn, and no juggling between separate platforms for fiat and crypto. Just one unified solution.
Fun Fact: Ripple Treasury facilitated $13 trillion in payments last year. That’s roughly half of the entire US GDP processed through a single treasury platform!
What Changed
Ripple Treasury just launched as the first Treasury Management System (TMS) with native digital asset capabilities. For CFOs, this means a single place to hold and manage both digital and fiat assets.
Renaat Ver Eecke, who leads Ripple Treasury (formerly GTreasury), explained the vision:
“From the moment GTreasury became Ripple Treasury, we’ve been building to this, giving Corporates a clear, trusted entry point into digital assets.”
The new features include Digital Asset Accounts and Unified Treasury. Corporate treasurers no longer need separate systems, separate logins, separate workflows. Everything lives in one place.
Ver Eecke outlined the roadmap: connecting to Ripple’s regulated payments network and prime brokerage. This will allow corporates to use digital assets and stablecoins for cross-border intercompany payments, earn yield on idle cash around the clock, and much more.
The key insight: Corporations don’t want to become crypto companies. They want to use crypto rails without changing their operations. Ripple Treasury meets them exactly where they are.
Ver Eecke summarized it bluntly: “Corporate treasury has never had a solution like this before.”
Ripple Has a Unique Value in the Enterprise Segment
Traditional treasury management is fragmented. Fiat accounts here, digital assets there, cross-border payments somewhere else. Every system requires its own processes, its own compliance checks, its own headaches.
Ripple Treasury collapses all of that into a single platform. Trusted. Regulated. Embedded in existing workflows.
For CFOs who have been watching crypto from the sidelines, waiting for an entry point that doesn’t require rebuilding their entire infrastructure, this is it. The friction is gone.
Garlinghouse called it the secret sauce. Looking at $13 trillion in volume and native digital asset capabilities, the recipe seems to be working.
The post Ripple CEO Reveals the Secret Behind Its Crypto and Fiat Treasury System appeared first on BeInCrypto.
After months of continuous growth, the RWA sector is showing its first signs of a slowdown.
Distributed asset value sits at $27.49 billion with only 1.74% growth over the past 30 days. Stablecoins even recorded a slight decline.
RWA Growth is Dying Out
Current data from RWA.xyz shows the following picture:
- Distributed Asset Value: $27.49 billion, up 1.74% in a month.
- Represented Asset Value: $403.28 billion, up 3.33%.
- Total Asset Holders: 707,564, up 5.7%.
- Total Stablecoin Value: $299.88 billion, down 0.07%.
- Total Stablecoin Holders: 241.80 million, up 4.35%.
The number of holders continues to grow, but the value is not keeping pace. New market participants are entering, but bringing less fresh capital than in previous months.
Fun Fact: Despite the slowdown, RWA distributed value has grown from under $5 billion in early 2024 to nearly $28 billion today. The long-term trend remains intact!
Which RWA Segments Are Cooling
Several asset categories are contributing to the slowdown:
- Commodities: Gold prices have stagnated, and tokenized gold follows the underlying asset.
- US Treasuries: Still the largest segment in the RWA market, but momentum has flattened. Initial demand for tokenized T-bills appears to be stabilizing.
- Stocks and Asset-Backed Credit: Both categories are also showing reduced growth.
The chart from RWA.xyz displays a clear pattern: explosive growth through 2024 and into early 2025, followed by a gradual flattening in recent months.
A monthly growth rate of 1.74% does not constitute a crash. Annualized, that still represents over 20% growth.
However, compared to the triple-digit percentage gains the RWA sector recorded in 2024, the deceleration is clearly visible.
The slight 0.07% decline in stablecoins deserves particular attention. Stablecoins often serve as an entry point into tokenized assets. A shrinking pool may indicate reduced on-chain activity.
On the positive side: asset holders grew by 5.71%. New participants continue to enter the market, though with more cautious capital allocation.
The RWA sector appears to be entering a phase of normalization following a period of strong growth. Whether this represents a temporary consolidation or the beginning of a longer trend remains to be seen in the coming months.
The post Why the RWA Market Is Slowing Down: Is the Boom Over? appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Corporate Bitcoin (BTC) holders are diverging into two distinct paths amid continued market pressure. While Strategy held steady on its massive BTC reserves, Nakamoto Holdings moved in the opposite direction, selling at a loss and trimming exposure as it reworks its balance sheet.
The contrast highlights a growing divide in the corporate Bitcoin treasury model. Some holders have refused to sell, treating BTC as a long-term reserve asset and doubling down through volatility, while others are being forced to unlock liquidity, book losses or rethink capital allocation.
With Bitcoin down 46% from its peak, the risks behind debt-fueled or aggressive buying strategies are becoming harder to ignore.
Elsewhere, a proposed Bitcoin-backed municipal bond in New Hampshire is moving closer to issuance. It has now received a speculative-grade rating from Moody’s, underscoring both the appeal and the risks of tying public financing to digital assets.
Nakamoto realizes losses as Bitcoin treasury model comes under pressure
Bitcoin treasury company Nakamoto Holdings sold roughly $20 million worth of Bitcoin in March, executing the sale at prices well below its prior acquisition costs. The transaction reduced its holdings to just over 5,000 BTC and marked a shift from unrealized to realized losses.
The company sold approximately 284 BTC at around $70,400 per coin, significantly less than its average purchase price. The proceeds were earmarked for working capital and business investments tied to recent mergers.
Alongside the crypto sale, Nakamoto also cut its equity exposure to Japanese company Metaplanet, selling millions of shares at a loss. The moves point to a broader balance-sheet reset as digital asset treasury companies come under pressure.
Strategy pauses Bitcoin buys, keeps its treasury intact
Michael Saylor’s Strategy broke a months-long pattern of steady Bitcoin accumulation, reporting no purchases during the latest weekly disclosure period.
The pause stands out because Strategy has maintained consistent buying as a core part of its corporate identity and capital strategy, especially during the recent market downtrend that has seen Bitcoin fall from $120,000 to below $70,000.
Weekly disclosures have become a signal for institutional demand, and even a temporary halt could suggest squeamishness over market conditions, capital availability or the pace of buying. Strategy still holds roughly 762,000 BTC, maintaining its position as the largest corporate holder of the asset.
New Hampshire Bitcoin-backed bond inches toward reality after Moody’s rating
A proposed Bitcoin-backed municipal bond in New Hampshire has moved a step closer to issuance after receiving a Ba2 rating, below investment grade, from Moody’s. The structure would give investors exposure to Bitcoin-linked returns within a public finance framework, with proceeds expected to support public infrastructure and development projects.
The planned issuance, reportedly around $100 million, would be backed by Bitcoin collateral rather than traditional tax revenues. Repayments would depend on returns from that collateral, introducing a new approach that ties crypto markets to municipal borrowing.
CoinShares debuts on Nasdaq following SPAC deal
Digital asset manager CoinShares launched on the Nasdaq on Wednesday following a merger with special purpose acquisition company Vine Hill Capital, marking another step in bringing crypto-native companies to US public markets.
The deal gives CoinShares access to a broader investor base and deeper capital markets, while offering public market investors exposure to a company focused on digital asset products and infrastructure. SPAC structures have remained a viable route for crypto companies seeking listings despite shifting market conditions.
As Cointelegraph previously reported, the SPAC merger valued CoinShares at roughly $1.2 billion.
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Coinbase got conditional approval from the OCC for its trust, a step toward federal oversight for its offerings to replace the current state by state licensing approach.
Coinbase announced on Thursday that it has received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish Coinbase National Trust Company, a non-insured national trust bank to be headquartered in New York.
The approval marks a step toward Coinbase operating as a federally regulated digital asset custodian — and the latest milestone in a sweeping regulatory shift reshaping how crypto firms interact with the U.S. banking system.
The preliminary green light requires Coinbase to build out compliance systems, hire key staff, pass regulatory reviews, and demonstrate strong risk management and anti-money-laundering controls before it can secure a full charter.
A national trust bank charter gives Coinbase a single federal regulator — the OCC — in place of the patchwork of state money transmitter licenses it currently holds, allowing it to offer custody, safekeeping, and related digital asset services in a fiduciary capacity as a qualified custodian under SEC regulations.
In yesterday’s blog post, the largest U.S. centralized exchange noted that it does not plan to become a commercial bank:
“Coinbase is not becoming a commercial bank. We will not be taking retail deposits. We will not be engaging in fractional reserve banking.”
Looking ahead, Coinbase’s chief legal officer told CNBC that the company plans to explore payment infrastructure products alongside its custody business, with an eye on expanding stablecoin use — particularly USDC — as a mainstream global payment method.
Coinbase joins a crowded field of crypto firms racing to secure federal charters under the OCC’s current leadership.
Circle applied for its own national trust bank license — to be called First National Digital Currency Bank — and received conditional approval in December 2025. Crypto.com similarly secured conditional OCC approval for its Foris Dax National Trust Bank in February.
The trend has not gone uncontested: the Bank Policy Institute, whose members include JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America, is reportedly weighing a lawsuit against the OCC over what it sees as an uneven regulatory playing field.
This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.
XRP Ledger Chosen to Be the Research Framework
XRP Ledger will be used as the fundamental blockchain platform in the study. In addition, it will discuss how the network assists in payment processing in various markets. In this way, the firms would assess the technical performance under actual conditions. The companies explained that the project does not imply the immediate product rollout, but it will seek to collect technical and regulatory experience to be used in the future. Therefore, the research will guide long-term infrastructure planning.
Japan and South Korea are still working on creating stablecoin and blockchain laws. As a result, there are differences between two systems that should be analyzed in detail. The paper will examine compliance standards in the two jurisdictions. In the study, the researchers will evaluate what blockchain is doing with existing payment infrastructure. It will also compare compatibility with current banking and remittance systems. This will help to ensure that the solutions that will be developed in the future can work within the set frameworks.
The two companies will consider transaction flows and operating models. Therefore, the work will touch upon the stability and performance of the system under real conditions. In addition, it will also analyze some of the risks that may be associated with blockchain-based payments. The project identifies a number of areas of focus on which to analyze. It will look at the issues in the business environment and institutional differences between the two nations. Also, it will determine technical and operational obstacles that influence adoption.
Payments Under Evaluation Use Cases
The companies will consider the real-life uses of blockchain in payments. Therefore, they seek to find feasible applications of cross-border remittances. This will assist in laying down the future implementation directions. This research follows Ripple as it keeps on expanding partnerships with the global payment networks. Furthermore, South Korea has seen more currency being traded on local exchanges, indicating a growth of the stablecoin activity in the country. Such developments give a background to current research. The collaborative research creates a framework for analysing blockchain payments in two regulated markets. In addition, it assists in the planning of cross-border financial infrastructure in the future.
South Korea extradites alleged drug boss Park Wang‑yeol and prepares a blockchain forensics push to trace at least 6.8b won in Bitcoin‑linked drug proceeds.
Summary
- South Korea has extradited alleged drug kingpin Park Wang-yeol from the Philippines and placed him under a joint drug crime task force.
- Investigators will scrutinize Bitcoin wallet activity to trace at least 6.8 billion won (about $5 million) in confirmed proceeds and search for far larger hidden assets.
- The case showcases how Korean law enforcement now leans on blockchain forensics to unwind complex, cross-border narcotics networks.
South Korean authorities have taken custody of alleged “drug lord” Park Wang‑yeol, extradited from a Philippine prison where he was serving a 60‑year sentence for the 2016 “sugarcane field” triple homicide, to face new narcotics and money‑laundering charges at home. Reuters reported that Park, believed to be 47, is suspected of running a drug trafficking ring from inside his Philippine cell, coordinating shipments of “large quantities” of methamphetamine and other narcotics into South Korea via encrypted apps. According to Korean media summaries cited by outlets including the Dong‑A Ilbo, officials estimate he oversaw a monthly drug business worth roughly 30 billion won (around $22 million), turning prison into a command center rather than a constraint.
The Korean Drug Crime Joint Investigation Headquarters — a consolidated task force of prosecutors and police — has made clear that tracing Park’s financial footprint will rely heavily on on‑chain analysis of Bitcoin wallets believed to have received drug proceeds. While confirmed criminal takings in the current indictment stand at roughly 6.8 billion won (just over $5 million), investigators told domestic media they suspect the true scale of assets moved through crypto wallets between November 2019 and July 2024 is “several times larger.
Reporting from Chosun Ilbo details how Park allegedly directed accomplices in Korea to sell drugs sourced from abroad — including at least 4.9 kilograms of methamphetamine and thousands of ecstasy and ketamine doses — then funneled profits through digital channels rather than traditional banking rails. The task force has identified more than 200 accomplices across roles such as suppliers, smugglers and street dealers, underlining the networked nature of the operation and the need for tools that can map complex flows of funds.
South Korea has quietly built one of the more aggressive crypto‑crime enforcement programs in Asia, deploying specialist units that routinely use blockchain analytics platforms to deanonymize wallets and claw back illicit proceeds. A 2024 briefing from Blockchain Intelligence Group noted that Seoul’s joint investigation division recovered roughly 163.87 billion won (about $121 million) in crypto‑linked criminal proceeds in a single year, relying on tools that “identify clusters of wallets,” “track the flow of funds” and link addresses to real‑world entities.
Recent cases underscore both the potential and pitfalls of this approach: DL News reported in February that prosecutors managed to recover $22 million worth of Bitcoin that had effectively gone “missing” in an earlier phishing investigation, even as separate lapses saw police mismanage and temporarily lose more than $1.4 million in seized BTC. In that context, the Park Wang‑yeol probe is emerging as a showcase for how far Korean authorities can push on‑chain forensics to pierce one of the country’s most notorious narcotics empires — and whether they can do so while tightening their own controls over seized digital assets.
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