Decentralized finance was built to remove intermediaries, but one major piece of traditional finance has been missing: credit scoring. In traditional banking, institutions evaluate borrowers based on their financial history before approving loans. In DeFi, however, most lending protocols require overcollateralization, forcing users to deposit more assets than they borrow.

This is where on-chain credit scoring comes into play.

On-chain credit scoring evaluates a wallet’s historical behavior—transactions, repayments, liquidity provision, governance participation, and even social trust signals—to assign a creditworthiness score. Instead of relying purely on collateral, protocols can use these scores to determine borrowing limits, interest rates, and risk levels.

How On-Chain Credit Scoring Works

On-chain credit scoring systems analyze wallet activity across multiple dimensions:

1. Transaction History
Wallets with consistent activity, long transaction histories, and healthy portfolio diversification may receive higher trust scores.

2. Lending & Repayment Behavior
Borrowers who repay loans on time across DeFi lending platforms demonstrate reliability.

3. Liquidity Provision & Staking
Participation in liquidity pools or staking often signals long-term commitment and lower risk.

4. Governance Participation
Active involvement in protocol governance can also be a positive reputation indicator.

5. Network Graph Analysis
Some systems analyze relationships between wallets, detecting suspicious activity or sybil behavior.

Projects Building On-Chain Credit Scoring

1. Spectral Finance

Spectral introduced Macro Score, an AI-driven credit scoring system that evaluates wallet behavior across DeFi protocols.
This score can help lenders assess borrower risk without relying on centralized credit agencies.

2. Goldfinch

Goldfinch focuses on undercollateralized lending, particularly for real-world borrowers.
Instead of relying solely on crypto collateral, the protocol incorporates borrower reputation and community-backed trust.

3. Arcx

Arcx developed DeFi Passport, which gives wallets a reputation score based on on-chain financial behavior.
Protocols can integrate this score to tailor lending conditions.

4. Cred Protocol

Cred Protocol analyzes on-chain and social data to build trust scores that can be used across DeFi ecosystems for credit evaluation.

5. TrueFi

TrueFi enables undercollateralized loans to vetted borrowers, combining on-chain transparency with off-chain credit assessment mechanisms.

Why On-Chain Credit Matters

Capital Efficiency

Overcollateralized loans limit growth. Credit scoring allows larger loans with less collateral, unlocking capital efficiency.

Financial Inclusion

Anyone with a wallet and a strong on-chain track record can build a credit profile—no bank account required.

Risk-Adjusted Lending

Protocols can adjust interest rates dynamically based on borrower reliability.

Portable Reputation

Your credit history becomes portable across DeFi, meaning one good reputation can unlock opportunities across multiple protocols.

Challenges Facing On-Chain Credit Systems

Despite its promise, the concept still faces hurdles.

Sybil Attacks – Users could create multiple wallets to manipulate reputation.
Privacy Concerns – Public credit profiles may reveal financial behavior.
Fragmented Data – Reputation systems often remain siloed across protocols.
Identity Verification – Without optional identity layers, assessing real-world reliability remains difficult.

Solutions such as zero-knowledge proofs, decentralized identity systems, and reputation aggregation layers are being explored to address these issues.

The Future: Reputation-Based DeFi

On-chain credit scoring could fundamentally transform lending in DeFi. Instead of treating every wallet as anonymous and risky, protocols could evaluate behavioral trust signals directly from blockchain data.

In the long run, this could lead to:

• Undercollateralized crypto loans

• Reputation-weighted interest rates

• Cross-protocol credit profiles

• DeFi-native financial identities

If successful, on-chain credit systems may become the missing bridge between traditional finance and decentralized finance, enabling a truly trust-minimized lending ecosystem where reputation—not just collateral—unlocks financial opportunity.

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Another Friday has rolled around again, and that means more crypto options contracts are expiring as spot markets post rare gains. 

Around 27,000 Bitcoin options contracts will expire on Friday, Mar. 13, with a notional value of roughly $1.9 billion. This event is smaller than usual, so it is unlikely to affect spot markets.

Crypto prices have been flat for most of this week, picking up a little on Friday, with total capitalization gaining $150 billion since Monday, but volatility and volumes have dwindled.

Bitcoin Options Expiry

This week’s batch of Bitcoin options contracts has a put/call ratio of 0.97, meaning that the longs and the shorts are relatively evenly matched. Max pain is around $69,000, according to Coinglass, which is pretty close to current spot prices, so many could be in the money on expiry.

Open interest (OI), or the value or number of Bitcoin options contracts yet to expire, remains highest at the $60,000 strike price on Deribit, with $1.7 billion in bearish bets. Total BTC options OI across all exchanges has been climbing this month, reaching $45.5 billion.

Crypto derivatives provider Greeks Live observed the market rebound, noting that Bitcoin was firmly holding above the $70,000 psychological threshold and is “now poised to challenge $75,000.”

Beyond March, the flat forward implied volatility curve implies no significant term structure premium, suggesting balanced risk pricing for longer-dated options amid stable crypto sentiment, noted Greeks Live this week.

🚨 Options Expiry Alert | 08:00 UTC Friday
~$2.27B in crypto options are set to expire on Deribit.$BTC: 26,889 contracts | $1.89B notional | P/C: 0.97
OI stacked at $55K-$60K puts vs $75K-$80K calls, spot at $70.2K sitting right in no man’s land.
Max Pain: $69K$ETH: 185,268… pic.twitter.com/H9zji7lzbW

— Deribit (@DeribitOfficial) March 12, 2026

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In addition to today’s batch of Bitcoin options, around 185,000 Ethereum contracts are also expiring, with a notional value of $382 million, max pain at $2,000, and a put/call ratio of 1.2. Total ETH options OI across all exchanges is around $7.9 billion.

This brings the total notional value of crypto options expiries to around $2.3 billion.

Spot Market Outlook

Spot markets have ticked up on Friday morning in Asia, with total capitalization reaching $2.5 trillion again, its highest level for a week.

Bitcoin came just short of $72,000 in early trading but again found resistance there and started to retreat at the time of writing.

Ether prices were faring better with a 4% gain, sending them just above $2,100.

The altcoins were also mostly in the green today with larger moves for Solana, Hyperliquid, Avalanche, and Sui. Meanwhile, Pi Network, PI, skyrocketed 33% on the day to $0.29 following a listing on Kraken.

Donald Trump-linked meme coin Official Trump posted double-digit gains on Friday after the team announced a second exclusive event where top holders will get the chance to attend a luncheon with the president at Mar-a-Lago.

According to the official announcement, the top 297 Official Trump (TRUMP) holders will get a chance to attend the luncheon with the United States President at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, where he will appear as the keynote speaker.

Eligibility, however, would depend on participants’ time-weighted holdings between Mar. 12 and April 10, and attendees would be required to pass a background check. Among the group, the top 29 holders will be allowed a private reception with Trump.

While the meme coin’s website says Trump will attend the event, a White House official told Politico that the luncheon would be taking place alongside the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

Right after the announcement, the meme coin rallied over 11% and was up over 8% in the past 24 hours as of last check. The meme coin has remained in a downtrend since its launch in early 2025.

Despite efforts from the team to revive interest through new ecosystem initiatives, investor enthusiasm has remained limited. Last month, the project team outlined plans for yield and liquidity programs through Kamino vaults, new market makers, and a fund to back ecosystem projects, but that did not translate into any meaningful recovery for the meme coin, which remains down over 95% from its all-time high.

This is the second exclusive event hosted by the project following a similar gathering held in May. At the time, Tron founder Justin Sun emerged as the top TRUMP holder among the attendees.

However, the event became a source of controversy, with critics accusing Trump of using his position as president for personal financial gain. Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, launched a probe into the dinner over how the guest list was compiled and whether foreign money may have flowed into the meme coin purchases.

XRP pushed higher after breaking a months-long descending trendline, with a surge in trading volume confirming renewed momentum above the $1.39 resistance zone.

News Background

• XRP has struggled to sustain rallies through early 2026 as sellers repeatedly defended a descending resistance line formed by lower highs since January.
• The latest move marks the first decisive break above that structure, shifting short-term sentiment as traders reassess whether the corrective phase may be ending.
• Fund flows offered a mixed backdrop. U.S.-listed XRP ETFs recorded roughly $3.9 million in outflows during the session, extending a short streak of redemptions even as technical momentum improved.
• Meanwhile, activity on the XRP Ledger continued to rise. Daily transactions recently climbed to around 2.7 million, among the highest levels in recent months, partly driven by projects focused on tokenizing real-world assets.

Price Action Summary

• XRP climbed from about $1.37 to $1.41 during the 24-hour session
• Price cleared the $1.39 resistance zone that capped rallies earlier this year
• Trading volume surged to roughly 205 million tokens, more than triple the recent average
• The token traded within a roughly $0.057 intraday range during the breakout

Technical Analysis

• The key technical development was XRP’s break above the descending trendline that had defined its downtrend since early 2026.
• The move came with a sharp expansion in trading volume, suggesting the breakout reflected active participation rather than thin liquidity.
• After the breakout, price briefly tested the $1.41 area before consolidating slightly lower.
• On shorter timeframes, XRP held above the $1.40 zone, forming a sequence of higher lows that indicates buyers are attempting to establish the former resistance area as support.
• If this structure holds, it would confirm a shift from the previous pattern of lower highs that dominated the past several months.

What traders say is next?

• Traders are now watching whether XRP can hold above the $1.39–$1.40 area.
• Maintaining that level would confirm the trendline breakout and could open the door for a move toward the next resistance zones around $1.44 and $1.50.
• A failure to hold above the breakout level, however, could pull XRP back toward the $1.34–$1.37 support band and signal the move was a short-term liquidity sweep rather than the start of a sustained trend reversal.

Democratic lawmakers are intensifying oversight as the Department of Justice weighs a probe into Binance’s handling of Iran-related sanctions. In a joint statement, Senators Chris Van Hollen, Elizabeth Warren and Ruben Gallego said they would oversee any DOJ inquiry to ensure the agency conducts a serious review and holds the exchange accountable for potential sanctions violations. The move follows a Wall Street Journal report that cited people familiar with the matter, indicating investigators are examining whether Iran-based entities used Binance to evade sanctions. The disclosure arrives amid broader questions about how crypto platforms enforce U.S. sanctions and how regulators scrutinize exchanges’ risk controls and compliance programs.

The WSJ report, published on a Wednesday, highlighted alleged gaps in verification and monitoring that could have allowed the movement of funds tied to sanctioned actors. In their response, the senators framed Binance as a firm with a documented tendency to place profits ahead of the law and warned that ongoing scrutiny could reveal new sanction-law breaches or reckless assistance to sanctioned networks tied to Iran.

Binance did not respond to a request for comment in this coverage window. A company spokesperson previously told Cointelegraph that the firm was “not aware of any investigations,” adding that Binance is “collaborating with regulators and law enforcement to investigate the facts.”

Last month, the legislators pressed other U.S. authorities—Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s successor and the U.S. Attorney General—to probe Binance over concerns about moving Iran-linked funds. The push underscores a concrete shift from high-profile rhetoric toward formal oversight and potential enforcement actions.

Key takeaways

• The Department of Justice is reportedly examining Binance for possible Iran sanctions evasion, per a Wall Street Journal report citing sources familiar with the matter.
• A bipartisan group of U.S. senators vowed to conduct oversight to ensure a serious DOJ investigation and accountability for any wrongdoing by the exchange.
• Binance has publicly stated it is not aware of investigations, while indicating it remains open to regulator and law-enforcement cooperation.
• Binance’s legal history looms over the current scrutiny, including a November 2023 settlement in which the firm pleaded guilty to AML and sanctions violations and agreed to a substantial fine and U.S. oversight.
• Associated twists include a defamation suit Binance filed against the Wall Street Journal over related reporting and past leadership actions by Changpeng Zhao, including a high-profile money-laundering case and a later pardon event.

Market context: The episode sits within a broader climate of tightening regulatory scrutiny over crypto exchanges, with sanctions enforcement and U.S. enforcement actions shaping how platforms implement compliance controls, monitor cross-border flows, and cooperate with authorities. The events also intersect with ongoing debates about how aggressively financial regulators should police crypto-related activities versus fostering innovation.

Why it matters

The unfolding developments are significant for investors, users and builders across the crypto landscape. For users, the episode reinforces the importance of robust know-your-customer and sanctions-screening processes on exchanges, especially those operating with global liquidity pools and complex counterparties. For the market, the alleged Iran-related activity intersects with sanctions enforcement risk—a factor that can influence liquidity, exchange flows and the perceived regulatory exposure of major platforms.

From a policy perspective, the bipartisan call for oversight signals a willingness in Congress to elevate sanction-compliance risk as a central governance issue for crypto businesses. Regulators’ willingness to scrutinize and potentially sanction exchanges for lax controls could accelerate investment in compliance tooling, internal controls, and audit regimes. For Binance, the situation underscores the reputational and legal headwinds that can follow high-stakes enforcement actions, even as the firm continues to court regulatory clarity and operational resilience under scrutiny.

What to watch next

• DOJ conclusions or disclosures stemming from any formal investigation into Binance’s sanctions compliance (dates pending).
• Statements or hearings from the Senate oversight group outlining findings, scope, or requested remedies related to Binance’s conduct.
• Any regulatory actions or consent orders resulting from broader sanctions-enforcement activities involving major crypto exchanges.
• Binance’s public responses or new compliance commitments in response to renewed inquiries and potential legal actions.
• Developments in related legal proceedings, including Binance’s defamation suit against the Wall Street Journal and any outcomes related to prior AML/sanctions settlements.

Sources & verification

• Joint statement by Senators Van Hollen, Warren and Gallego on DOJ investigation into Binance compliance with U.S. sanctions law.
• Wall Street Journal report detailing the DOJ’s potential probe into Iran’s use of Binance to evade sanctions.
• Binance’s public remarks to Cointelegraph about not being aware of investigations and willingness to cooperate with regulators.
• Binance’s defamation suit against the Wall Street Journal over reporting regarding Iran-sanctions-related financing.

Regulatory scrutiny and Binance’s Iran sanctions probe

Regulatory attention on Malta-based, global crypto trading platforms has intensified, and Binance’s case sits squarely at the intersection of sanctions enforcement and exchange governance. The sequence of events paints a picture of a landscape where regulators are elevating sanctions-compliance into a central risk category for platform operators. The Wall Street Journal’s reporting framed the DOJ inquiry as a potential line of inquiry into whether Binance enabled or facilitated transactions linked to Iran-linked entities in breach of U.S. sanctions regimes, including the long-standing restrictions designed to curb financing for designated groups and programs.

The senators’ response underscores the political dimension of the issue. By pledging to oversee the DOJ’s handling of the matter, they are signaling that oversight will extend beyond a single agency or incident, potentially prompting a broader review of Binance’s internal controls, transaction-monitoring capabilities, and cooperation with law enforcement. The public tension between scrutiny and corporate defense is a familiar rhythm in the crypto regulatory era: as investigations surface, exchanges lean on assurances of compliance and collaboration while lawmakers seek concrete accountability measures.

Binance’s public position has consistently emphasized cooperation with regulators and law enforcement, even as it navigates the fallout from earlier enforcement actions. The firm has faced substantial consequences in the past, including a November 2023 settlement that required a record penalty and ongoing oversight to resolve U.S. AML and sanctions concerns. The current inquiry adds another layer of uncertainty around the company’s ability to weather intensified enforcement pressures while maintaining global liquidity and user access. The defamation suit against the Wall Street Journal adds a legal counterpoint to the narrative, illustrating how market participants increasingly engage in strategic communications as investigations unfold.

Beyond Binance, the broader regulatory environment continues to evolve. The developments reflect ongoing efforts to tighten sanctions enforcement, improve compliance in cross-border crypto flows, and align exchange practices with U.S. national security objectives. For market participants, the emphasis on robust due diligence, transparent reporting, and rigorous transaction monitoring could reshape industry norms and drive investment in compliance-focused technologies and procedures. The balance between enabling legitimate crypto activity and enforcing sanctions remains delicate, with outcomes likely to influence how exchanges structure risk controls, governance, and regulatory engagement in the months ahead.

Pi Network’s PI token led the market higher on Friday, according to CoinGecko data, rising 30% during Asia’s morning hours, after crypto exchange Kraken said it would list the asset.

Pi Network is a mobile-first cryptocurrency project that replaces traditional proof-of-work mining with a phone-based trust graph, where users tap a mobile app daily to “mine” tokens and form identity-verified security circles that feed into a consensus system derived from the Stellar protocol.

The project launched its externally connected mainnet in February 2025 after operating for years in a closed ecosystem, saying it had about 19 million KYC-verified users and roughly 10 million accounts migrated to the chain.

Pi Network is currently listed on OKX, Gate, and Bitget, as well as some smaller exchanges.

In February 2025, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou publicly refused to list Pi Network’s token and called the project a scam, citing a 2023 warning from Chinese police alleging that Pi Network targeted elderly users, collected personal information, and caused some victims to lose pension savings.

A group of Democratic senators say they will oversee a reported Justice Department investigation into possible Iran-related sanctions violations on the crypto exchange Binance.

Senators Chris Van Hollen, Elizabeth Warren and Ruben Gallego said in a joint statement on Thursday that they “will conduct oversight to ensure the Department of Justice conducts a serious investigation into Binance and holds the company accountable for any wrongdoing.”

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter, that the Justice Department was investigating Iran’s possible use of Binance to evade sanctions.

“Binance has an established track record of putting profits ahead of the law,” the senators said, adding that the report raised “serious concerns that the firm is again violating US sanctions laws, recklessly helping bankroll the activities of terrorist groups connected to Iran.”

Binance did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but a company spokesperson previously told Cointelegraph it was “not aware of any investigations. But as always, we are collaborating with regulators and law enforcement to investigate the facts.”

The senators said that last month, they asked US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Binance over concerns about the movement of Iran-linked funds.

Binance filed defamation suit against WSJ

Binance sued the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, claiming a report it published on Feb. 23 was defamatory.

The report said that Binance fired staff who flagged $1 billion worth of crypto tied to sanctioned Iranian entities, including Yemen’s Houthis and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Binance denied that it had stopped any investigation and said the Wall Street Journal’s report was false. 

Related: Binance claims ‘full and complete legal victory‘ in Alabama court

Binance had pleaded guilty in November 2023 to violating US anti-money-laundering and sanctions laws, paying a record $4.3 billion fine and agreeing to operate under US oversight.