Crypto World
Ripple Targets Australian Financial Services License to Advance Blockchain Payments in APAC
TLDR:
- Ripple will acquire BC Payments Australia Pty Ltd to secure its Australian Financial Services License in 2026.
- The AFSL enables Ripple Payments to manage the full transaction lifecycle, from compliance to final payout settlement.
- Ripple’s APAC payments volume nearly doubled year-on-year in 2025, reflecting strong demand across the region.
- Ripple now holds over 75 regulatory licenses globally, making it one of the most licensed crypto firms worldwide.
Australian Financial Services License (AFSL) acquisition plans mark Ripple’s latest regulatory move in Asia Pacific. The blockchain payments company announced the strategy on March 11, 2026, in Sydney.
Ripple will obtain the license through a proposed acquisition of BC Payments Australia Pty Ltd. The move enables Ripple to deliver a fully licensed, end-to-end payments platform. Financial institutions, fintechs, and enterprises in Australia are the primary targets of this expansion.
How Ripple Plans to Secure the AFSL
The AFSL acquisition proceeds through BC Payments Australia Pty Ltd, a local entity. Standard completion processes must be finalized before the deal closes.
Once secured, the license covers the full lifecycle of a transaction. This includes onboarding, compliance, FX, liquidity management, and final payout.
Ripple Payments will integrate both traditional banking rails and digital assets under the license. Direct oversight of settlement becomes possible through this structure.
The company can also connect customers to local payout partners more efficiently. Transaction routing optimization adds further value to the platform.
Fiona Murray, Ripple’s Managing Director for Asia Pacific, spoke directly on the development. “Licensing is fundamental to Ripple’s strategy, ensuring we can deliver secure, compliant solutions to customers worldwide,” she said.
She added that the AFSL “strengthens our ability to scale Ripple Payments across the region.” Murray further noted that the company remains “focused on working closely with regulators to support the next phase of growth for digital asset infrastructure.”
Ripple’s existing Australian customers include Hai Ha Money Transfer, Novatti Group, and Independent Reserve. Flash Payments, Caleb & Brown, and Stables also form part of that client base.
These partnerships reflect strong regional demand for Ripple’s infrastructure. APAC payments volume for the company nearly doubled year-on-year in 2025.
Ripple’s Regulatory Standing Across the APAC Region
Ripple’s AFSL pursuit builds on a broad global licensing strategy already in place. The company is among the most licensed crypto firms operating in the world today.
Few digital asset companies operate under this level of regulatory oversight. That standing gives Ripple an advantage as institutions modernize their payment systems.
The company also participates actively in Project Acacia. This initiative is led by the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre.
Ripple works directly with regulators through the program to advance digital asset frameworks. Such engagement reflects a consistent commitment to policy collaboration across the region.
Murray also emphasized the role of blockchain technology in delivering results for customers. “By leveraging blockchain technology and digital assets, we enable customers to move value globally with greater speed, transparency, and reliability,” she stated.
That capability is central to Ripple’s regional growth plan. It also addresses a clear need among financial institutions shifting away from legacy infrastructure.
As institutions migrate from legacy technology to modern infrastructure, regulatory compliance grows in importance. Ripple’s licensing approach supports that transition directly.
The AFSL adds credibility to Ripple’s operations in Australia. The company continues expanding its regulated footprint to meet growing regional demand.
Crypto World
Market Analysis: EUR/USD Reclaims Ground While USD/JPY Momentum Fades
EUR/USD is recovering losses from 1.1500. USD/JPY is correcting gains from 159.00 and might decline further if it stays below 158.30.
Important Takeaways for EUR/USD and USD/JPY Analysis Today
- The Euro struggled to stay in a positive zone and declined below 1.1700 before finding support.
- There was a break above a connecting bearish trend line with resistance at 1.1580 on the hourly chart of EUR/USD at FXOpen.
- USD/JPY started a decent increase above 157.00 before the bears appeared near 158.90.
- There is a key contracting triangle forming with resistance near 158.30 on the hourly chart at FXOpen.
EUR/USD Technical Analysis
On the hourly chart of EUR/USD at FXOpen, the pair started a fresh decline from 1.1825. The pair broke below 1.1665 and the 50-hour simple moving average. Finally, it tested the 1.1500 zone. A low was formed at 1.1507, and the pair is now recovering losses.
There was a move above 1.1550 and a connecting bearish trend line at 1.1580. The pair surpassed the 38.2% Fib retracement level of the downward move from the 1.1826 swing high to the 1.1507 low. On the upside, the pair is now facing resistance near the 50% Fib retracement at 1.1665.
The first major hurdle for the bulls could be 1.1705. A break above 1.1705 could set the pace for another increase. In the stated case, the pair might rise toward 1.1775.
If not, the pair might drop again. Immediate support is near the 50-hour simple moving average and 1.1620. The next key area of interest might be 1.1565. If there is a downside break below 1.1565, the pair could drop towards 1.1505. The main target for the bears on the EUR/USD chart could be 1.1440, below which the pair could start a major decline.

USD/JPY Technical Analysis
On the hourly chart of USD/JPY at FXOpen, the pair gained pace for a move above 158.00. The US dollar even traded close to 159.00 against the Japanese yen before the bears emerged.
A high was formed at 158.90 before a downside correction. The pair dipped below 158.00 and the 50% Fib retracement level of the upward move from the 156.45 swing low to the 158.90 high. However, the bulls were active above 157.00 and protected the 61.8% Fib retracement.
The pair is back above the 50-hour simple moving average and 158.00. Immediate resistance on the USD/JPY chart is near 158.30. There is also a key contracting triangle at 158.30.
If there is a close above the triangle and the hourly RSI moves above 65, the pair could rise towards 158.90. The next major barrier for the bulls could be 159.25, above which the pair could test 160.00 in the near term.
On the downside, the first major support is near 158.00. The next key region for the bears might be 157.40. If there is a close below 157.40, the pair could decline steadily. In the stated case, the pair might drop towards 156.45. Any more losses might send the pair toward 155.85.

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Crypto World
Scaling AI Makes It Riskier
Opinion by: Mohammed Marikar, co-founder at Neem Capital
Artificial intelligence has consistently been defined by scale, so far — bigger models, faster processing, expanding data centers. The assumption, based on traditional technology cycles, was that scale would keep improving performance and, over time, costs would fall and access would expand.
That assumption is now breaking down. AI is not scaling like other software. Instead, it is capital-intensive, constrained by physical limits, and hitting diminishing returns far earlier than expected.
The numbers make this clear. Electricity demand from global data centers will more than double by 2030 — levels once associated with entire industrial sectors. In the US alone, data center power demand is projected to rise well over 100 percent before the decade ends. This expansion is demanding trillions of dollars in new investment alongside major expansions in grid capacity.
Meanwhile, these systems are being embedded into law, finance, compliance, trading and risk management, where errors propagate quickly but credibility is non-negotiable. In June 2025, the UK High Court warned lawyers to immediately stop submitting filings that cited fabricated case law generated by AI tools.
The scaling AI debate
When an AI system can invent a precedent that never existed, and a professional relies on it, debates about scaling start becoming serious questions of public trust. Scaling is amplifying AI’s weaknesses rather than solving them.
Part of the problem lies in what scale actually improves. Large language models (LLMs) are evolving to become increasingly fluent because language is pattern-based. The more examples an LLM sees of how real people write, summarize and translate, the faster it improves.
Deeper intelligence — reasoning — does not scale the same way. The next generation of AI must understand cause and effect and know when an answer is uncertain or incomplete. It will need to explain why a conclusion follows, not simply produce a confident response. This does not reliably improve with more parameters or more compute.
The consequence is a growing verification burden. Humans must spend more time checking machine output rather than acting on it, and that burden builds as systems are deployed more widely.
The cost of training AI models
Training frontier AI models has already become extraordinarily expensive, with credible tracking suggesting costs have been multiplying year over year, and projections that single training runs could soon exceed $1 billion. Training is only the entry cost.
The larger expense is inference: running these models continuously, at scale, with real latency, uptime and verification requirements. Every query consumes energy. Every deployment requires infrastructure. As usage grows, energy use and costs compound.
In terms of markets and crypto, AI systems are increasingly used to monitor onchain activity, analyze sentiment, generate codes for smart contracts, flag suspicious transactions and automate decisions.
In such a fast-moving, competitive environment, fluent but unreliable AI propagates errors quickly; false signals move capital, and fabricated explanations and hallucinations undermine trust. One example of this is false positives being generated in automated Anti-Money Laundering (AML) flagging, a common issue that wastes time and resources on investigating innocent trading activity.
Time to improve reasoning
Scaling AI systems without improving their reasoning amplifies risk, especially in use cases where automation and credibility are vital and tightly coupled.
Ensuring AI is economically viable and socially valuable means we cannot rely on scaling. The dominant approach today prioritizes increasing compute and data while leaving the underlying reasoning machinery largely unchanged, a strategy that is becoming more expensive without becoming proportionally safer.
Related: Crypto dev launches website for agentic AI to ‘rent a human’
The alternative is architectural. Systems need to do more than predict the next word. They need to represent relationships, apply rules, check their own steps and make it possible to see how conclusions were reached.
This is where cognitive or neurosymbolic systems come into play. By organizing knowledge into interrelated concepts, rather than relying solely on brute-force pattern matching, these systems can deliver high reasoning capability with far lower energy and infrastructure demands.
Emerging “cognitive AI” platforms are demonstrating how structured reasoning systems can operate on local servers or edge devices, allowing users to keep control over their own knowledge rather than outsourcing cognition to distant infrastructure.
Cognitive AI systems are harder to design and can underperform on open-ended tasks, but when reasoning is reusable in this way rather than rederived from scratch through massive compute, costs fall and verification becomes tractable.
Control over how AI is built matters as much as how it reasons. Communities need systems they can shape, audit and deploy without waiting for permission from centralized platform owners.
Some platforms are exploring this frontier by using blockchain to enable both individuals and corporations to contribute data, models and computing resources. By decentralizing AI development itself, these approaches reduce concentration risk and align deployment with local needs rather than global demands.
AI faces an inflection point. When reasoning can be reused rather than rediscovered through massive pattern matching, systems require less compute per decision and impose a smaller verification burden on humans. That shifts the economics. Experimentation becomes cheaper, inference becomes more predictable. Scaling no longer depends on exponential increases in infrastructure.
Scaling has already done what it could. What it has exposed, just as clearly, is the limit relying on size alone. The question now is whether the industry keeps pushing scale or starts investing in architectures that make intelligence reliable before making it bigger.
Opinion by: Mohammed Marikar, co-founder at Neem Capital.
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.
Crypto World
UniFirst (UNF) Stock Soars as Cintas Announces $5.5 Billion Acquisition
Key Highlights
-
Cintas announces acquisition of UniFirst at $310 per share in $5.5B transaction.
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Deal projects $375M in operating cost synergies over four-year period.
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United organization will provide services to 1.5M commercial clients throughout North America.
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Workforce to receive enhanced professional development and technological resources.
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Deal expected to finalize in second half of 2026, subject to regulatory and shareholder approval.
UniFirst Corporation (UNF) stock finished regular trading at $257.91, declining 1.80%, before surging to $281.00 in pre-market activity, representing an 8.86% gain. Cintas Corporation (CTAS) revealed a binding agreement to purchase UniFirst through a combination of cash and stock valued at $310 per share. The approximately $5.5 billion deal is designed to create a dominant North American service provider.
This merger unites two family-established enterprises known for exceptional service quality and operational performance. The consolidated company will support approximately 1.5 million commercial accounts while combining complementary distribution systems, manufacturing facilities, and technological platforms. The integration is expected to broaden service portfolios while enhancing operational effectiveness and financial performance.
Cintas projects approximately $375 million in operational cost savings to be realized over a four-year timeline. These efficiencies will come from optimizing materials procurement, manufacturing processes, service delivery, and corporate overhead. The transaction structure prioritizes value creation while preserving service excellence and employee welfare.
Operational Advantages and Strategic Value of the Acquisition
The unified organization will offer an enhanced portfolio spanning uniform programs, facility services, and workplace safety solutions. Increased scale and capabilities will strengthen competitive positioning against major industry players and emerging alternatives. Commercial customers will access more comprehensive, streamlined, and economical solutions through the combined operation.
The acquisition enables consolidation of overlapping assets, distribution systems, and digital infrastructure. Cintas intends to utilize both organizations’ capital investments to enhance operational performance and service consistency. This approach will drive expansion initiatives while upholding quality benchmarks and client loyalty.
UniFirst team members are projected to gain from increased professional prospects within the enlarged organization. Professional growth programs, educational initiatives, and digital tools will facilitate employee progression. The integration strategy prioritizes talent retention while strengthening service delivery for customers throughout North America.
Deal Structure and Financial Considerations
UniFirst investors will obtain $155 cash and 0.7720 Cintas shares for each UniFirst share held. The aggregate $310 per share consideration equals 8.0x UniFirst’s trailing twelve-month EBITDA. Cintas will finance the cash component through available capital, committed financing facilities, and arranged bridge funding.
Both companies’ boards have unanimously endorsed the agreement, which remains subject to standard regulatory clearances and stockholder approval. The Croatti family, controlling two-thirds of voting rights, has committed to vote in favor of the combination. Completion is anticipated during the latter half of 2026, with execution focused on realizing cost efficiencies and driving operational expansion.
Cintas disclosed preliminary third quarter fiscal 2026 revenues of $2.84 billion, reflecting 8.9% year-over-year growth. Organic revenue expansion, excluding acquisitions and foreign exchange impacts, measured 8.2%. UniFirst is scheduled to announce second quarter fiscal 2026 earnings on April 1, 2026, and will not provide quarterly outlook updates given the pending acquisition.
Crypto World
How bombing Iran shifted oil and bitcoin prices
Since the world learned of massive US military deployments toward Iran on February 18, crude oil has rallied 36%, far surpassing bitcoin’s (BTC) 2.8%.
War-related headlines have definitely affected BTC which, with its 24-hour spot trading venues, has served as a trillion-dollar proxy for risk-on assets.
By charting the price of oil relative to BTC from the de facto start of the war, some of the conflict’s most critical moments become clear.
As a reference price for their pre-wartime starting points, at 12:15am New York time on February 18, BTC traded at $67,833. Oil, specifically contracts for difference (CFDs) on WTI crude, were trading at $62.39 per barrel.
At that time, open-source intelligence accounts began documenting “the largest US Air Force combat buildup in Europe and the Middle East since the Gulf War,” listing dozens of tankers, F-22s, and F-16s repositioning toward the Persian Gulf and Iran.
Chart 1: Price reaction to historic US naval movements toward Iran

The onset of war became obvious, and oil prices responded to the likelihood of supply restrictions. CFDs for the world’s most-traded and arguably most important commodity rallied without interruption for hours, and by two days later, oil had jumped 7% to $66.76 per barrel.
BTC, meanwhile, barely budged to $67,376, a near-flat 48-hour performance from its $67,833 start.
The divergence in those first 48 hours set the template for what followed.
Oil immediately priced in an imminent kinetic war. BTC did not.
The sophistication of oil traders relative to BTC traders was obvious during those first two days.
Slowly, as anyone should expect from the class of risk-on investments as threats become too obvious to ignore, BTC slid deeper into the red after the initial military buildup reports, hitting a low of $62,525 a week later on February 24, a 7.8% decline from its 12:15am start on February 18.
Oil, in contrast, had already begun a steady climb as more confirmation of military intent trickled into the mainstream news cycle. War was inevitable, and oil traders knew it.
Chart 2: Price reaction to official announcement of war

Finally, at 1:15am New York time on February 28, US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran formally commenced under the banner of “Operation Epic Fury.” Donald Trump announced the operation via Truth Social.
At this time, BTC was trading at $65,492. However, because the announcement fell on a weekend, oil CFDs weren’t open for trading, so there’s no way to know exactly how high oil would have traded.
Unfortunately, the most recent simultaneous price for both assets was February 27 at 5pm New York time: BTC at $65,524 and oil at $67.28 per barrel.
BTC panicked on the initial, formal announcement from Trump. Within 30 minutes, it dropped 3.8% to $63,037. It then recovered.
By Sunday, March 1 at 6pm New York time, when oil CFDs resumed trading, crude had gapped up 11.5% to $75 per barrel.
BTC, at $65,245, remained essentially flat since Trump’s formal announcement.
Oil was already repricing supply disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was threatening to block tanker traffic. BTC wasn’t. It had already sold off slightly from its pre-war, $67,833 start.
Oil surges 91% to $119 per barrel, while BTC recovers its mild loss
The war escalated quickly, sending the price of oil skyrocketing, but risk-on assets soon recovered entirely.
Iran tried to close the Strait of Hormuz, briefly disrupting roughly 20% of global oil supply. Tanker traffic through the chokepoint dropped 81%. Airports and US bases throughout the Middle East took on drone and missile damage.
Oil producers declared force majeure on contracts. Drone strikes hit Saudi Arabia’s largest refinery and Qatari export facilities. Gulf oil production collectively fell by 6.7 million barrels per day by March 10.
Incredibly, oil prices wicked up to $119.48 per barrel at 10:32pm New York time on March 8, a 91.5% surge from its February 18 baseline. BTC peaked much earlier, at $74,075 on March 4 at 2:15pm New York time, for a comparatively modest 9.2% gain.
By 10:40pm New York time on March 10, oil had pulled back 29% from its peak to $84.86 per barrel, partly on comments from Trump suggesting the conflict would resolve “very soon.”
BTC sat at $69,725.
Read more: Bitcoin up, Dubai real estate down since Iran war began
Chart 3: From start to finish, two wildly different returns

In the roughly three weeks since the start of the war, oil has gained approximately 35% while BTC as a risk-on asset has gained approximately 3%. The above chart illustrates that time period.
Oil’s entire trading range over that time period was $62.39 to $119.48 per barrel. BTC’s range, despite its far smaller size, was a far more conservative $62,525 to $74,075.
One asset reacted to a worldwide a supply shock. The other absorbed headline volatility and largely shrugged it off.
As usual, there are many ways to trade headlines. At least across the opening weeks of this war, oil scarcity has been the bullish trade. BTC was the hold.
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Crypto World
CoinFello Launches OpenClaw Skill for AI Agent Transactions
[PRESS RELEASE – Fort Worth, Texas, March 11th, 2026]
CoinFello, an AI agent optimized for interacting directly with any EVM smart contract, today announced the release of its open source OpenClaw skill in partnership with MetaMask. The new integration enables Moltbots, personal AI agents running on OpenClaw, to securely execute on-chain transactions using delegated smart wallet permissions.
The launch introduces a new framework for connecting AI agents with crypto wallets while maintaining user custody of private keys. By leveraging ERC-4337 smart accounts and ERC-7710 delegations through the MetaMask Smart Accounts Kit, the CoinFello OpenClaw skill allows Moltbots to grant other agents, such as CoinFello, narrowly defined delegations to act on their behalf. This represents a significant advancement in agentic wallet security compared to the current status quo, where agents typically store private keys or API credentials in plain text.
The system follows the principle of least privilege. A user’s Moltbot can grant CoinFello, and eventually other compatible agents, only the permissions required to complete a specific task, ensuring no agent receives broader wallet access than necessary. When a user submits a natural-language request, CoinFello converts the instruction into a delegated transaction and validates it in an evaluation layer before execution.
“If we want agents to participate meaningfully in the on-chain economy, we need a security model that is better than handing an autonomous system a private key,” said Brett Cleary, CTO at CoinFello. “The CoinFello Skill introduces hardware-isolated keys and fine-grained delegations, giving AI agents a secure way to execute transactions while helping bootstrap on-chain capabilities for the broader agent ecosystem.”
The release comes amid the rapid growth of the OpenClaw ecosystem. Over the past two months, the OpenClaw GitHub repository has surpassed 150,000 stars and 22,000 forks, while npm downloads exceeded 416,000 in the previous 30 days.
Until now, many AI agent wallets have given the agent direct access to a private key or API credential, exposing sensitive secrets within the agent’s runtime and creating a large attack surface.
Some newer designs attempt to mitigate this risk by using server-side trusted execution environments (TEEs), but they still rely on centralized infrastructure.
The CoinFello skill takes a different approach. The signing key stays on the user’s device, while tasks are carried out through fine-grained ERC-7710 delegations. Agents can execute actions without ever accessing the private key.
Using the CoinFello skill, Moltbots can perform a wide range of blockchain actions via natural-language prompts. Supported capabilities include swapping between ERC-20 assets, bridging across EVM networks, interacting with NFTs such as ERC-721 or ERC-1155 tokens, staking, lending, automatic rebalancing of token portfolios, and executing multi-step trading strategies.
The CoinFello OpenClaw skill is built on the Agent Skills specification and is compatible with OpenClaw environments and Claude Code. The implementation is released under the MIT license, allowing developers to freely deploy, modify, and contribute to the skill in their own AI agent environments.
CoinFello notes that the system is designed to remain open and configurable. While CoinFello acts as the default Web3 agent, Moltbots can delegate permissions to any compatible on-chain agent. The company says future development will focus on expanding permissions frameworks and deeper integrations with the MetaMask Smart Accounts Kit to support broader portfolio management features.
Interest in the intersection of AI agents and crypto infrastructure has accelerated in recent months as developers experiment with autonomous software agents capable of interacting with decentralized networks. The CoinFello OpenClaw skill aims to provide a secure foundation for this emerging category by bridging natural language interfaces with on-chain execution.
About CoinFello
CoinFello is an AI agent designed to explain, execute, and automate interactions with smart contracts. Built for self-custody, the platform is currently available in private alpha for end users, with developer versions expected soon. CoinFello supports EVM-compatible networks, leverages EigenAI to enable a self-custodied AI environment, and integrates the MetaMask Smart Accounts Kit to give users control over their assets.
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Crypto World
Binance, PayPal, and Ripple join Mastercard’s massive new push into blockchain payments
Mastercard has launched a new Crypto Partner Program that brings together more than 85 companies from across the digital asset and payments industries, an effort to link blockchain technology more directly with the infrastructure that underpins global commerce.
The program includes crypto exchanges, blockchain developers, fintech firms and banks such as Binance, Circle, Ripple, Gemini, PayPal and Paxos, the company told CoinDesk in a statement. Participants will work with Mastercard to explore how blockchain-based systems can connect with traditional payment rails used by banks, merchants and consumers around the world.
Mastercard said the initiative focuses on practical use cases where digital assets are already gaining traction, including cross-border transfers, business-to-business payments and global payouts.
Digital assets once operated largely outside the traditional financial system. In recent years, however, companies and financial institutions have begun experimenting with blockchain tools to move money faster across borders or settle transactions around the clock.
For payment companies like Mastercard, the challenge is less about replacing existing systems and more about connecting new ones to the networks that already handle global commerce.
Mastercard’s network links banks, merchants and consumers in more than 200 countries and territories. The company argues that blockchain-based payments will only scale widely if they can plug into that kind of global infrastructure.
The Crypto Partner Program is designed to create that bridge. Companies in the program will work with Mastercard teams to help shape products that combine on-chain tools — such as programmable payments or tokenized assets — with established payment rails.
The initiative also gives partners access to forums where they can collaborate with one another and with Mastercard’s broader ecosystem of financial institutions and merchants.
The move builds on several earlier efforts by Mastercard to engage with the digital asset industry. The company has supported crypto-linked payment cards, backed blockchain startups through its Start Path accelerator and developed services aimed at helping banks manage crypto compliance and risk.
Competitors have taken similar steps. Visa has worked with stablecoin issuers and blockchain firms to test settlement using digital dollars, while major banks continue to explore tokenized deposits and blockchain-based payment systems.
Still, integrating digital assets into everyday commerce remains a complex process. Payments require consistent standards, regulatory oversight and systems that work across borders — areas where traditional card networks have decades of experience.
Crypto World
Binance Under DOJ Investigation for Possible Iran Sanctions Violations: WSJ
Binance formally refuted the allegations a few days ago.
The Department of Justice has begun investigating whether Iran, which is currently engaged in a full-on war with the United States, has used the world’s largest crypto exchange to evade American sanctions, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
The probe comes a few weeks after several US Democratic senators, led by Richard Blumenthal, urged the DOJ and Treasury to look into any potential moves on Binance from Iran-linked wallets.
Citing people familiar with the matter, the WSJ reported earlier today that officials have contacted individuals with knowledge of the Iranian transactions to interview them and gather evidence.
However, the publication said it couldn’t “determine whether the Justice Department is investigating Binance itself for potential misconduct, or solely the customers on its platform.”
As reported over the weekend, Binance officially rejected the allegations made by the US senators, calling the media reports cited in the Senate “false, unsupported, and defamatory claims.”
The company explained that it operates a robust compliance program with more than 1,500 specialists worldwide and advanced monitoring tools designed to detect suspicious activity.
It asserted that its exposure to wallets linked to any sort of illicit activity has declined by nearly 97% since early 2024. However, it admitted that “absolute zero risk is impossible on public blockchains but relies on robust monitoring and controls to minimize and mitigate risks.”
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The strikes between the US and Israel on one side and Iran on the other have put crypto back into focus, at least to an extent. Reports emerging in the first hours and days after the attacks began indicated that crypto outflows skyrocketed by triple-digit percentages, and the overall on-chain activity linked to Iran had risen to unprecedented heights.
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Crypto World
Hyperscale Data (GPUS) Stock: Revenue Forecast Targets $200M by 2026 Through AI Growth
Key Takeaways
- Hyperscale Data targets $180M–$200M revenue for 2026 through AI and blockchain expansion.
- Complete Ballista integration projected to contribute $40M annually versus $3.2M in Q4 2025.
- Ault Lending division forecast to generate $20M–$30M, enhancing profit margins.
- AI infrastructure and software solutions positioned for scalable revenue growth.
- Multi-segment operations and premium-margin platforms support robust 2026 projections.
Shares of Hyperscale Data, Inc. (GPUS) finished trading at $0.1669, gaining 0.97%, while pre-market activity showed the stock at $0.1715, climbing 2.76%. The firm unveiled fiscal 2026 revenue projections ranging from $180 million to $200 million. These estimates suggest potential year-over-year expansion of 80% to 100% compared to preliminary fiscal 2025 figures.
Hyperscale Data, Inc., GPUS
Preliminary 2025 revenue figures included only partial-year results from Gresham Worldwide, Inc. This entity is merging with Ballista Group, Inc., which recently emerged from bankruptcy proceedings. Management anticipates Ballista will generate $40 million in full-year 2026 revenue, substantially higher than the $3.2 million recorded during Q4 2025.
Revenue acceleration stems from broadening activities across artificial intelligence infrastructure, software solutions, blockchain technology, financial services, and digital platforms. Historical capital deployments in these sectors are now yielding more stable financial returns. Leadership projects these strategic investments will produce between $24 million and $44 million in 2026 revenue.
Multiple Revenue Streams Underpin 2026 Projections
The company’s lending arm, Ault Lending, is forecast to contribute $20 million to $30 million toward 2026 revenue totals. Current quarter expectations include roughly $10 million from this division alone. Ault Lending has delivered strong profitability margins despite variable trading conditions.
The company’s multi-faceted business model enables various revenue channels while preserving strategic capital management. Premium-margin segments are anticipated to boost consolidated profitability. Income from software applications, blockchain initiatives, and digital ecosystems may yield superior margins relative to conventional infrastructure services.
Ongoing capital investment in high-performance computing facilities, AI data centers, and Bitcoin mining infrastructure will continue through 2026. Rising utilization across these assets should enhance fixed-cost efficiency and improve aggregate margin performance. Management expects operational leverage to strengthen as emerging platforms achieve commercial-scale revenue production.
Artificial Intelligence and Digital Platform Development
Hyperscale Data progresses its artificial intelligence infrastructure strategy, featuring Michigan-based AI computing facilities and expanded HPC capabilities. Worldwide demand for AI computational power, enterprise hosting solutions, and inference processing shows sustained upward momentum. AI-driven service offerings are positioned to become major contributors to revenue expansion and margin enhancement.
The organization’s software and digital platform investments are architected for efficient scaling alongside physical infrastructure. Growing platform revenue is expected to bolster profitability through fourth-quarter 2026. Leadership forecasts that higher-margin business segments will create leverage for sustained growth into fiscal 2027.
Hyperscale Data proceeds with Ballista consolidation efforts and subsidiary integration to reinforce financial resilience. Year-round contributions from reorganized business units provide enhanced revenue predictability. The company establishes itself to leverage diversified operational capabilities, scalable infrastructure assets, and maturing digital platforms throughout the 2026 fiscal year.
Crypto World
DOJ Investigates Iran’s Use of Binance to Evade US sanctions: WSJ
The Department of Justice is investigating Iran’s use of Binance for alleged sanctions evasion after the exchange repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
The US Department of Justice is reportedly investigating Iran’s use of Binance for alleged sanctions evasion.
The DOJ is investigating whether Iran used Binance to evade US sanctions and whether transactions on the exchange helped route funds to networks linked to Iran-backed groups, including Yemen’s Houthi militants, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing company documents and people familiar with the matter.
The WSJ said it remains unclear whether the DOJ is investigating Binance itself, its users, or both. Officials have contacted people with knowledge of the transactions to seek interviews and gather evidence, the report said.
The probe follows earlier reporting that Binance dismantled an internal investigation into roughly $1 billion that flowed through the platform to a network tied to Iranian proxy groups.
The DOJ had not confirmed the investigation at the time of publication. Binance did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.
Related: CZ says CEXs have ‘zero motive’ to aid terrorists as court dismisses terrorism suit
US Senate Democrats launched a probe in February, and Binance has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Binance pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating US anti-money-laundering and sanctions laws, paying a $4.3 billion fine and agreeing to operate under US oversight.
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XRP hits bottom as setup mirrors a move that preceded the 2017 rally
- XRP may have completed a long correction and formed a market bottom.
- Analysts say the current setup mirrors the pattern before the 2017 rally.
- A Wave-5 breakout could drive XRP toward the $5.85 target.
XRP has spent the past several months moving through a slow and frustrating consolidation phase that many traders now believe may represent the final stage of its correction.
The digital asset is currently trading around $1.38 after a period of mixed performance that has seen short bursts of strength followed by pullbacks.
This kind of sideways movement often appears near the end of a market correction, which is why some analysts are beginning to argue that XRP may already be forming a long-term bottom.
The argument is based on a technical structure that looks strikingly similar to the pattern that developed before XRP’s historic rally in 2017.
Back then, the token spent months drifting through a quiet accumulation phase while the broader market paid little attention to it.
When the breakout finally arrived, the price accelerated rapidly and caught much of the market off guard.
Today, analysts believe the same type of structure may be forming once again.
$XRP‘s pattern setup and breakout process was extremely similar to that 2017 move and with this being, there is potential we see this overall run unfold in an identical manner.
Doing so means that right now is only a temporary pullback before a move well above the $20 mark… pic.twitter.com/1MIriZ4Rqn
— JAVON⚡️MARKS (@JavonTM1) March 7, 2026
Several technical charts show XRP completing a large corrective pattern that has been unfolding for months.
According to this view, the correction appears to have finished its final wave, which often marks the point where a new bullish cycle begins.
If the structure continues to play out as expected, XRP could now be entering the early stage of its next major upward move.
This possibility has renewed interest among traders who remember how quickly XRP moved once momentum returned during the previous cycle.
Analysts point to a potential Wave-5 breakout
Furthermore, a number of market analysts have turned to Elliott Wave theory to explain why they believe XRP may be close to a turning point.
Under this model, markets move through a series of impulsive waves followed by corrective phases that prepare the ground for the next advance.
Some analysts, like Dark Defender, believe XRP has just completed an extended corrective structure that lasted several months.
That correction appears to have formed an ABC pattern, which is often seen near the end of a downward phase.
With that structure now appearing complete, analysts say the market may be entering the final upward wave of the cycle.
This final stage is known as Wave 5 and is typically associated with strong bullish momentum.
One widely discussed projection places the next major price objective near $5.85 if the breakout develops as expected.
Reaching that level would represent a substantial recovery from current prices and would mark one of the strongest rallies XRP has seen in years.
XRP completed the large C Wave with 5 Sub-Waves.
Wave 5 towards the $5.85 level is here.
(N F A)#XRP Bull Run will be facemelting. pic.twitter.com/8yQaJcfLjq— Dark Defender (@DefendDark) March 10, 2026
However, analysts also emphasise that the move will likely unfold in stages rather than in a straight line.
Several resistance zones remain along the path, including levels near $1.88, $2.35, and just above the $3 mark.
Each of these areas could slow the advance as traders take profits and the market absorbs new buying pressure.
Still, clearing those barriers could open the door for a much larger move.
Long-term projections stretch far beyond the first targets
While the $5.85 level has attracted attention in the short term, some analysts believe XRP’s potential upside could extend much further.
A more aggressive interpretation of the current wave structure suggests the asset could eventually climb toward the $8 to $14 range during the next phase of the cycle.
In the most optimistic scenario, the final leg of the rally could even approach the $20 region if market conditions remain supportive.
These projections remain speculative, but they reflect growing confidence that the current structure may be setting up a larger trend reversal.
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