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Standard Chartered Hints at $50,000?

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Historical BTC Flows

Bitcoin price remains under pressure, down around 1.2% over the past 24 hours and trading close to $66,000 at press time. While short-term rebounds continue to appear, the broader structure still looks weak.

Now, even major institutions are turning cautious on their Bitcoin price predictions. New on-chain signals and long-term holders suggest the downside risk is not finished yet.

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Standard Chartered’s Warning Matches Weak ETF and Institutional Flows

Standard Chartered recently reiterated that Bitcoin could still fall toward $50,000 before any sustained recovery. The bank pointed to weakening ETF demand and fading institutional participation as key risks. When this view is compared with current market data, it lines up perfectly.

On the price chart, Bitcoin has broken down from a bear flag structure. A bear flag forms when prices consolidate after a sharp fall and then resume the downtrend. This pattern suggests that selling pressure remains dominant, even when short-term rebounds appear.

At the same time, institutional flow indicators are weakening. Chaikin Money Flow, or CMF, which tracks whether large capital is entering or leaving the market, has dropped sharply. CMF now looks weaker than it did during the January–April 2025 correction, when Bitcoin fell around 31%.

Historical BTC Flows
Historical BTC Flows: TradingView

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This time, the decline is steeper. Bitcoin has already dropped nearly 38% from its peak, and CMF has fallen faster than in early 2025. This confirms that institutional buying is not returning yet. Without sustained inflows from large investors, rallies struggle to hold.

It is worth noting that during the April-October 2025 phase, when BTC peaked, there were only a few instances when the CMF fell under the zero line, and that too marginally. But now, the CMF dip looks way scarier.

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This is why Standard Chartered’s caution makes sense. The breakdown on the chart and weak ETF-linked flows are telling the same story. But institutional weakness is not the only concern.

On-Chain Profits and Long-Term Holders Still Point to More Downside

Beyond ETFs, on-chain data shows that investor confidence remains fragile.

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One key indicator is Net Unrealized Profit and Loss, or NUPL. NUPL measures how much profit or loss holders are sitting on by comparing current prices with when coins were last moved.

During the April 2024 rebound, NUPL was near 0.42. That showed minimal unrealized profits and supported a recovery. Today, NUPL has dropped much lower. It fell to around 0.11 in early February and is now near 0.17. This means most of the leftover profits from the bull cycle have already been wiped out. But this doesn’t confirm a bottom if the bigger picture is taken into consideration.

Bitcoin NUPL
Bitcoin NUPL: Glassnode

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History shows NUPL can still fall further. In March 2023, NUPL dropped to near 0.02 when Bitcoin traded around $20,000. That marked deep capitulation before the next major rally began. Compared to that period, current NUPL levels remain relatively elevated. This suggests the market may not be fully washed out yet.

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Long-term holder behavior supports this view. Long-term BTC holders are wallets that have held Bitcoin for more than one year. These investors usually accumulate during major bottoms and help stabilize prices.

Right now, they are still net sellers. In early February 2025, long-term holders reduced holdings by more than 170,000 BTC. At the peak of recent selling, in February 2026, outflows reached nearly 245,000 BTC. This is a heavier distribution than during the January–April 2025 correction.

Holders Selling
Holders Selling: Glassnode

Back then, demand from long-term holders had already started recovering before prices bounced. Today, that recovery has not appeared. In simple terms, institutions are cautious, profits are shrinking, and long-term holders are not stepping in yet. This combination makes a strong rebound unlikely in the near term.

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Why the $53,000–$48,000 Zone Still Matters on the Bitcoin Price Chart

With fundamentals and on-chain data aligned to the downside, the Bitcoin price levels now become critical.

The current bear flag projection points toward a broad support zone between $53,200 and $48,300. This range aligns with key Fibonacci retracement levels.

The midpoint of this zone sits close to $50,000, which remains a major psychological level. Round numbers often attract strong buying and selling activity, making them natural magnets during corrections. This is why Standard Chartered’s $50,000 view fits the technical structure. It is not an arbitrary target. It sits directly inside the main support band.

Bitcoin Price Analysis
Bitcoin Price Analysis: TradingView

If selling pressure continues and ETF flows remain weak, Bitcoin could test this region in the coming months. In a deeper risk-off scenario, downside could even extend toward $42,400, which matches longer-term breakdown projections and historical support.

For this bearish Bitcoin price prediction to slow down, BTC would need to reclaim and hold above the $72,100 region with strong volume and renewed institutional inflows. That would signal that demand has returned and that the bear flag has failed. So far, there is no evidence of that.

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Will Hedera price crash as stablecoin supply and app revenue decline?

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Hedera price has formed a descending parallel channel pattern on the daily chart.

Hedera price has been in a downtrend over the past month as the token continues to be bruised by the geopolitical concerns that have pushed investors away from risk assets.

Summary

  • Hedera price dropped to a six-week low of $0.083, down over 12% in a month amid weak market sentiment and geopolitical tensions.
  • On-chain activity declined, with DeFi app revenue falling nearly 70% and stablecoin supply dropping 6%, signaling reduced network usage and liquidity.
  • Technical indicators remain bearish, with price trading in a descending channel and key support seen at $0.087.

According to data from crypto.news, Hedera (HBAR) price fell to a six-week low of $0.083 on Tuesday, down over 12% in the past month and over 20% from its year-to-date high.

Hedera price fell amid weakness in its underlying ecosystem activity as key performance indicators started to flash red. Data from DeFiLlama shows that revenue generated by DeFi apps on the network had slumped nearly 70% from the previous month’s high.

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A drop in app revenue means that a lower number of users are interacting with the Hedera ecosystem, signaling weakening demand for its decentralized applications and reduced overall network usage.

Third-party data also show that the total supply of stablecoins on the network has fallen 6% over the past 7 days to $52.71 million. Declining stablecoin supply typically reflects reduced liquidity and capital inflows on the network, further reinforcing signs of slowing activity.

Hedera price has also remained in a downtrend due to reduced investor appetite for risk assets amid the ongoing U.S.-Iran war that has led to a flight to more traditional safe-haven assets such as gold and U.S. equities.

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On the daily chart, Hedera price has been trading within a descending parallel channel pattern, a formation where the asset consistently makes lower highs and lower lows. As long as an asset trades within such a pattern, it will likely continue to face persistent selling pressure as it bounces between the upper and lower boundaries.

Hedera price has formed a descending parallel channel pattern on the daily chart.
Hedera price has formed a descending parallel channel pattern on the daily chart — April 1 | Source: crypto.news

Technical indicators also appear to portray a bearish outlook for Hedera price in the upcoming sessions. Notably, the Bollinger Bands have begun to narrow, with the price trading below the middle band, suggesting contracting volatility while the short-term trend remains tilted to the downside.

The Aroon Down is at 92.86% while the Aroon Up remains at 0%, indicating strong downward momentum and that a recent low has likely been established within the current trend.

For now, the immediate support level for Hedera price lies at $0.087, which aligns with the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement level. A drop below this level could increase selling pressure and open the door for a move toward lower support zones.

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Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.

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Inside Coinbase’s push to bring prediction markets on chain and on venue

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Epstein files show crypto ties to Coinbase, Blockstream: DOJ

Coinbase is folding regulated prediction markets into its “everything exchange” vision, using The Clearing Company to clear on‑chain event contracts beside crypto and stocks.

Coinbase’s push to become an “everything exchange” will increasingly run through regulated prediction markets rather than just spot crypto, according to Côme Prost‑Boucle, the exchange’s head of international listings, speaking with crypto.news at ETHGlobal Cannes on March 31.

For Prost‑Boucle, prediction markets are not a novelty bolt‑on. They sit at the core of Coinbase’s plan to become what he calls an “everything exchange.” “The whole strategy is pretty simple,” he told crypto.news.

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“We want to build the everything exchange with Coinbase, meaning that we want to bring under one regulated umbrella all of the asset classes that you can imagine and offer this to both our retail customers and our institutional customers.”

Coinbase leading the way to become an ‘Everything Exchange’

That umbrella now stretches beyond spot crypto into derivatives, options, tokenized stocks and equities, token sales and, crucially, event‑based contracts that let users trade on future outcomes. “We have this whole breadth of different products that we’re bringing into one umbrella, which is Coinbase,” he said. “Our goal is to push this to as many users as possible across the world, and the reaction has been pretty tremendous so far.”

Coinbase’s debut in prediction markets was deliberately conservative. The initial launch in the U.S. leaned on Kalshi, the CFTC‑regulated event‑contract venue, giving the product an immediate regulatory backbone but also clear constraints on geography and design.

“The first iteration of the product is available in the US and in a couple of regions, but for instance, it’s not available in Europe because of lack of regulatory clarity,” Prost‑Boucle said. That version effectively pipes Kalshi’s markets into the Coinbase interface, letting users trade small‑ticket contracts on elections, sports, macro data and other real‑world events while staying inside a U.S. event‑contract framework.

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The second phase is more aggressive. In December, Coinbase agreed to acquire The Clearing Company, a specialist prediction‑market clearing startup with roots in the existing event‑contract ecosystem.

Prost‑Boucle referred to it in the interview as “a company called The Clearing House,” but the strategic intent is clear. “The goal is for us to bring these capacities internally so that we can develop this product on chain and we can develop with the DNA that we have to bring all asset classes on chain,” he said. In effect, Coinbase is moving from renting regulated rails to owning the clearing and risk stack, and then pushing more of the lifecycle on‑chain while staying within the event‑contract perimeter. That stands in contrast to crypto‑native venues such as Polymarket, which prioritizes unconstrained on‑chain liquidity first and only later began to grapple with regulatory structure.

Prediction markets dominate conversation at ETHGlobal

If prediction markets are to sit alongside crypto, derivatives and tokenized stocks in a single app, collateral efficiency will determine whether users actually route meaningful size through Coinbase. Here, Prost‑Boucle says institutional desks are already applying pressure. “That’s also something that institutional clients have been pushing for,” he noted when asked about cross‑margining prediction markets with other Coinbase products. “We’re currently doing cross‑margining for our perpetual futures product, and that’s something that our institutional clients have been craving,” he added, pointing to demand for “always‑on exposure possibilities, weekend hedging, all of this that perpetual futures have as internal features.” The logical goal is to have a single collateral pool backing BTC perpetuals, tokenized equity and a portfolio of geopolitical or macro event contracts, rather than trapping capital in isolated silos across venues. “At the moment we’re working on this product,” he said of cross‑margining, “but I think that’s a good vision for us in the longer term—to have cross‑margining across the different asset classes, I guess.”

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The main structural obstacle to that vision is Europe. “Prediction markets in the EU are pretty difficult to apprehend because there’s no unified regulatory framework,” Prost‑Boucle said. “It all depends on what you have as an underlying asset.” He draws a sharp line that mirrors emerging legal commentary: a contract on the future price of Bitcoin is treated as a financial derivative under MiFID, while a contract on an election or football match is pushed into gambling. “If the contract lies on a financial underlying asset, that would be regulated by MiFID,” he explained. “But all of the other classes, where currently all of the volumes are—on politics, on sports, this would be regulated under gambling laws in Europe.”

That split leaves most of today’s on‑chain volume—heavily skewed toward politics and sports—in regulatory limbo from the perspective of a regulated exchange. Any operator that wants to offer political or sports markets across the bloc has to navigate a patchwork of national gambling regimes, each with its own licensing, consumer rules and, in some cases, state monopolies. “It means you would have to go for every single European gambling law, because there is no unified regulatory framework,” Prost‑Boucle said. “These laws are pretty national, they’re quite country‑specific and they’re quite hard to get.” Despite that, he is not writing off the region. “I guess we’re still hopeful that at some point we’re going to have regulatory clarity on prediction markets and a better structure in Europe that enables this type of contract to flourish as well,” he said.

Beyond trading revenues, Coinbase clearly sees prediction markets as an information layer that competes with polling, research, and even traditional media. Prost‑Boucle points to cases in the U.S. where broadcasters are already embedding live market odds, such as CNBC, CNN, the Dow Jones and other media recently integrating Polymarket odds into the ‘traditional’ newscycle.

That, in turn, brings the problem of truth into focus. Once markets start pricing geopolitics, conflicts, and leadership changes, disputes over what actually happened can become payout disputes. That means oracles used to resolve contracts may be facing increasing scrutiny from not only bettors, but also regulators.

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Prost‑Boucle argues that most of the damage begins with poor contract design. “It’s crucial when you enter a contract to look at what the event criteria are,” he said. “Obviously you want to diversify sources of truth and have kind of fixed criteria to make sure there is no ambiguity when an event like this happens,” he added. Asked whether AI agents could help by aggregating across outlets and delivering a consolidated verdict, he is open but cautious. “Potentially, AI could be helping with sorting out across different sources‑of‑truth venues and making sure that we have a consolidated view and a fixed view that is not biased by any specific media or even a group of people,” he said.

For now, Coinbase’s approach is less about chasing the wildest version of prediction markets and more about proving they can live inside the same rule‑set as everything else on the platform: keep them in a regulated perimeter, pull clearing and risk in‑house via The Clearing Company, and wire the whole thing into a broader multi‑asset venue where collateral actually earns its keep across products. As Brian Armstrong has put it in other contexts, Coinbase wants to be “the most trusted bridge” into the crypto economy, and in that frame, everything else—from MiFID hair‑splitting in Brussels to the next generation of AI‑driven oracles—is just another set of constraints to engineer around, not a reason to sit out a market.

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CoinShares Stock Debuts on Nasdaq After $1.2B SPAC Deal

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CoinShares Stock Debuts on Nasdaq After $1.2B SPAC Deal

CoinShares, a European-based digital asset manager, is slated to make its US public markets debut today following the completion of a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger, highlighting the crypto industry’s deepening ties with public markets.

The company announced Wednesday that it had finalized a previously announced business combination with Vine Hill Capital Investment Corp., resulting in the formation of a new holding entity, CoinShares PLC. The combined company begins trading on the Nasdaq on Wednesday under the ticker symbol CSHR.

The transaction, first unveiled in September, values CoinShares at approximately $1.2 billion and includes a $50 million capital commitment from institutional investors.

Although the Nasdaq debut marks CoinShares’ entry into US public markets, the company was already publicly traded in Europe prior to the listing.

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A US listing aims to attract institutional capital, wider analyst coverage and increased visibility, while positioning CoinShares to expand its footprint in the world’s largest financial market. The move also comes as the regulatory backdrop for digital assets in the United States continues to evolve.

CoinShares manages more than $6 billion in assets and is one of Europe’s largest crypto-focused investment firms. It is best known for its crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs), which are listed on European exchanges.

Source: Eric Balchunas

A tougher backdrop for crypto stocks

The backdrop for digital asset companies has shifted dramatically since September, when CoinShares’ SPAC deal was first announced. 

The exchange-traded fund issuer’s CoinShares Bitcoin Mining ETF (WGMI) is down more than 22% in the last six months, Yahoo Finance data shows.

The crypto market has since lost more than half its value, following a broad correction in digital asset prices, declining trading volumes and the fallout from the Oct. 10 crypto liquidation event that triggered widespread deleveraging, alongside a more volatile environment for capital raising and investors.

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Crypto-linked equities have been among the hardest hit. Companies such as Coinbase, Gemini and Figure Technologies are down sharply this year, while Circle has bucked the trend amid continued growth in stablecoins.

Source: Brian Sozzi

However, analysts at Bernstein don’t expect the downturn to persist. In a recent note, they said crypto-related stocks could be nearing a bottom heading into first-quarter earnings, which are widely expected to reflect weak performance.

Related: Circle plunged on CLARITY Act fears, but fundamentals unchanged — Bernstein