Crypto World
Strategy STRC Offering Hits Record High in Single Day
STRC trading volume jumped 471%, generating capital for roughly 4,000 BTC, according to BitcoinTreasuries.
On March 12, Strategy’s STRC preferred stock program set a single-day record, generating enough capital to fund the purchase of 4,000 BTC.
According to data from BitcoinTreasuries, the week’s total was already enough to buy more than 10,000 BTC, a pace that is drawing the attention of investors who are watching how aggressively the world’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder is building its treasury.
Record Trading Volume for STRC
In a post on X, BitcoinTreasuries revealed that there were about 7.3 million shares traded during the March 12 session, a figure 471% higher than the stock’s average daily volume.
The platform uses a model that analyzes 1-minute STRC candles during the entire trading day, including pre-market and after-hours sessions. For any bar that closed at or above $99.92, considering STRC’s $100 par value, the model attributed 40% of the volume to at-the-market (ATM) issuance. It then subtracted a 2.5% underwriter commission and divided the net proceeds by the session-average Bitcoin price to get an estimated BTC total.
March 12th’s 7.3 million share volume yielded just over $283 million in net proceeds using the formula, and when divided by Bitcoin’s average price near $70,000, it was found that the money could buy 4,000 BTC, which was a first in the program’s history.
The amount of trading reached an estimated $743 million, exciting observers enough that one of them, Mark Harvey, suggested that the day could become STRC’s first $1 billion trading day, given that at the time there were still two hours left before the market closed.
Stock Structure Draws Attention
STRC pays a variable monthly dividend currently annualized at 11.5%, and it has built-in rate adjustments designed to keep the stock trading near par. The instrument channels investor capital directly into Bitcoin purchases while providing a yield-focused product that tends to move less than Strategy’s common MSTR stock.
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Essentially, the fixed dividend remains perpetual with no principal repayment required, unlike debt. Harvey recently gave an example of how it works, using a hypothetical scenario where the company issues $100,000 of STRC at the stated 11.5% yield to buy BTC.
According to him, it would create a yearly dividend obligation of $11,500, which would be fixed, meaning that even if BTC’s value were to shoot up 10 times in five years, Strategy’s dividend obligation would be just $57,500, while its BTC holding grows by $1,000,000, delivering a net $842,500 gain to shareholders.
As of its most recent filing dated March 9, Strategy held 738,731 BTC, boosted by recent purchases, including 3,015 BTC bought on March 2 and a bigger announcement of 17,994 BTC on March 9 acquired for $1.28 billion.
At current prices, the stash is valued at about $53.1 billion, with the company having acquired it for just over $56 billion.
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Ethereum price surges as derivatives open interest jumped nearly 9% to above $30b, concentrating leverage on Binance, Gate, Bybit and OKX and priming Ethereum for sharper liquidations.
Summary
- Ethereum derivatives open interest climbed about 9% in 24 hours to roughly $30.4b, tracking Ethereum above $2,180.
- Binance, Gate, Bybit and OKX now hold most ETH OI, raising spillover risk if one venue sees a funding squeeze or outage.
- Rising OI with higher prices signals a reflexive setup: further gains could richen funding, while any stall may trigger fast deleveraging.
Ethereum (ETH) derivatives just lit up. Here’s a clean crypto.news-style piece on the ETH open interest story, using $ not “dollar.”
ETH derivatives open interest has jumped nearly 9% in 24 hours, pushing total ETH contract exposure above $30 billion and underscoring how fast leverage is building behind the latest leg of the rally.
ETH open interest climbs as traders add leverage
According to derivatives tracker Coinglass, total ETH contract open interest has increased by 8.94% over the past 24 hours, with aggregate open interest now at $30.451 billion across major exchanges. Binance leads with $6.593 billion in ETH OI, followed by Gate at $3.875 billion, Bybit at $2.358 billion, and OKX at $2.042 billion. The move comes as ETH trades above $2,180 and tracks Bitcoin’s push into fresh all‑time highs, drawing in both speculative longs and basis traders.
The pace of growth in ETH open interest mirrors similar spikes seen in late February, when Ethereum derivatives OI rose between 7% and 14% in a single day as traders positioned around key resistance and ETF narratives. Each of those prior expansions in open interest preceded periods of elevated intraday volatility, as crowded positions were tested by relatively small spot flows.
Market structure: more size, more sensitivity
With more than $30 billion now tied up in ETH futures and perpetuals, relatively minor price moves can trigger meaningful liquidation flows. Recent Coinglass data shows that when open interest in ETH contracts has sat in the mid‑20s to high‑20s billions range, subsequent 24–48 hour windows often featured sharp wipe‑outs as funding flipped and over‑levered longs or shorts were forced out.
Exchange concentration also matters. Binance, Gate, Bybit, and OKX have repeatedly accounted for the bulk of ETH derivatives risk in recent months, with Binance alone often carrying more than $5 billion in ETH OI. That clustering means that any sudden funding squeeze, outage, or large liquidation event on one of these venues can spill quickly into spot books and cross‑exchange pricing.
What traders should watch next
For short‑term ETH traders, the combination of rising open interest and higher spot prices typically signals a more reflexive environment: price drives positioning, and positioning in turn drives price. If ETH continues grinding higher with OI expanding, funding rates and basis are likely to richen, creating both carry opportunities and greater downside risk if the trade becomes too crowded.
If, instead, OI starts to roll over while price stalls or pulls back, that would indicate aggressive deleveraging and could mark a local top or a reset phase similar to prior episodes where ETH contract open interest dropped 4–6% in a day. In both cases, the key tells will be funding, liquidation clusters, and whether open interest continues to climb above the $30 billion mark or snaps back toward the mid‑20s.
Crypto World
DeepSnitch AI Bonus: Hurry Up, Only a Few Days Left! The Bull Run Every Trader Has Been Waiting For Finally Has a Starting Gun
Oil almost touched $100 this week after tensions around the Strait of Hormuz sparked a macro panic. Stocks sold off and macro Twitter went into meltdown mode. Then, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stepped in with a temporary license allowing countries to buy Russian oil already stranded at sea, calling the spike a short-term disruption. Oil dropped quickly, and crypto reacted fast.
Bitcoin pushed close to $72,000 with strong ETF inflows and continued accumulation from major buyers. The dollar also weakened, which is exactly the kind of macro setup that usually fuels risk assets.
The macro setup that every trader has been waiting for is building exactly the way the textbook says it should, and the Deepsnitch AI bonus codes are still live, but not for long. Here’s why you should hurry up ahead of the launch.
BTC jumps to $72K after Bessent kills the oil scare
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stepped into a market that was panicking about oil racing toward $100 a barrel and cooled things down fast. Iran’s new supreme leader had said the Strait of Hormuz would stay closed, and Donald Trump said stopping Iran mattered more than oil prices, which sent equities sliding and macro Twitter into full panic mode.
Then Bessent announced General License 134, a temporary move allowing countries to buy Russian oil that was already stuck at sea. He called the spike a short-term disruption and said the economy could actually benefit once things settle. Oil quickly dropped about $2 a barrel, and Bitcoin jumped close to $72,000 within hours while stocks were still trying to catch up.
This is what the setup looks like right before a sustained bull move starts: macro fear gets resolved faster than expected, institutional buying was already happening before the resolution, and the Deepsnitch AI bonus countdown is ticking in the exact window when new capital starts looking for the highest-asymmetry entries it can still access before the crowd arrives.
Three positions to load before this window shuts: $DSNT, BTC and ETH
1. The DeepSnitch AI bonus still live! Hurry up, only a few days left!
If you are still sitting on the sidelines reading about the Deepsnitch AI bonus and not positioning, this section is your last clear-headed moment before FOMO kicks in at the Uniswap listing price.
$DSNT is the only presale in this market where five AI security tools are already live and working for traders every single day at $0.04399 before the ground floor closes.
AuditSnitch scans any smart contract in seconds and risk-scores it before you sign anything. SnitchGPT handles your on-chain research with real market context, so you are not walking into positions based on vibes and influencer threads.
SnitchFeed streams whale wallet activity and volume anomalies in real time, so you see the move before the chart confirms it and before retail gets trapped. Token Explorer gives you full holder concentration, liquidity depth, and risk scoring on any token before you commit a dollar.
SnitchCast keeps your market read sharp and current without building your own research stack from scratch. Coinsult and SolidProof have both independently audited the smart contract, and $2 million has already been raised with up to 300% bonuses still active.
If the bull case sends $DSNT to $30, this is the type of trade that creates serious wealth. This is a crypto presale ending soon situation with zero wiggle room because March 31 is the date and there is no extension coming.
2. Bitcoin (BTC) update for March 2026
BTC is currently trading around $72,000 on March 13 after recovering from the $63,000 to $64,000 range that defined February’s fear cycle, and the setup underneath it right now is the strongest it has been since Q4 2025 when BTC hit its all-time high of $126,000.
The 2026 bull target sits at $200,000, and the majority of analyst consensus clusters between $120,000 and $150,000 for the cycle high. BTC will not give you 100x from here. But as a store-of-value position running alongside a presale like $DSNT that is still in its final days of token presale window, BTC is the safest way to make sure you have exposure to the broad market recovery without having to time an altcoin rotation correctly.
3. Ethereum (ETH) update for March 2026
ETH reclaimed $2,000 this week and is currently trading around $2,100 on March 13 after spending the past several months in a brutal drawdown from its $4,105 ATH in December 2024.
The current entry is sitting 50% below the all-time high, with the Pectra upgrade scheduled for Q1 to Q2 2026.
The 2026 ETH high target sits at $6,000, and the most bullish analyst projections reach $10,000 to $15,000 in the supercycle case.
The upside math is still a 3x to 5x from here in the base case. That is a good trade, but it is not the same as DeepSnitch AI.
DeepSnitch AI bonus code: Hurry up, only a few days left before launch!
Bessent just gave the market a macro green light by capping oil at $100, BTC responded by jumping to $72K with ETF inflows running for three straight weeks, and the bull run setup that serious traders have been positioning for all year is starting to look a lot more like the real thing.
BTC and ETH are the right plays for traders who want cycle exposure with lower volatility and a clear path to 3x to 5x from current levels. But the Deepsnitch AI bonus is for the traders who want the move that makes the BTC chart look boring in comparison.
$DSNT at $0.04399 with five live tools, dual audits, 41.4M staked coins, and a 150% bonus on $10K-plus entries is the final days token presale setup that closes March 31 and never reopens at this price.
Visit the official DeepSnitch AI website and lock in your $DSNT before the deadline. Join X and Telegram community to catch the listing announcement drop.
FAQs
What exactly is the Deepsnitch AI bonus and does the deadline actually move?
The Deepsnitch AI bonus deadline is March 31 and the team has confirmed zero extension. It is a crypto presale ending soon situation with up to 300% bonuses that disappear the moment the presale closes.
Is the limited-time crypto bonus on DSNT worth stacking alongside BTC at $72K and ETH at $2,100 right now?
BTC and ETH are solid cycle plays, but a 3x to 5x is the realistic ceiling from current prices. The limited-time crypto bonus of up to 300% on $DSNT at $0.04399 puts tokens in your wallet for free.
Why is the final days token presale window on $DSNT more urgent than waiting for a discount after the Uniswap listing?
There is no discount after the listing. The final days token presale price of $0.04399 could be the floor that never returns. Every AI infrastructure token from TAO to RENDER listed above presale and never looked back. This is the last entry at ground floor and it is closing on March 31.
Disclaimer: This is a Press Release provided by a third party who is responsible for the content. Please conduct your own research before taking any action based on the content.
Ether (ETH) traded about 30% below its yearly open of $2,990, as traders grow increasingly risk-averse amid a global conflict and macroeconomic uncertainties.
Still, stronger network usage and increasing inflows into ETH accumulation addresses could provide a spark that may see the price finally break $2,200 resistance.
Key takeaways:
-
ETH held in accumulation wallets has risen 32% since January, showing strong long-term confidence.
-
Staked ETH reaches a record 37.85 million, representing over 30% of supply.
-
Analysts say Ether bulls must reclaim $2,200 as support
6.5 million ETH increase in accumulation addresses
Although Ether’s price has fallen in 2026, network activity increased, with daily active addresses (DAA) rising to 1.1 million in February, the highest level since December 2022. The DAAs jumped by 80% to 672,170 from 370,390 in the past seven days.
“The increase in ETH active addresses indicates bullish market movements,” CryptoQuant analyst CW8900 said in a QuickTake note on Friday.
The chart below shows that activity increased most significantly after Ether’s recent drop below $2,000.
“This implies that accumulation activity was at its most active,” the analyst added.
Similar activity has been consistently observed near macro bottoms since 2022, preceding significant ETH price rallies.
Additionally, daily inflows into accumulation addresses have increased steadily since mid-2025, reaching a record high of 1.14 million ETH in November 2025. The inflows have continued to climb in 2026, averaging 200,000 ETH per day, with a spike to over 350,000 on Thursday.
As a result, the amount of ETH held in accumulation wallets, or holders with no history of selling, has increased by 6.5 million to 26.55 million from 20.1 million on Jan. 1, representing a 32% increase.
The ETH supply held in accumulation addresses is an important indicator for traders and market participants, as it reflects overall confidence in Ether’s long-term outlook.
The total value of ETH staked further reinforces this outlook. The supply of staked Ether reached an all-time high of 37.85 million this week, signaling growing investor confidence and a squeeze on the liquid supply. This represents over 30% of the total ETH supply.
A growing staked supply also indicates that a large percentage of investors are preparing to hold their ETH for longer.
As Cointelegraph reported, Ether supply held on exchanges fell to a new multi-year low of 3.46 million ETH, further tightening the available liquidity on the order books.
Ether price needs to flip $2,200 into support
Data from TradingView shows ETH attempting to breach the $2,100-$2,200 resistance that has suppressed its price over the last month.
“This has been an important price area over the past couple of years of price action for Ethereum,” analyst Daan Crypto Trades said in a recent X post.
The last time the ETH/USD pair reclaimed this level was in May 2025. It rallied 24% in less than a week. In June 2025, it served as a launchpad for a 126% ETH price rally to the current all-time high of $4,950 reached in August 2025.
A key area to watch on the downside is $1,750-$1,850, which, if lost, could extend the downtrend to as low as $1,000.
“I assume that when this breaks either side of the range, we will see a large move occur,“ Daan Crypto Trades added.
This support area coincides with an ascending trend line that has upheld the price on the weekly chart since 2022.
Technical analyst Prof said holding this support would then trigger a retest of the 21-week exponential moving average at $2,700, 22% above the current price.
As Cointelegraph reported, a decisive break above the $2,100 resistance and the 50-day EMA at $2,200 will have the bulls target $2,600 next.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision. While we strive to provide accurate and timely information, Cointelegraph does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information in this article. This article may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Cointelegraph will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your reliance on this information.
Crypto World
BTC Rejected at $74K Amid Rising Middle East Tensions, BlackRock’s ETHB Debuts: Weekly Recap
BTC experienced some intense volatility on Friday after the release of the US PCE data. However, its rally was quickly halted.
It was another eventful week, with the headlines strongly focused on the quickly developing (and, in most cases, worsening) situation in the Middle East as both sides continue to hit each other, or allies.
In the meantime, the ever-volatile cryptocurrency industry responds to almost all new developments. Bitcoin, for example, started the week on the wrong foot, slipping from $68,000 on Sunday to a multi-day low of $65,600 when almost all financial markets opened for trading after the strikes and statements during the weekend.
However, the bulls were quick to intervene and didn’t allow further decline. Instead, BTC began its gradual recovery, which saw it near $70,000 by Wednesday. After the initial rejection, the bulls stepped up and pushed the asset to almost $72,000. It faced more resistance at this level and returned to $69,000 when the US CPI numbers came out later that day.
Although expectations and reality met, BTC remained relatively calm at first, but jumped by nearly two grand later on after Trump said there’s “practically nothing left to target” in Iran. Following another volatile session around $70,000, the cryptocurrency went on the offensive on Friday after the release of the US PCE data for January. which showed a 0.3% MoM increase, and a 2.8% YoY rise.
Bitcoin tapped $74,000 for the second time in the past 10 days, but it was stopped once again and driven south by over two grand. Nevertheless, it’s still 6% up weekly, similar to BNB, XRP, and SOL. Ethereum has added almost 10% in the past seven days, while HYPE has exploded by 23%.
Market Data
Market Cap: $2.52T | 24H Vol: $138B | BTC Dominance: 56.9%
BTC: $71,700 (+6.1%) | ETH: $2,130 (+9.3%) | XRP: $1.4 (+5%)
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This Week’s Crypto Headlines You Can’t Miss
BlackRock Staked Ethereum ETF Sees $15.5M First-Day Volume. Perhaps the most significant piece of industry news this week came from the world’s largest asset manager. BlackRock debuted a new sort of Ethereum ETF that allows investors to take advantage of the network’s staking function. The launch day saw $15.5 million in daily volume.
Ripple Targets $50B Valuation With $750M Buyback Amid Major Partnerships. A recent report indicated that Ripple has launched a share buyback program that puts it at a whopping valuation of $50 billion. Its plan is to repurchase up to $750 million in shares from employees and investors.
POTUS to Headline Gala for Top TRUMP Holders as Price Soars 50% After ATL. Following a consistent and painful decline for the meme coin TRUMP, the US President stepped up to headline a gala for the top asset holders in several weeks. The token reacted immediately with a massive 50% surge.
Here’s When Arthur Hayes Will Buy Bitcoin Again. The co-founder of BitMEX remains a bitcoin bull, but he believes the asset is likely to retrace again amid the ongoing conflict between the US and Israel on one side, and Iran on the other. As such, he said he might look for a new bottom below $60,000 before he starts accumulating again.
Binance Under DOJ Investigation for Possible Iran Sanctions Violations: WSJ. The Wall Street Journal reported that the US Department of Justice has begun an investigation into whether Binance was used in any form to help Iranian-linked wallets bypass American sanctions. Meanwhile, the exchange has sued the publication for defamation over an article from February 24.
Elon Musk Confirms Early Public Access Launch of X Money Next Month. Musk continues with his attempts to transform the social media platform, and indicated that users will receive public access to X Money in April.
Charts
This week, we have a chart analysis of Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, Binance Coin, and Hyperliquid – click here for the complete price analysis.
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Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin says large political efforts to regulate artificial intelligence could backfire.
Vitalik Buterin has said that his previous donation to the Future of Life Institute (FLI) does not mean that he agrees with the group’s current political stance on AI.
According to him, big political campaigns about AI safety could lead to authoritarian outcomes or a global backlash if governments and corporations fight for control of the technology.
Buterin Clarifies Link to FLI
The Ethereum co-founder explained in a lengthy post on X that he got involved with FLI after Shiba Inu’s (SHIB) creators sent him half of their supply to help promote the meme coin. Shortly after, the tokens’ paper value skyrocketed, even flying past $1 billion.
Buterin said he thought the bubble would burst quickly and so rushed to swap some of the SHIB for ETH, donating the funds to a number of causes. He also gave half of the remaining SHIB to CryptoRelief, an India-focused medical relief effort, and the other half to FLI.
The institute ultimately cashed out around $500 million from the donated SHIB holding, far more than Buterin had thought possible, given the token’s thin trading volume at the time. The developer claims he got sold on FLI based on their roadmap, which covered existential risks across biosafety, nuclear, and AI, as well as what he called their “pro-peace and pro-epistemics initiatives.”
However, according to him, the organization has since pivoted, focusing instead on cultural and political action. They justified the shift, saying the situation was no longer the same as it had been in 2021, with the proliferation of artificial general intelligence demanding the change to better counter the lobbying warchests of large AI companies.
Concerns About Political Approaches
Buterin insisted that concentrating on regulatory or political campaigns to control AI development could produce fragile systems or centralized power structures.
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“My worry is that large-scale coordinated political action with big money pools is a thing that can easily lead to unintended outcomes, cause backlashes, and solve problems in a way that is both authoritarian and fragile, even if it was not originally intended that way,” he wrote.
The 32-year-old said that limiting biosynthesis tools or AI models by imposing guardrails “so that they refuse to create bad stuff” was a weak solution that could be easily worked around. He added that such strategies could also lead to governments banning open-source systems or backing one “approved” company to take over the development of AI.
“Approaches like this VERY EASILY backfire,” said Buterin. “They make the rest of the world your enemy.”
His proposal is a technological approach focused on developing defensive tools to help society stay safe in a world with powerful technology. He pointed out that his most recent funding decisions include approximately $40 million for research to build secure hardware and systems that could improve digital privacy and cybersecurity.
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The Official Trump token surged on heavy trading after news spread that large holders could receive invitations to a private event at Mar-a-Lago.
Summary
- TRUMP price jumped more than 50% after the project announced a Mar-a-Lago luncheon for top token holders.
- Trading volume and derivatives activity spiked as traders rushed into the market.
- On the chart, the token broke above key resistance levels after months of decline.
At press time, The Official Trump (TRUMP) traded at $4.28, up about 52% in the past 24 hours. The token is now close to the top of its weekly range, which sits between $2.74 and $4.35.
Momentum has been building over the past several weeks. TRUMP has gained around 34% over the last seven daysand about 40% over the past month. Despite the recent rally, the token still sits roughly 94% below its January 2024 all-time high, after a long slide through 2025.
Trading activity exploded alongside the price jump. 24-hour spot volume reached about $1.4 billion, a 1,498% increase from the previous day.
Derivatives data from CoinGlass shows futures activity climbing even faster. Futures volume rose nearly 1,971% to $2.94 billion, while open interest jumped 154% to $253 million.
Such sharp increases often appear when traders rush to open new positions after a strong news catalyst.
Luncheon invitation drives attention
The latest rally follows an announcement tied to Donald Trump and an upcoming event at Mar-a-Lago.
According to details shared with the community, the top 297 holders of the TRUMP token may receive invitations to a crypto and business conference along with a gala luncheon scheduled for April 25, 2026.
Eligibility will be determined through a time-weighted points system based on token holdings between March 12 and April 10. Investors who hold larger amounts for longer periods rank higher on the leaderboard.
Extra benefits are reserved for the top 29 holders, who may attend a smaller VIP reception with Trump and other guests. Reports mention a private gathering and champagne toast, though organizers say there will be no personal meetings or gifts.
Participants must also pass security checks and maintain their token holdings through the event date.
The luncheon follows a similar promotion held in 2025, when top holders were invited to a dinner event. That earlier gathering drew criticism from some observers who argued that the model blends politics with speculative crypto marketing.
Supporters see the idea differently. For many traders, the token acts as a form of “token-gated access,” where ownership provides entry to exclusive events connected to the political figure.
Technical analysis: breakout follows news catalyst
The price chart shows a sharp reaction after the announcement.
A large bullish candle pushed the token from roughly $2.8–$3.0 to above $4.2 in a single session. That move represents a gain of more than 50% in one day, confirming strong demand following the news.
The rally also pushed price above several short-term moving averages near $3.29, levels that had acted as resistance during the previous downtrend. Once those levels broke, buying accelerated.
Volatility has started to increase as well. Bollinger Bands widened after the breakout, which often happens when price leaves a tight trading range.
Momentum indicators climbed quickly. The relative strength index moved close to 70, a level that shows strong buying pressure. When RSI approaches this zone, markets sometimes pause or pull back before deciding the next direction.
The chart also shows that a descending structure that formed over several months has been broken, marking the first strong bullish signal since the prolonged decline from earlier highs.
For now, traders are watching $4.50 and $5.00 as the next resistance zones. If the rally cools, $3.90 could act as support, followed by the $3.30 area, where several moving averages sit.
A US federal court has rejected Custodia Bank’s final attempt to challenge the Federal Reserve’s authority over granting master accounts — effectively ending the crypto-focused bank’s five-year-long battle for direct access to the central bank’s payment system.
The US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit said in a filing on Friday that it wouldn’t hear Custodia’s final appeal on that point in a 7-3 vote.
Custodia first applied for a master account in October 2020, which allows financial institutions to hold reserves directly at the Federal Reserve and access its payment rails, enabling them to settle transactions without relying on intermediary banks.
After the Fed rejected its master account application, Custodia turned to the courts, arguing the Monetary Control Act entitles state-chartered banks to access Fed services and therefore a master account.
However, the multiple courts have now ruled that the Fed retains discretion over whether to grant master accounts.
Custodia’s blow comes as Kraken became the first crypto platform to receive a master account from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City on March 4.
Kraken’s master account enables it to connect to the Fedwire payments system, though it does not include the full range of services available to traditional banks.
The move raised hopes that US regulators could offer “skinny” or limited master accounts to crypto firms.
Banks not given master accounts akin to “death sentence”
While only three judges sided with Custodia, one of them, Judge Timothy Tymkovich, wrote a strong dissenting opinion, stating that “a master account is ‘indispensable’ for a bank’s operations” and being denied one is “akin to a death sentence.”
Related: Democrats say they will oversee reported DOJ probe into Binance
He noted that three months after Custodia’s application in October 2020, the Fed said Custodia was eligible and told it there were “no showstoppers” with its application.
He added, “I do not agree that Reserve Banks have discretion over account applications and would have allowed the mandamus claim to go forward.”
Magazine: Clarity Act risks repeat of Europe’s mistakes, crypto lawyer warns
Michael Saylor has responded sharply after former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson criticized Bitcoin (BTC) and suggested that it resembles a Ponzi scheme.
Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson criticizes Bitcoin
Johnson described a conversation with a church acquaintance who lost money after being lured into a supposed crypto investment opportunity. According to Johnson, the man initially handed over £500 to someone who promised to double his money through Bitcoin.
“After three and a half years of muddle… he was down £20,000,” Johnson wrote in a report. He also described how the individual paid repeated fees in an attempt to recover the funds. The former prime minister used the story to question the value and structure of cryptocurrencies.
He contrasted BTC with traditional assets and collectibles.“I can see the intrinsic value of gold,” Johnson wrote. “I can even understand why Pokemon cards have kept their value.”
He then questioned the foundations of digital assets, arguing that Bitcoin lacks an identifiable authority or issuer. “But Bitcoin? What is it? It’s just a string of numbers stored in a series of computers,” he wrote.
Johnson also referenced the mysterious origins of the BTC’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, adding that the system depends heavily on collective belief. “The whole thing depends completely on the collective belief… of the Bitcoin holders,” Johnson said.
He warned that increasing cases of fraud linked to crypto investments could weaken confidence in the sector. “I have always suspected from the outset that all cryptocurrencies were basically a Ponzi scheme,” Johnson wrote. He argued that the ecosystem relies on a continuous flow of new investors.
Michael Saylor claps back at Johnson
Saylor rejected that characterization in a post on the social platform X. “Bitcoin is not a Ponzi scheme,” Saylor wrote. “A Ponzi requires a central operator promising returns and paying early investors with funds from later ones.”
He argued that Bitcoin’s structure makes it fundamentally different from such schemes. “Bitcoin has no issuer, no promoter, and no guaranteed return—just an open, decentralized monetary network driven by code and market demand,” Saylor said.
The executive has long been one of the most prominent corporate advocates for Bitcoin. His company, MicroStrategy, holds billions of dollars worth of the crypto on its balance sheet. Johnson’s comments also revisited broader debates about monetary systems.
In his remarks, he referenced historical currency models backed by government authority, pointing to Roman coins bearing the image of emperors as an example of trust in state-backed money. Crypto supporters, however, often argue that Bitcoin’s decentralized structure is precisely what protects it from political influence and inflation tied to government spending.
The XRP Ledger has never been busier, but traders are yet to catch up.
Daily successful payments on XRPL recently hit a 12 month high of over 2.7 million, up from roughly 1 million in late 2025, according to XRPSCAN data. The network is processing between 2 and 2.8 million transactions per day at 20 to 26 transactions per second.
Automated market maker pools have exploded to nearly 27,000 active pools supporting more than 16,000 unique tokens. Tokenized real-world asset value on the ledger climbed to $461 million, up 35% in the past 30 days, per RWA.xyz. Stablecoin transfer volume over the same period hit $1.19 billion.
XRP is trading at $1.37 and is down 26% year-to-date. It’s 62% below its late-2025 high of $3.65.
That gap between what the ledger is doing and what the token is doing is the most important thing happening in XRP right now, and it’s a question the market hasn’t answered yet.
The standard crypto thesis is that network activity drives token value. More usage means more demand for the native asset, which pushes price higher. It’s the framework that worked for Ethereum during DeFi summer and for Solana during the meme coin boom.
But XRP is breaking the pattern. Every metric that should matter for a utility token is up, but the price is down.
The most likely explanation is structural. XRPL’s growing activity is increasingly driven by RLUSD, Ripple’s stablecoin, and tokenized assets that flow through XRP as a bridge currency but don’t create sustained demand for the token.
A payment that uses XRP for three seconds to settle a cross-border transaction between fiat currencies doesn’t generate the same kind of buy pressure as someone staking ETH for months or locking SOL in a DeFi protocol. The network gets busier, but the token stays liquid and transient. Activity goes up but scarcity doesn’t.
The DeFi numbers make this stark. DeFiLlama shows XRPL’s total value locked at $47.54 million. That’s the entire DeFi ecosystem on a chain whose native token has an $84 billion market cap.
For comparison, Solana carries roughly $4 billion in TVL. Ethereum has over $40 billion. XRP’s DeFi layer is a rounding error relative to its valuation, which means the market cap is still overwhelmingly driven by speculative positioning and ETF expectations rather than capital locked into productive on-chain activity.
The native DEX tells a similar story. Daily volume runs between $4 million and $8 million on recent data, modest for any Layer 1 and especially small for one ranked fifth by market cap.
The AMM pool growth is real, with 27,000 pools and 12 million XRP deposited, but the dollar value of that liquidity remains thin relative to the scale of the token’s market.
The RWA picture is the one area where the data genuinely supports the bull case. $461 million in distributed asset value and $1.5 billion in represented asset value puts XRPL ahead of several larger chains in specific tokenization categories.
Stablecoin market cap on the ledger sits at $339 million with 35,800 holders. The 30-day RWA transfer volume of $149 million, up over 1,300%, suggests real institutional activity rather than wash trading. If the tokenization thesis plays out over the next few years, XRPL has a foothold that most competitors don’t.
As such, March historically averages an 18% return for XRP, and the $1.27 to $1.30 support zone has held through multiple tests. If macro conditions stabilize and the Iran conflict moves toward resolution, a relief bounce to $1.60 or higher is plausible.
The Ethereum Foundation, the non-profit organization that stewards the development of the Ethereum ecosystem, published its mandate on Friday, reaffirming its role and the core pillars of Ethereum.
The Ethereum Foundation’s two stated goals are that Ethereum remains decentralized and that users have a “final say” over their onchain assets and data, while the protocol achieves mass scale, according to the mandate.
Censorship resistance, open source code, privacy, security, and freedom-preserving technology are the core properties of Ethereum that will be upheld, the mandate, the document said.
The Ethereum Foundation said it will continue to focus on core protocol upgrades, “long-horizon research,” cybersecurity, and providing tooling for Ethereum’s developers, while minimizing its role as much as possible. The mandate said:
“Our ultimate goal is for Ethereum to pass the walkaway test: its protocol and core application layers become robust and trustless enough that they would continue to reliably function and evolve even if the Foundation and today’s core developers disappeared tomorrow.”
The Ethereum Foundation said it aims to focus on tasks that become less necessary over time through a process of subtraction.
The mandate follows a challenging year for the protocol, with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin saying that Ethereum’s approach to scaling through layer-2 networks “no longer makes sense,” and that many L2s are centralized projects.
Related: AI ‘vibe coding’ could put Ethereum roadmap ahead of schedule: Vitalik Buterin
Buterin says a drastic change in how Ethereum scales is needed
Buteirn said that many layer-2 networks feature centralized points of control, including private trusted networks and centralized sequencers, and have no plans to transition to a fully decentralized model.
“The original vision of L2s and their role in Ethereum no longer makes sense, and we need a new path,” Buterin said in February.
Buterin argued that a layer-2 project that boasts a throughput of 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) but relies on a multi-signature bridge to interact with the layer-1 protocol is not scaling the Ethereum ecosystem in a decentralized way.
Instead of acting as scaling layers for Ethereum, the ecosystem’s many layer-2 networks should specialize in a niche such as privacy, identity solutions, finance platforms and social media applications, Buterin said, which drew mixed reactions from L2 projects.
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