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Bitcoin slipped to around $66,456, falling roughly 1.7% over the past 24 hours as volatility spread across global markets. The cryptocurrency remains slightly higher over the past week but is still down more than 7% over the past month, reflecting choppy trading conditions driven by geopolitical tensions and broader macroeconomic uncertainty. The decline comes as U.S. stock-index futures dropped sharply ahead of the trading session, with Dow futures down more than 800 points and both S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures falling about 1.5%.
The market turbulence followed a surge in oil prices after escalating conflict involving Iran raised fears of supply disruptions. West Texas Intermediate crude jumped about 18% to above $107 a barrel while Brent crude climbed to around $108, the first time global benchmarks have exceeded $100 since 2022. Traders are watching whether the shock remains limited to commodities or spreads further into risk assets such as equities and cryptocurrencies, though Bitcoin has shown relative stability so far despite briefly dipping below $66,000 during weekend trading. Source
US President Donald Trump’s newly released National Cyber Strategy has drawn attention from the crypto industry after it explicitly referenced cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies. The six-page document states that the government will build secure technologies and supply chains that protect user privacy while supporting the security of cryptocurrencies and blockchain. Industry analysts say this marks the first time such technologies have been directly mentioned in a US cybersecurity strategy, prompting speculation that the administration could take a more supportive stance toward the sector.
At the same time, parts of the strategy hint at possible regulatory pressure. A pledge to uproot criminal infrastructure and deny financial safe havens could be interpreted as justification for crackdowns on crypto mixers, privacy coins and unregulated off-ramps. The document also highlights post-quantum cryptography and cybersecurity upgrades to federal systems, fuelling discussion about the potential threat quantum computing could pose to Bitcoin and other digital assets, while also emphasising artificial intelligence development and the need to train the next generation of cybersecurity professionals. Source
Stablecoin monthly transaction volume reached a record $1.8 trillion in February, driven largely by strong activity in USDC transfers. USDC accounted for around $1.26 trillion of the total, representing roughly 70% of all stablecoin transaction volume for the month. The figure was more than double the $514 billion recorded by USDt, marking a surprising shift given that USDC’s market capitalisation remains less than half that of its rival. Analysts say USDC has consistently surpassed USDt in transfer volume in recent months, signalling increasing adoption since its launch in 2018.
The rise in stablecoin activity is also being interpreted as a sign of improving conditions in the wider crypto market. The Stablecoin Supply Ratio, which compares Bitcoin’s market capitalisation to the total stablecoin supply, has been recovering after a sharp drop in February, indicating that buying power may be returning. At the same time, the supply of stablecoins on exchanges has climbed to a three-week high of $66.5 billion, while inflows to exchanges surged to more than $5 billion in early March, suggesting fresh liquidity that could support further cryptocurrency price gains. Source
Binance has rejected allegations that it violated Iranian sanctions by allowing more than $1.7 billion in related transactions on its platform. The exchange made the denial in a letter responding to US Senator Richard Blumenthal, who launched an investigation following a report claiming the platform facilitated sanction-evading trades linked to Iran and Russia. Binance said the claims were false, unsupported by credible evidence and defamatory, insisting it takes its legal obligations seriously and prioritises the safety and compliance of its platform.
The investigation stems from reports that around 2,000 Iran-linked accounts and two Hong Kong-based partners were involved in suspicious transactions. Binance said that after receiving requests from law enforcement, it carried out internal investigations and removed the accounts involved, including offboarding one partner in August 2025 and another in January 2026. The company also highlighted its investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in compliance infrastructure and a global compliance team of more than 1,500 employees, noting the allegations come after its 2023 guilty plea over anti-money laundering and sanctions violations, which resulted in a $4.3 billion penalty. Source
The United States Treasury Department has acknowledged that cryptocurrency mixers can serve legitimate privacy purposes, according to a report to Congress on technologies used to counter illicit finance involving digital assets. As digital assets become more widely used for payments, the report notes that individuals may use mixers to obscure transaction details and protect personal financial information on public blockchains. This includes shielding sensitive data such as personal wealth, business payments or charitable donations from being permanently visible on transparent blockchain ledgers.
At the same time, the report warns that certain types of mixers, particularly decentralised and non-custodial services, are frequently exploited for money laundering and moving illicit funds, including by cybercriminal groups linked to North Korea. The Treasury suggested that custodial mixers, which temporarily take control of user funds, may provide information that can help authorities trace transactions. The discussion comes amid growing debate over financial privacy in crypto, with proposed US legislation potentially requiring decentralised finance platforms to collect user identity data, while prominent figures such as Ray Dalio have also cautioned that the development of central bank digital currencies could increase government financial surveillance. Source
KuCoin has received the highest proof-of-reserves transparency score among major cryptocurrency exchanges in CryptoQuant’s latest annual Exchange Leader report. The Seychelles-based platform achieved a score of 96.7 out of 100 after being evaluated on reserve disclosures, trading activity and derivatives markets throughout 2025. The ranking reflects KuCoin’s monthly proof-of-reserves system, which enables users to verify their balances through Merkle-tree tools, along with publicly disclosed wallet addresses and third-party attestations from security firm Hacken. According to the report, the exchange has published more than 39 consecutive monthly reserve reports, with reserve ratios for publicly disclosed assets remaining above 100 percent.
Bybit ranked second with a transparency score of 93.2, supported by similar proof-of-reserves disclosures and Hacken attestations, while Kraken was also placed in the top tier despite receiving a lower score due to its quarterly reporting schedule. Larger exchanges ranked lower in this category, with Binance scoring 75.2 and Coinbase receiving 44.3 because it does not publish full wallet address mappings or on-chain balance verification for customers. The report also found that derivatives trading now dominates most exchange activity, with platforms such as MEXC, Bybit, Bitget, Binance, Gate and Coinbase generating between 70 percent and 90 percent of their trading volume from perpetual futures, while Binance remained the largest exchange overall with about 32.4 trillion dollars in trading volume during 2025. Source
A group of United States lawmakers is calling for legislation that would permanently prevent the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency, arguing that a temporary ban would not sufficiently protect Americans. Congressman Michael Cloud and 28 other members of Congress sent a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate majority leader John Thune urging a permanent prohibition, warning that a CBDC could enable unconstitutional financial surveillance and grant the Federal Reserve excessive control over citizens’ finances. The lawmakers described such a system as incompatible with American values and a threat to civil liberties and financial freedom.
The push follows a proposed amendment to the Federal Reserve Act included in the House-passed Housing for the 21st Century Act, which would block the issuance of a CBDC only until 2031. The lawmakers criticised this measure as inadequate and called for the stronger language from the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, introduced by Congressman Tom Emmer in 2025, to be restored. While that bill passed the House in July 2025, it has not yet secured Senate approval, and a separate proposal known as the No CBDC Act introduced by Senator Mike Lee in early 2025 also stalled in Congress. Source
Sitemaker is presented as a visually driven platform developed by Markethive to simplify the creation and management of websites and conversion-focused landing pages. Designed for marketers, entrepreneurs and businesses, it aims to reduce the technical complexity of traditional web development while enabling users to quickly build professional online assets. The platform supports both full multi-page websites and highly targeted landing pages intended to guide visitors toward specific actions such as purchases or lead generation. It also integrates with WordPress through a dedicated plugin, allowing users to incorporate Sitemaker’s designs and marketing tools into existing WordPress sites, while offering both custom domain support and free Markethive subdomains for quick deployment.
Beyond page creation, the system combines marketing tools, analytics and e-commerce capabilities within one ecosystem. Users can run community-driven A/B testing where members of the Markethive network provide feedback on page designs and copy, incentivised with the platform’s Hivecoin cryptocurrency. Additional features include reusable widgets for consistent marketing content, collaboration tools for teams, built-in e-commerce functionality and integrations with platforms such as Shopify. The platform also offers dashboard-based performance metrics and a tiered subscription model with a free entry level plan and higher tiers that add hosting, domain management and AI-powered tools for content creation, design assistance and conversion optimisation. Source
Florida is moving closer to implementing state-level stablecoin regulations after the State Senate unanimously passed Senate Bill 314. The legislation formally classifies stablecoins as a form of monetary value under the Florida Control of Money Laundering in Money Services Business Act, effectively bringing them under existing anti-money laundering rules. The measure also introduces consumer protections and regulatory safeguards while requiring money services businesses to maintain records for stablecoin transactions exceeding 10,000 dollars, aligning them with existing reporting standards applied to other digital assets.
The bill also allows the Florida Department of Financial Services to accept approved stablecoins for certain payments, including state-issued licences and taxes, and establishes a pilot programme to study potential government use of the technology. Governor Ron DeSantis has not yet received the bill but is expected to review it once it reaches his office, with supporters anticipating approval. Lawmakers say the framework is intended to align with federal guidance introduced under the GENIUS Act and could position Florida’s Office of Financial Regulation as the primary regulator of stablecoin-based payment systems within the state. Source
Brazil’s central bank has expanded its Pix instant payment system to Argentina, allowing Brazilians living in the country to use the service to pay for goods and services and transfer money between the two nations. The system, operated by Banco Central do Brasil, is widely supported by major cryptocurrency platforms and payment providers in Brazil for fiat onramping, including Lemon, Binance Pay, Crypto.com, Mercado Bitcoin and Kraken. According to a report from the Lemon crypto app, Pix has played a significant role in driving crypto adoption in Argentina by simplifying digital payments and connecting traditional finance with crypto services.
Argentina currently ranks first in Latin America for crypto adoption per capita, while Brazil leads the region in total value of cryptocurrency received. The Lemon report states that Argentina’s number of crypto users has quadrupled since the 2021 market cycle, and the region’s adoption rate is roughly three times higher than that of the United States. Argentina recorded 5.4 million crypto app downloads in 2025, with more than 90 percent linked to wallets that integrate Pix payments. Although inflation in the country fell to 37 percent in 2025, the lowest level in eight years, residents have continued to use digital assets as alternatives to traditional financial systems and as protection against economic instability. Source
The U.S. Treasury is recommending that Congress introduce a digital asset-specific “hold law” to give crypto platforms the authority to temporarily freeze funds linked to suspected illegal activity. The proposal, outlined in a report under the GENIUS Act, aims to provide exchanges with a legal safe harbour to pause suspicious transfers while investigators obtain warrants or complete other legal procedures. This measure is intended to help law enforcement keep pace with the speed of blockchain transactions and strengthen public-private collaboration in combating crypto fraud and money laundering.
Currently, exchanges can detect suspicious transactions using blockchain analytics but face legal uncertainty when holding funds, unlike banks that have limited statutory powers to delay transactions. Without clear authority, crypto platforms risk liability if they freeze assets linked to suspicious activity. The Treasury report highlights potential challenges, including conflicts between transparency requirements and restrictions on disclosing suspicious activity reports, which could create a legal grey area. Despite these unresolved issues, experts see the hold law as a practical tool to give exchanges time to act on illicit activity and help close the gap between the rapid movement of digital assets and the slower pace of traditional investigations. Source
Chris Giancarlo, former chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has emphasised that US banks are in urgent need of clear crypto regulations to avoid falling behind global peers in payment innovation. He argued that while the broader crypto industry will continue to develop regardless of legislative outcomes, banks are constrained by the need for regulatory certainty before committing substantial investments. Giancarlo warned that delays in passing the CLARITY Act, the Senate's stalled crypto market structure bill, could leave American financial institutions trailing as Asia and Europe advance in adopting digital payment systems and stablecoin technology.
The CLARITY Act, which passed the House of Representatives in July 2025, is currently awaiting Senate approval, but disagreements over provisions such as stablecoin yields have slowed progress. Giancarlo suggested that if the bill fails, leaders at the SEC and CFTC are likely to implement interim rules to provide some clarity for banks. He stressed that this regulatory guidance is more critical for banks than for crypto firms, which have continued to innovate despite uncertain oversight, and warned that without prompt action, US banks risk being sidelined in the evolution of global finance. Source
Monthly active users on the decentralised lending protocol Aave reached a record of around 155,000 in February, nearly doubling over six months as investors increasingly turn to DeFi lending amid a shrinking number of low-risk yield opportunities in crypto. Analysts attribute this surge to rising ETH supply rates and the collapse of the basis trade, which previously allowed users to earn 10–30% yields but now offers less than 4%. Broader shifts in crypto trading strategies are also driving capital toward lending platforms, leaving few low-risk options for investors outside of lending protocols like Aave. Its established role in DeFi infrastructure helps explain the continued growth, even as newer experimental projects struggle to attract comparable activity.
The rise in usage coincides with governance tensions within Aave, as influential groups like the Aave Chan Initiative and BGD Labs have recently exited over disputes with Aave Labs, including concerns about voting influence and strategic disagreements. Despite these departures, lending and borrowing activity on the protocol remains normal, with Aave holding nearly $27 billion in total value locked across 20 blockchains, cementing its position as the leading DeFi lending platform. The protocol’s future growth is expected to depend on continued expansion of lending activity and stability in rates, with industry watchers noting that the ongoing governance changes do not appear to have disrupted core operations. Source
The US Federal Reserve has granted Kraken Financial, the Wyoming-chartered bank of crypto exchange Kraken, a limited-use master account, marking the first time a digital asset bank has gained direct access to the Fed’s payment infrastructure. This “skinny” account allows Kraken to move fiat deposits more efficiently while carrying restrictions such as balance caps, no interest, and no discount window access, reflecting a cautious yet significant step toward integrating crypto into the traditional banking system. The move comes as Kraken becomes the first crypto exchange to achieve this status, signalling broader institutional recognition of digital assets despite scepticism from traditional banking groups about potential risks to financial stability.
Further signalling a pro-crypto shift, US President Donald Trump has nominated Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor and Hoover Institution economist, to chair the Federal Reserve. Warsh has expressed supportive views on Bitcoin and digital assets, suggesting the Fed could adopt more favourable policies toward crypto under his leadership. While the nomination faces political and regulatory scrutiny, these developments together indicate a major policy shift at the Fed, positioning cryptocurrency more firmly within the mainstream financial system and potentially easing barriers for other digital asset institutions seeking access to core banking infrastructure. Source
New research from Project Eleven highlights a potential vulnerability in the way crypto exchanges generate deposit addresses if blockchains move to post-quantum cryptography. Currently, platforms like Coinbase and Binance rely on hierarchical deterministic wallets under BIP32, which allow new deposit addresses to be created from a public key while keeping the private key offline in cold storage. This separation is critical for custodial services, but post-quantum signature schemes such as ML-DSA could break the system, forcing exchanges to involve the private key in every child-key derivation and introducing operational complexity and risk.
To address this, Project Eleven has developed a prototype wallet that preserves non-hardened key derivation in a quantum-resistant manner, allowing public keys to be generated without exposing private keys. The solution operates at the wallet layer, meaning blockchains would only need to support the underlying signature scheme, with Bitcoin requiring a protocol upgrade for deployment. Similar designs could already be implemented on Ethereum through account abstraction, offering a path for exchanges and custodial services to maintain secure and efficient address generation in a post-quantum environment. Source
Australian crypto exchange BTC Markets has announced its intention to apply for a markets licence from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to offer regulated tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), including equities, bonds, and other assets. CEO Lucas Dobbins described the current $26 billion in onchain tokenized assets as a proof of concept, with potential market forecasts ranging from $2 trillion to $16 trillion by 2030. The move aims to establish licenced infrastructure for tokenized asset trading, enabling continuous markets and instant settlement, and positioning Australia to play a significant role in the next phase of global financial tokenization.
The initiative comes amid a wider trend of major crypto and traditional finance firms entering the tokenization space. Exchanges like Kraken and Robinhood have already launched platforms for tokenized stocks, while the Intercontinental Exchange and Nasdaq are developing systems to support tokenized securities and ETFs. In Australia, research suggests tokenized markets could generate around $24 billion AUD annually, roughly 1% of GDP, though current projections indicate only a fraction of that may be captured by 2030 without further regulatory and infrastructure development. Ethereum dominates the onchain RWA market, which continues to reach all-time highs despite broader market declines, signalling sustained investor interest. Source
Disclaimer: These articles are provided for informational purposes only. They are not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other advice.
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