Category: Business

More than half of Americans said they had used an artificial-intelligence platform in the past two to three months, according to a new poll.

Yet when respondents were asked to rate their feelings toward the technology, AI ranked near the bottom of the list.

The survey of 1,000 registered voters was conducted by NBC News in partnership with Hart Research Associates and Public Opinion Strategies, from February 27 through March 3.

Just 26% of registered voters view AI positively, while 46% say they view it negatively, yielding a net favorability score of minus 20 points.

AI’s net favorability trailed Immigration and Customs Enforcement at -18, the Republican Party at -14, President Trump at -12, Kamala Harris at -17, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom at -18.

Only the Democratic Party, at -22, and Iran, at -53, ranked lower.

Usage figures, however, point to a different trend. Some 56% of respondents said they had used an AI platform such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, or Google Gemini in the past few months, up from 53% in August 2025 and 48% in December 2024.

The data indicate Americans are adopting the tools even as their views of the technology remain lukewarm.

The poll also asked whether the benefits of artificial intelligence outweigh the risks. A majority of respondents, 57%, said the risks outweigh the benefits, while 34% said the opposite.

The results align with a Pew Research Center survey from last September, which found that 50% of U.S. adults were more concerned than excited about AI, up from 37% four years earlier.

Other surveys paint a similar picture. A December 2025 YouGov poll found that 35% of Americans use AI at least once a week, yet only 5% say they deeply trust it.

Trust is lowest in healthcare and finance, sectors where AI is also expanding fastest. A Quinnipiac University survey from April 2025 found that just 4% of Americans think they can trust AI-generated information almost all the time, and nearly three-quarters said the government should intervene to prevent AI-caused job losses.

The NBC data also show a sharp partisan gap in how the question about AI governance is framed: Democrats trust the U.S. to regulate AI at lower rates than Republicans, while Democrats are more likely to trust the EU with the task—a reversal of the usual pattern on foreign institutions.

Overall, most Americans think neither party is good at handling AI policies, with 33% saying both are bad, 4% unsure, and 24% saying they do a similar job.

But despite that perception, politicians have not slowed down their interest in AI.

President Trump is pushing for tighter controls on AI hardware, while lawmakers are exploring ways to expand domestic AI industries without alienating voters.

The debate is unfolding amid persistent concerns about privacy and the technology’s economic impact.

At the same time, the White House is advancing AI infrastructure projects, including the controversial Stargate Project, even as the technology holds a net favorability rating worse than most politicians.

Bitcoin’s market structure is showing early signs of stabilizing after weeks of pressure, according to a new market note from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode, even as the escalating conflict involving Iran continued to roil global financial markets.

Bitcoin is up 4.3% on the day to around $69,100 and holding relatively steady after recent volatility tied to geopolitical tensions and surging oil prices sent digital assets lower last week.

In its weekly market pulse published Monday, Glassnode said the crypto’s internal metrics suggest the worst of the recent stress may be easing, though the recovery remains “tentative.”

“Overall, conditions are stabilizing, with momentum, ETF demand, and profitability metrics improving,” the firm wrote, noting that price momentum has firmed modestly but still lacks the strength of a decisive bullish shift.

Analysts have previously pointed to the broader macro backdrop, which remains unsettled, as global markets have grappled with the fallout from the intensifying conflict in the Middle East.

Crude prices surged on Monday on fears the conflict could disrupt shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, briefly pushing Brent crude as high as about $119.50 a barrel before retreating to roughly $91–$100 after President Donald Trump suggested the war involving Iran might soon de-escalate.

U.S. equities have swung sharply in recent sessions, with major indexes slipping as investors weighed the inflationary impact of higher oil prices and the risk of a prolonged geopolitical conflict. 

Modest uplifts were observed late in the U.S. trading session following Trump’s comments, with the S&P 500 closing 0.8% higher on the day.

These markets are more correlated, more leveraged, and faster than the infrastructure connecting them, Ryan Kirkley, co-founder & CEO of Global Settlement Network, told Decrypt. “Settlement systems built on T+1 or T+2 cycles cannot absorb shocks that propagate in real time across asset classes, currencies, and geographies,” he added. “That gap showed up again last week. It will show up again this week.”

Against that backdrop, Glassnode said several indicators within the Bitcoin market are beginning to stabilize.

Futures open interest has increased, suggesting a modest build-up of leverage, while aggressive buying in perpetual derivatives markets points to renewed interest from traders. 

While Bitcoin has yet to “fully earn” its “digital gold” narrative, its practical use case as a “digital escape hatch” is becoming “increasingly relevant,” analysts at QCP Capital wrote in an investor note on Monday.

“Although its long-term trajectory remains uncertain, recent price action against a backdrop of escalating tensions suggests growing recognition of this function,” they added.

ETF flows have also strengthened, rising to $934 million, up 20% or $158 million, from the week prior, Glassnode wrote.

Still, other indicators suggest the recovery remains fragile.

Spot trading volumes remain subdued, and network activity has waned, pointing to limited participation.

 “Capital flows remain soft,” the report noted, indicating broader conviction has yet to fully return.

Privacy coin Zcash is one of the biggest crypto gainers over the past day, rising 7% and outpacing Bitcoin’s own rebound as a key team of core developers just raised a Series A round of funding for their fresh venture.

Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL) said Monday that it has raised over $25 million in funding from a prominent group of investors including Paradigm, Andreessen Horowitz, Winklevoss Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Zcash treasury firm Cypherpunk Technologies, and notable angel investors including Balaji Srinivasan, Haseeb Qureshi, and Mert Mumtaz.

Founded by Josh Swihart, former CEO of Electric Coin Company (ECC), ZODL continues the work begun at ECC, including development of the Zodl wallet (formerly Zashi). Since launching in 2024, the wallet has grown Zcash’s shielded pool by over 400%, according to the team, and processed more than $600 million in ZEC swaps since October 2025.

The full ECC team departed that company in January and has since migrated to ZODL to continue building the wallet as an open, self-custodial private financial platform aimed at broader ecosystem interoperability.

Beyond the wallet, ZODL said that it maintains a strong focus on Zcash protocol development. The engineers responsible for Zcash’s core systems at ECC have joined ZODL and continue that work, prioritizing usability-driven technical progress.

“This fundraise positions ZODL for growth, including adding engineers and other talent, and reflects strong conviction from some of the most respected investors in crypto, not only in privacy as a principle, but in the continued growth of the Zcash ecosystem and the ZODL team,” ZODL said in a statement.

Launched in 2016 in a process that included input from noted whistleblower Edward Snowden, Zcash is designed to be more private than cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, making it more difficult to trace transactions on its blockchain.

The coin saw a resurgence in investor interest last fall, rising from a price of about $50 in September to a multi-year peak of nearly $700 in November. That’s still shy of Zcash’s all-time high mark of $3,191 set soon after launch in 2016.

Like most leading cryptocurrencies, the price of Zcash (ZEC) has fallen sharply in recent months, with the coin recently trading for $215. It’s up 7% over the last day, outpacing Bitcoin’s own nearly 3% rise to just over $69,000. Even with the daily rise, ZEC remains down about 11% over the last month.

Traditional markets are acting spooked as geopolitical tensions rise. The VIX—Wall Street’s “fear gauge” measuring expected volatility in the S&P 500—surged above 35, its highest level in nearly a year, as oil prices briefly spiked toward $120 per barrel following U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. Stocks fell. Gold fell. Pretty much everything that was supposed to be a safe haven wasn’t.

Bitcoin, true to form, decided to go a different direction. Almost every coin in the top 10 by market capitalization opened in the green today—Tron being the lone holdout. Bitcoin is currently trading above $69,000, up nearly 4.3% today, which would sound great for holders if the longer term charts didn’t have some awkward things to say about it.

On Myriad, a prediction market run by Decrypt‘s parent company Dastan, traders are essentially split between Bitcoin pumping to $84K or dumping to $55K, with odds slightly bearish. Traders are currently pricing in odds at 57% on the downside; not exactly a ringing endorsement of this bounce.

The broader macro question of which bubble bursts first, crypto or equities, is very much alive, especially with the VIX spiking and oil markets in chaos. Bitcoin’s own volatility index, the BVIV, already peaked above 96 in early February when BTC touched $60,000, and the Crypto Fear and Greed Index has been in the fear zone for most of 2026 so far.

What happens in traditional markets this week will matter, especially considering Bitcoin is trading in a compression zone. If equities continue selling off and the VIX keeps climbing, risk assets face real pressure regardless of any intraday bounce. Traders will want to watch equity futures—they’ll act as a ceiling or floor for how far this move actually goes.

Bitcoin (BTC) price: The breakout that wasn’t

Bitcoin opened today’s session at $65,974 and is currently trading at $69,128—a 4.78% jump with an intraday high of $69,497. On the surface, that reads like bullish news, but looking at the broader picture makes this assumption more complicated.

Last week, Bitcoin printed what looked like a clean breakout above the descending triangle that’s been compressing its price since February. But the week closed with the price of Bitcoin back inside the triangle. What appeared to be a breakout was mostly a wick in the weekly charts—technically closer to an inverted doji (a candlestick with no body and big wicks), a signal that sellers absorbed all the buying pressure and rejected the move hard. The triangle swallowed the breakout whole. Today traders are trying again.

The Average Directional Index, or ADX, sits at 33.7. ADX measures trend strength on a scale from 0 to 100, with readings above 25 confirming a genuine trend is in play—and 33.7 puts Bitcoin squarely in “strong trend” territory. But the ADX during this bear run has been stronger and is receding. That’s not a confirmation that bulls have taken over, but it can be interpreted as a sign that the tug-of-war is tightening even though things don’t look good for long-term bulls at the moment.

Until Bitcoin actually escapes the triangle and holds above it, the ADX shift is a yellow light, not a green one.

The Relative Strength Index, or RSI, reads 49.3. RSI is a momentum oscillator running from 0 to 100—below 30 signals oversold conditions, above 70 signals overbought, and 50 is the neutral midpoint. At 49.3, Bitcoin is flat on the fence. It hasn’t exhausted buyers, but hasn’t attracted enough conviction to push into bullish momentum territory either. Traders typically want to see RSI clear and hold above 50 before calling a meaningful momentum shift. Right now it’s just parked there, noncommittal.

The Exponential Moving Averages, or EMAs, tell the clearest story. The 50-day EMA—which tracks average prices over the last 50 sessions to reflect medium-term momentum—is sitting below the 200-day EMA. That’s a major bearish setup considering the gap is getting wider. EMAs show trend direction by weighting recent prices more heavily, and when the short-term average is below the long-term one, it means recent price action is weaker than the broader trend.

For bears to genuinely lose their grip, Bitcoin needs more than a session spike to $69K. What bulls actually need is a series of daily closes above the descending trendline—currently running near $73,000–$75,000, close to where the 50-day EMA sits at $73,293. Bullish traders would want to see rising ADX confirming that the move has real trend strength behind it, not just a VIX-driven risk-on blip. Anything short of that, and this remains a probe of resistance inside a compression zone.

Today’s 4.78% pop gives intraday traders something to work with, but swing traders and holders are still inside a bearish structure until Bitcoin posts convincing closes above $73,000–$75,000 on volume. Lose the $65,000–$66,000 volume shelf below—the price level where most of the recent trading has concentrated—and the path toward $60,000 opens up fast.